and Chief Psychologist at the Swiss Federal Minislry of Defense.

SUMMARY. This is the first study to explore the issues and decisions that lesbians residing in Germany face when striving to create a family by donor insemination. Using a self-constructed questionnaire, informa-tion pertaining to the first phases of lesbian family formation (coming-out, lesbian relationship, and decision-making) was collected from 105 lesbian mothers. The participants in this sample demonstrated a strong sense of lesbian identity, were in committed relationships, had taken part in lengthy deliberations about general and lesbian-specific aspects o