By Mina Kim, KQED
From left to right, Maya and MeiBeck Scott-Chung with their daughter Luna, and Daniel Bao. Bao donated his sperm to help Maya and MeiBeck conceive. (Photo: Vaschelle Andre)
Maya Scott-Chung knew she wanted to be a mom when she was seven years old and got to see a home birth.
Then in high school, she fell in love with a woman.
“When I began to realize when I was a teenager that I thought I might be gay, I thought I couldn’t be a parent,” Maya says. “It was a real conflict in my heart.”
Then Maya saw the movie Choosing Children that showed her lesbians could be parents.
“And that it’s also possible to build families in an intentional way,” Maya says. “It wasn’t exactly like replicating the nuclear family. It was really more creating an extended family.”
That’s exactly what Maya did about 20 years later, with her transgender partner MeiBeck Scott-Chung.
On a recent visit to their Oakland home, Maya and MeiBeck are helping their eight year-old daughter Luna Lee Yulien Gillingham Scott-Chung with her math homework. Luna’s name reflects the Irish, Scottish, Chinese and Hispanic heritages of Maya and MeiBeck, and their friend Daniel Bao. Bao donated his sperm to help conceive Luna. Continue reading