Isabel Côté

Isabel Côté is Full Professor in the Department of Social Work at Université du Québec en Outaouais and holds the Research Chair on third-party reproduction and LGBTQ+ family life. She co-directs the UNIE-LGBTQ partnership, is a core member of the province-wide Family-in-Motion and RéQEF feminist-studies networks, and leads a multi-method qualitative programme on surrogacy, gamete donation and child-centred research methodologies.

Education: While specific degrees are not listed in the provided text, her appointment as Full Professor and extensive publication record indicate doctoral and post-doctoral training in social work or sociology with specialization in family and gender studies.

Research interests revolve around three interconnected axes: (1) sociological and anthropological analyses of third-party reproduction (surrogacy, egg & sperm donation) that foreground children’s own voices; (2) feminist and LGBTQ+ approaches to contemporary kinship, polyamorous parenting and legal recognition; and (3) innovative qualitative and participatory methods that position children as competent research partners. Her work consistently links empirical micro-level narratives to macro-level policy debates on reproductive justice and family diversity.

Across 2023-2025 her articles cluster in emerging fields such as donor-offspring contact, insemination fraud, polyamorous family configurations, and migrant children’s safety—demonstrating a trajectory toward intersecting vulnerabilities, ethics of disclosure, and child well-being in non-normative families.

Current roles & teams: Chairholder of the Research Chair on third-party reproduction; co-director of UNIE-LGBTQ Research Partnership; affiliated researcher with Partenariat Famille en mouvance and RéQEF; supervisor of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in social work.