u/Eren_Really_Yeager

I’d really appreciate hearing DCP perspectives on academic research outcomes. What do you make of findings suggesting that anonymous donation is not associated with worse psychological outcomes than open-ID or known donation, and that DCPs overall don’t appear to have worse psychological outcomes than non-DCPs? Sample sizes are often small so more research is definitely needed. I’m asking because, reading this sub, it seems to me that it often strongly recommends early disclosure, which is supported by the research literature, but also strongly discourages anonymous donations and is quite often hostile to donation in general.

Examples (the first four are from the same longitudinal study but I’m showing them all):
2011 study – known vs unknown donors (PubMed)⁠ Psychological adjustment did not differ between adolescents conceived with known versus unknown donors.
2021 longitudinal study – anonymous vs open-ID vs known donors (PubMed)⁠ No significant differences in psychological adjustment by donor type across ages 10, 17 and 25.
2023 study – donor contact and relationships in adulthood (PubMed)⁠ Most DCPs were satisfied with their level of donor contact, regardless of whether their donor was known or unknown.
2025 longitudinal study – 21-year follow-up (PubMed)⁠ Psychological adjustment was generally healthy through age 30–33 and did not differ by donor type or donor contact.
2024 systematic review – 50 studies, 4,666 DCPs (PubMed)⁠ Most studies found DCPs had similar or better psychological outcomes than non-DCPs, although some reported poorer outcomes.

Hi everyone, thank you for your very interesting posts and responses. I hope my question doesn’t appear offensive, it’s sincerely not my intention, I’m only seeking to educate myself. As I read posts from this subreddit as well as donorconceived subreddit, I see that a lot of DCP here feel like they “miss half of their identity”, that “half of me is missing” or “fake”. This defers from my lived experience and from what I read in other sources. Feeling this way implies, it seems to me, that you feel like your donor, even if you never met them, is half of you, that your parent who is also your genetic parent is the other half, and, therefore, that your legal/gestational/raising parent who doesn’t share your DNA is nothing at all, not related at all to you and not any part of you. Am I misinterpreting or misunderstanding? If not, what led you to see things this way?