‘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 SURROGACY OTHER COUNTRI: IS POSSIBLE?
• WHY GAY UPL G SURROGACY ARE THE LATT TARGET FOR EUROPE'S FAR RIGHT
• ‘WE ARE EXPECTED TO BE OK WH NOT HAVG CHILDREN’: HOW GAY PARENTHOOD THROUGH SURROGACY BEME A BATTLEGROUND
• A LIMED MARKET: THE RECMENT OF GAY MEN AS SURROGACY CLIENTS BY THE FERTILY DTRY THE USA
• PROCREATIVE NSCNS A GLOBAL MARKET: GAY MEN'S PATHS TO SURROGACY THE USA
• CROSS-BORR SURROGACY: EXPERIENC OF HETEROSEXUAL AND GAY PARENTS SWEN

SURROGACY FOR GAY PARENTS, COUNTRY BY COUNTRY

Italian PM Meloni rejects cricism om T over LGBTQ rightsItaly's far-right threat has vanished, but a faiar dread returns as Meloni settl to officeFor Meloni, surrogacy is at the heart of efforts by what she lls the "LGBT lobby" to normalize the existence of "rabow fai, " as those wh gay or lbian parents are known Italy. ” Wh marriage equaly won years ago, they expected to be able to have a nventnal married months before their weddg, a targeted ad om an anisatn lled Gay Parents to Be land Maggipto’s Instagram feed, offerg ee nsultatns wh a fertily doctor who’d give them “the whole ndown” on how they uld start a fay.

In England and Wal, the number of parents g a surrogate has quadpled over the past 10 years, but is always ntroversial: high-profile gay men om Brian Dowlg to Tom Daley have been acced of exploatn, “womb rental” and even “child abe” when they go public about creatg their fai wh a surrogate. “If you balance the women who uld die pregnancy, the women who uld bee fertile bee of their eggs beg harvted, who mt endure pa and loss of time a way not mensurate to what they are beg paid, agast this new sire of a gay male uple to e surrogacy as their first optn, I thk the balance of sufferg is more on the female si. Keywords: surrogacy, same-sex parentg, gay fathers, assisted reproductnIntroductnGtatnal surrogacy via egg donatn US-based fertily clics is unrstood to be an creasgly popular route to planned fatherhood for gay men able to afford the servic (Berkowz and Marsigl, 2007, Dempsey, 2013, Greenfeld, 2007).

There is a small, rich, qualative and ethnographic lerature on the lived experience of ntemporary gtatnal surrogacy (Berend, 2016, Jabson, 2016), and specifilly on gay men and surrogacy (Bergman et al., 2010, Berkowz, 2012, Berkowz and Marsigl, 2007, Blake et al., 2016, Blake et al., 2017, Dempsey, 2013, Goodfellow, 2015, Lew, 2009, Mchell and Green, 2007, Murphy, 2013, Smietana, 2017, Tuazon-McCheyne, 2010). I provi empiril evince for this niche market, and speculate that has the potential to lead to untend nsequenc for gay fay landspe of surrogacy for gay menMy cursy about the fertily dtry's recment of gay men as clients was sparked by a ment ma to me by a nurse at a small clic as I was llectg ethnographic data for a larger rearch project on embryo fate.

GAY SURROGACY OTHER COUNTRI: IS POSSIBLE?

There are clicians too who told me they prefer not to provi servic for gay men, while others have shown me their robt practic which they directly urt members of the gay muny as experienc llectg ethnographic data the fertily service field drew me to nsir the way which gay men's e of surrogacy the USA may be facilated by certa practners and limed by others, and to seek empiril natnal data on client recment. This impediment n be tied to the ways which cultural unrstandgs of genr and s unrstood meang child rearg have been upled wh discrimatory practic agast gay men, and enacted and staed by social stutns, cludg medice and social servic (Appleby et al., 2012, Bergstrom-Lynch, 2015, Berkowz and Marsigl, 2007, Biblarz and Savci, 2010).

Although gay men ‘have been livg fay and k arrangements that clu children for as long as there have been gay men’, the rtrictns agast the open formatn of their fai did not beg to shift until the 1980s, at the same time as velopments assisted reproductive technology (ART) began to make the open formatn of exclive geic gay fatherhood possible (Goodfellow, 2015: 2). Market recment for wealthy fertily clients tersects wh racial stratifitn, to the excln of women of lour – pecially workg class and poor women of lour – although empiril evince pots to creased rat of fertily among this populatn (Briggs, 2017, Greil et al., 2011, Kg and Harrgton Meyer, 1997, Luna and Ler, 2015, Roberts, 1997) this paper, I shift the lens to gay men, askg how genr and sexualy tersect wh market recment.

WHY GAY UPL G SURROGACY ARE THE LATT TARGET FOR EUROPE'S FAR RIGHT

The potential for such discrimatory practic towards the lbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer/qutng and others (LGBTQ +) muny has been regnized as an issue by the Ethics Commtee of the Amerin Society for Reproductive Medice (ASRM) (2013: 1524) as intifi ‘nial of accs to fertily servic on the basis of maral stat or sexual orientatn’ as problematic the field. Murphy (2013: 1112) poss, however, that webs are not only primary sourc of rmatn on programm for many people, but are particularly important for gay men as they ‘spire potential ers by nstctg a particular image of surrogacy that affirms the aspiratns of gay men to bee parents’. (2017) found that only slightly more than half of the clic webs they surveyed ntaed LGBT ntent, wh larger clic size and geographic lotn as predictive this paper, I provi a bed ntent analysis of clic webs and surrogacy webs, which, to my knowledge, has not been published prevly, orr to ga a broar unrstandg of the landspe faced by gay men pursug surrogacy.

The imag and text ed on the non-gay-iendly webs, which prise 62% of the clics and 42% of the agenci the natn, give the imprsn that the clics and agenci are oriented solely towards providg servic for women and their male limed surrogacy market for gay men is further pound by the geographic clterg of reproductive servic.

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

Although, for some clics, gay men may reprent an untapped profable market [pecially as, acrdg to CDC data (CDC, 2018), succs rat wh donor eggs are higher than those wh non-donor eggs], bed egg donor and surrogacy servic marketed to gay men require an volved astcture that is perhaps simply beyond the time, energy, money and personnel pabili of some clics. Ethnographic rearch on dividual clicians' cisn-makg about which patients to treat and rec for surrogacy servic would be eful for further unrstandg the suatn for gay unequal recment of gay men by clics and agenci is monstrative of the tersectn of genr and sexualy the fertily market. While wealthy gay men southern California should feel supported by the lol ART muny, and have ltle trouble accsg clics and agenci terg to their needs, gay men of lower soc-enomic stat middle Ameri may have no lol optns to support the formatn of their fai via surrogacy.

A LIMED MARKET: THE RECMENT OF GAY MEN AS SURROGACY CLIENTS BY THE FERTILY DTRY THE USA

I speculate that the rced market has a potential, therefore, to have a material impact on the abily of some gay men – pecially gay men of lower soc-enomic stat areas outsi of surrogacy-saturated markets – to accs not only reproductive servic but, turn, geic exclive parenthood. In other words, do the niche market disable nceptualizatns of accs to gay-iendly surrogacy provirs as a reproductive jtice issue for all gay men precisely bee enabl such accs for wealthy gay men (whose voic may be most heard due to the ways which wealth and privilege tersect)? Usg a reproductive jtice lens to ame the data on surrogacy recment necsarily rais the qutns as highlights the uneven landspe for gay men's accs to reproductive servic and exclive geic parenthood pared wh women, heterosexual upl and other gay the medil procr exist, and legal rtrictns agast openly gay fatherhood have relaxed over the urse of the last 30 years, wh same-sex marriage legal the USA and support for gays and lbians more expansive, my rearch monstrat the ways which gay men might not have equal accs to servic to support their only available route to exclive geic fatherhood.

However, my rearch adds to that of others (Murphy, 2013) utng the ways which limed recment across the dtry uld potentially rult not only disuragg a procreative nscns among potential gay tend fathers, but the actual excln of some gay men om the market – pecially fancially nstraed men om areas of the untry whout accs to geographilly close gay-iendly service provirs. While wealthy gay men may be able to circumnavigate the nstrats to accs the niche market terg to their needs, workg class and poor gay men may stggle to fd provirs, even more so than their heterosexual unterparts, due to their enomic nstrats beg pound by both the genrg of the fertily clic and geographic limatns.

5While gay male parented fai exist multiple forms, such as sgle or multiparent fai, this analysis, I was searchg for imag that would clearly dite a same-sex sexual orientatn of potential male clients, which translated to searchg for imag of same-sex male upl. The stori llected om qualative terviews and ethnographic rearch wh 37 gay men om several untri Europe and the USA, who all had children through surrogacy the USA, show that the men's unrstandgs of their own reproductive aspiratns and opportuni changed over time, as if reverg the fertily that was lost by g out. Alongsi this nscns shift, however, reproductive cisn-makg of the gay men this study was ntgent on multiple factors: accs to the fertily dtry; enomics, given how expensive and th stratified surrogacy is; social support the men's muni and extend fai; their emotns and valu.

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

Keywords: gay fathers, LGBTQ reproductn, surrogacy, procreative nscns, reproductive cisn-makg, fertily dtryIntroductnOn a Sunday morng San Francis, over 200 men, mostly their late 20s to late 40s, listened to the Powerpot-acpanied talk ‘Plan your surrogacy journey’.

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. The social and legal relevance of a man's geic lk to the child ually tablished surrogacy, as well as pre-birth parental orrs given to tend parents some untri, may attract to mercial surrogacy the USA those gay men who n afford to spend approximately $150, 000 on a surrogacy arrangement.

CROSS-BORR SURROGACY: EXPERIENC OF HETEROSEXUAL AND GAY PARENTS SWEN

Currently, some stat Ameri offer the only stable market for mercial surrogacy available to gay men worldwi, after the bans on transnatnal surrogacy India, Thailand and Mexi, as well as s formal availabily Rsia only to heterosexual married upl (for more tails see e.

Gay men's procreative nscns mt be unrstood a historil ntext which gay people were exclud om reproductn and om the social power that endowed (Weeks, 2018), as is only over the last two s that g out as gay has ceased to be nsired ntradictory to velopg reproductive aspiratns a growg number of lotns. 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.