‘We are expected to be OK wh not havg children’: how gay parenthood through surrogacy beme a battleground | Surrogacy | The Guardian

Contents:

• SURROGACY FOR GAY PARENTS, COUNTRY BY COUNTRY
• GAY MEN AND SURROGACY
• SURROGACY FOR GAY COUPL
• PROCREATIVE NSCNS A GLOBAL MARKET: GAY MEN'S PATHS TO SURROGACY THE USA
• ‘WE ARE EXPECTED TO BE OK WH NOT HAVG CHILDREN’: HOW GAY PARENTHOOD THROUGH SURROGACY BEME A BATTLEGROUND

SURROGACY FOR GAY PARENTS, COUNTRY BY COUNTRY

Alongsi their creasg visibily is a burgeong body of rearch on gay fathers, specifilly on the hort of gay men who beme parents after g out rather than the ntext of a prev heterosexual relatnship (see Berkowz & Marsigl, 2007; Carone, Bac, & Lgiardi, 2017; Goldberg, 2010a; Greenfeld & Seli, 2011; Lew, 2009; Petersen, 2018; Stacey, 2006).

Th, viewg gay fathers’ volvement wh their children through the lens illumat the fluidy of fay, genr, and of the work on sexual mory parentg has been spearhead by femist scholars who have long challenged “the iology of the monolhic fay and the notn that any one fay arrangement is natural, blogil, or functnal a timels way” (Goldberg & Allen, 2007, p.

Takg serly the terlockg systems of privilege and opprsn the lived experienc of gay fathers who e surrogacy illumat how the men’s class, race, and Wtern privilege allows them to buy their way out of discrimatory adoptive polici and stake out a 9-month lease on a surrogate mother’s womb orr to nstct a geilly related, and sometim a geilly engeered, child (Dillaway, 2008) newer terdisciplary rearch has ground analys munitn, fay strs, and child velopment theori to nceptualize how gay men make cisns about surrogacy and to better unrstand the experience of surrogate fai for gay fathers and their children. For example, one study ed uncertaty rctn theory (URT), a amework that theoriz how munitn patterns among partners n be ed to rce uncertaty as they form imprsns wh one another and to explore how gay-tend fathers munited wh potential surrogate mothers and egg donors on an onle fom (May & Tenzek, 2016) of this new lerature has even moved beyond theorizg the surrogacy procs to clu thoughtful analys about the experienc of raisg children gay surrogate fai.

GAY MEN AND SURROGACY

Another study that explored the adjtment of children born to gay fathers through surrogacy ground their rearch a velopmental ntextual systems approach (Overton, 2015), whereby they examed children’s velopment terms of the bidirectnal relatns between the children, the fay, and the wir social world (Golombok et al., 2018) Fathers Usg SurrogacySurrogacy is an assisted reproductive technology (ART) which the prospective parent(s) fe a ntract wh a woman to rry their child (Bergman, Rub, Green, & Padron, 2010).

In a study of terviews wh gay fathers about their motivatns to pursue surrogacy, the overwhelmg majory (36 out of 40) opted for a gtatnal over geic surrogacy arrangement, and half of the men chose to do so bee they felt that there was a greater risk that the arrangement would fail if the surrogate had a geic lk to the baby (Blake et al., 2017). The other most popular reason gay men mentned for this choice was that gtatnal surrogacy was remend to them by their agency, a fdg that expos how the stutnalized attus of agenci n profoundly fluence gay men’s dividual cisn-makg around surrogacy (Blake et al., 2017) men’s experience wh the surrogacy procs is mediated by other stutns as well. Nohels, the body of rearch on gay fathers and surrogacy has documented a wi range of dimensns, cludg gay men’s motivatns for havg a child through surrogacy (Blake et al., 2017), the cisn-makg procs volved their path to parenthood (Blake et al., 2017), the transn to parenthood (Bergman et al., 2010; Greenfeld & Seli, 2011), relatnships wh potential and actual surrogat and egg donors (Carone et al., 2018; Greenfeld & Seli, 2011; May & Tenzek, 2016), cisns about disclosg rmatn about surrogat and donors to their children (Carone et al., 2018), the divisn of hoehold labor among bgeic and non-bgeic fathers (Tornello et al., 2015), parental adjtment (Van Rijn-van Gelren et al., 2018), children’s psychologil adjtment (Bac et al., 2015; Golombok et al., 2018; Green et al., 2015), sgle gay men and surrogacy (Carone et al., 2017), and gay men’s experienc wh transnatnal mercial surrogacy (Petersen, 2018).

SURROGACY FOR GAY COUPL

It is worth notg that a signifint strength of this rearch is that is beg produced by a diverse group of ternatnal scholars, cludg but not limed to the USA, the UK, the Netherlands, Spa, and addn to the studi is a handful of empiril qualative studi on gay fathers that have clud men who beme fathers through surrogacy their sampl (Berkowz, 2007; Berkowz & Marsigl, 2007; Mchell & Green, 2007; Ryan & Berkowz, 2009; Stacey, 2006). This requir fancg the participatn of the egg donor, the servic of both an egg donor agency and a surrogate agency, IVF physician servic, and health surance to ver all high sts of surrogacy mean that is only an optn for a small number of relatively affluent gay men, a fact that is illtrated by the mographic posn of the participants any of the empiril studi that clud rmatn about e. In Petersen’s (2018) study of gay men Denmark who had ed transnatnal surrogacy, all were Whe, and a multatnal study nducted the UK, Denmark, and France, 96% of the Brish and Dutch parents were Whe (no race rmatn was llected on French parents) (Van Rijn-van Gelren et al., 2018) gay fathers the sampl are also different om gay men who bee parents through adoptn terms of their racial and ethnic diversy.

Thkg About Parentg: Surrogacy as an OptnRearch has documented that gay men bee parents for many of the same reasons as heterosexual men: Both ce the sire for nurturg children, the nstancy of children their liv, the achievement of some sense of immortaly via children, and the sense of fay that children help to provi (Berkowz & Marsigl, 2007; Goldberg et al., 2012; Mallon, 2004). Oftentim, those gay men who choose surrogacy are motivated by the higher gree of ntrol they have the procs when pared wh adoptn, feel that the prence of a geic lk to their child is an important factor for the creatn of fay ti, and worry about the psychologil strs a child may experience as a rult of beg adopted (Blake et al., 2017; Carone et al., 2017; Goldberg, 2010a; Lev, 2006).

PROCREATIVE NSCNS A GLOBAL MARKET: GAY MEN'S PATHS TO SURROGACY THE USA

It is th not surprisg that the prence of a geic relatnship is an oft-ced reason that gay men choose surrogacy (Lev, 2006) Fay Tree: Gay Fathers, Surrogate Mothers, Egg Donors, and Their ChildrenSurrogacy is siar to donor sematn (DI) that allows for one parent to be geilly related to the child, and volv a blogil “other” to provi the other half of the geic material. Where some gay fathers choose to fd out whose sperm actually impregnated the surrogate (or, many s, the egg donor), many others report creatively bypassg this issue by mixg their sperm before sematn and choose not to fd out whose sperm was ultimately rponsible for nceptn followg the birth of their child (Blake et al., 2017; Ryan & Berkowz, 2009) many, the cisn of whose sperm should be ed to impregnate the egg donor or surrogate is a signifint one. However, other rearch has revealed that as gay-prospective fathers evaluate their surrogat-to-be, they refully gate on the importance of racial and ethnic matchg, speculatg how addg another dimensn like racial differenc to their already publicly perplexg fay might nfe their child or encumber teractns wh cur terlopers (Boer, 2009; Ryan & Berkowz, 2009).

Ehrenshaft (2005) argu that this modifitn is further magnified for those g assisted reproductive technologi sce the tend parents have spent months, even years, searchg for a donor or surrogate and drag fancial rourc payg for expensive gay men, this procs is further tensified sce they are not only limed by the reproductive lims of their bodi, but have been told by relig, polil, and cultural stutns that fatherhood was never an optn for them. Although the paradoxil notn of prence and absence n be expected any fay arrangement that reli on assisted reproductn or adoptn, is pecially evint gay father-head fai bee of the nstant societal remr that this third party was a necsy creatg their men who e gtatnal surrogacy are more likely to re about their possible future ntact wh the surrogate more so than the egg donor and are more likely to mata a relatnship wh her the future (Blake et al., 2017; Carone et al., 2018; Greenfeld & Seli, 2011).

Moreover, while the basis of mercial surrogacy is a fancial arrangement, the reali are such that this is often a relatnship characterized by appreciatn, mutual rpect, and gratu, wh many gay fathers often fg ep bonds wh their surrogat (Mchell & Green, 2007) limed empiril rearch on gay fathers who have ed surrogacy suggts that they cultivate ways to share the pregnancy experience of their surrogate. Perhaps bee surrogacy volv a pregnancy that is trickier to hi, downplay, or ignore, rearch has found that pared wh other fai nstcted through assisted reproductive technologi, such as DI, fai formed through surrogacy are more open about the orig of their fay, regardls of parents’ sexual orientatn (Carone et al., 2017) example, one Amerin study, 83% of the gay fathers the sample had started the disclosure procs to their children by the time they were 5.

‘WE ARE EXPECTED TO BE OK WH NOT HAVG CHILDREN’: HOW GAY PARENTHOOD THROUGH SURROGACY BEME A BATTLEGROUND

The rt of the children exhibed some knowledge of their orig, and even though they did not explicly mentn a surrogate or egg donor, they were able to expla that their fathers need help creatg them (Carone et al., 2017) way that parents munite the uniquens of their fay to their children is by celebratg a child’s nceptn day addn to the child’s actual birthday, as this be an important date that gay fathers who created their fai though surrogacy are unique knowg (Mchell & Green, 2007). Future rearch is need on how children born to gay fathers and surrogate mothers negotiate domant two-parent heteronormative fay iology as they unrstand their fay stori and munite the stori to Fay Experience for Children and Their FathersLike all sexual mory parents, gay fathers who have nstcted their fai through surrogacy and their children mt ntend wh the “hegemonic shadow of the heterosexual paradigm” (Boer, 2009, p. In a multatnal study that terrogated the differenc levels of parental well-beg between gay father fai wh fants born through surrogacy, lbian mother fai wh fants born through DI, and heterosexual parent fai wh fants born through IVF, the thors found that the gay fathers reported relatively levels of parental strs, anxiety, and prsn (Van Rijn-van Gelren et al., 2018) much of the rearch has revealed that gay men who bee parents g surrogacy experience siar life chang as heterosexual fathers, there are some notable differenc that likely arise om their sexual mory stat.

Where this is certaly an experience shared by most parents, there is an add dimensn for gay fathers sce there is a lack of ceremonial and legal validatn of their Fathers, Surrogacy, and Reproductive OutsourcgAlthough reproductive outsourcg, or the trend of payg for overseas surrogat om untri the Global South, is no longer an optn for gay men (except the se where men om Wtern natns e to the USA to pursue surrogacy), the rise and fall of this ntroversial phenomenon expos how global privilege and margalizatn lli profoundly plited ways (Mamo & Alston-Stepnz, 2015; Petersen, 2018).

Currently, the USA is the only statn legally accsible to gay men terted g surrogacy to birth children (Petersen, 2018) surrogacy has always been a practice marred wh class distctns, the phenomenon of fertily tourism, or payg for surrogat ls privileged natns (Smerdon, 2008), magnified the equaly between missng parent and surrogate (and/or egg donor). However, as Petersen (2018) observed his study of Whe Danish gay men about their experienc wh transnatnal surrogacy, rather than seeg the men as unequivolly privileged, the “ambigui and ntradictns that form the men’s posns wh a racialized, sexualized, and procreative hierarchy” reveal how tersectns of privilege and equaly uniquely shaped the experienc of transnatnal surrogacy for gay men (p. Yet for 2 s now, gay partnership and marriage law lobbyists, rabow fay activists, dividuals settg up donor and surrogacy arrangements, as well as mercial fertily provirs have been gradually ntributg to ‘queerg reproductn’ (Mamo, 2007) and to the emergence of a new llective ‘procreative nscns’ (Berkowz, 2007) of LGBTQ + people's reproductive aspiratns.

The UK, they no longer exclu parenthood om the horizon of their life optns (Pralat, 2016, Pralat, 2018) may form part of a larger normalizatn procs takg place several Wtern untri, wh which younger people formalised same-sex relatnships have ‘actively molled their relatnships on a ncept of the ordary rather than the radilly different’, as pared wh prev generatns of lbians and gay men, for example the UK (Heaphy, Smart & Earsdottir 2013: 14), the USA (Berkowz, 2007, Lew, 2009) and several European untri such as Spa (Pichardo, 2011). Followg the rise reproductn by lbian women, as well as bmedilizatn of lbian fay-makg practic (Mamo, 2007, Nordqvist, 2012), the last has brought a steady crease s of tentnal gay father fai through surrogacy, both the USA (Gamson, 2015, Goodfellow, 2015, Lew, 2009), and other jurisdictns whose cizens travel abroad for surrogacy (see, e. Hence the ncept of gay men's procreative nscns was ed to scribe the reproductive aspiratns of people who were until recently nied the possibily of havg such aspiratns; grasps a change perceptns and nscns both for dividuals and entire societi, and brgs queerns wh the reproductive realm prevly marted only by study also builds on prev rearch on reproductive cisn-makg, which the ntext of the USA showed how ntgent reproductn was, particularly for gay men, most of whom were found to be ‘suatnal parents’ (Stacey, 2006).

This reproductive ntgency uld be attributed to different factors that may ter dividuals om parenthood: postmorn valu of self-fulfilment (Gidns, 1992); prsur on ‘tensive parentg’ (Faircloth and Gurt, 2017); poor child-re servic the neoliberal ntext (Briggs, 2017), to which se of gay men are add creased practil, symbolic and other difficulti to actually achieve the multiple elements that unrp reproductive cisns, the prent study I pay particular attentn to how the market reproductive technologi factors gay men's reproductive cisn-makg.

(…) So the summer we had a vatn on an island, and I bought some books on anthropology, soclogy and so on, about gay And we started to read books, we were on a beach listeng, readg books about surrogacy, about fay…Vo: And g back om this vatn, was Augt – and October we ma the first ntact wh the clic, the same clic that those iends of ours had termediate stage of liberatn, when the men had begun explorg surrogacy but had not yet started any formal algs wh clics, agenci or dividual egg donors or surrogat, often volved readg webs and books, as well as talkg to gay men who were already parents. For some of the men, articulatg their reproductive aspiratns was timately lked to imagg viable reproductive means at this stage – as for Vo and Rl, who realized they uld actually have children when they met other gay men who were parents through some s, this stage also clud ‘ethil labour’ (Dow, 2016) the men did to unter their own prejudice or lack of knowledge about surrogacy. We kd of thought for surrogacy was not possible, bee 's not allowed our untry so 's not an optn, but then there was one gay uple who rpond by sayg ‘oh we're actually about to leave to the Stat for the birth of our tws…’ … I was very sceptil, and then I lled one of the guys and I thk we spoke for an hour on the phone bee I was really sceptil and apprehensive about … is ethil, is ethilly dodgy or not, and are there a lot of legal problems, and will work, and is very stly and is … But the end I was a kd of at ease wh most of the thgs I was apprehensive about at discsg and unterg their ethil dilemmas, the men were particularly apprehensive about surrogate mothers beg able to take rmed and relatively ee cisns whout threateng the men's own stat as fathers.

The fairs – such as the one scribed the vigte openg this article – gathered together gay and reproductive activists an alliance wh fertily dtry reprentativ, where narrativ of rights termgled wh narrativ of that to most of the men surrogacy was ially as unknown as was to Mir, at least for their first surrogacy arrangements they preferred to follow the beaten track stctured by agenci, clics and legal firms, whether first ntacted onle or durg an event person.

Given they had often first heard about gay surrogacy through such stori themselv, seems jtified to argue that the gay surrogacy stori they produced uld turn further ntribute to expandg other gay men's procreative, the father om Italy I met wh his partner Rl the flat they rented the USA while awag the birth of their surrogacy tws, wrote an article for a wily-read magaze his untry, wh a view to mystifyg surrogacy. Acunts of this kd ronate wh the femist arguments that spe mastream naturalizatn of reproductn as nate and self-evint, reproductive arrangements are a product of social forc and that ‘society not blogy produc fertily’ (Frankl 2018: 639) egg eezg Lucy van Wiel's analysis (Van Wiel, 2012, Van Wiel, 2019), surrogacy the se of gay men is also ‘… an fertily treatment for fertile people’.