Lookg Back on Two Des of Helpg Gay Men Have Kids | HuffPost Voic

Contents:

• FOR GAY MEN, HAVG A BLOGIL CHILD N BE PLITED
• ‘A FAY LIKE OURS’: PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERHOOD
• LOOKG BACK ON TWO DES OF HELPG GAY MEN HAVE KIDS
• GAY PARENTS RAISG KIDS: HOW WILL THEY FARE?
• MY HBAND IS GAY BUT WE’RE MARRIED WH TWO KIDS AND HAVE GREAT SEX
• AFTER ORLANDO, 21 PHOTOS OF GAY DADS AND THEIR KIDS TO HELP YOU SE AGA
• MOVG PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERS WH THEIR FAI ACROSS AMERI
• MORE GAY MEN "MARRIED WH CHILDREN"

FOR GAY MEN, HAVG A BLOGIL CHILD N BE PLITED

Others may be ncerned that sgle men or gay male upl would have a harr time adoptg jt bee they are men, but this may not be te.

‘A FAY LIKE OURS’: PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERHOOD

“For gay male sgl/upl, we have particularly easier the matchg procs, as there is no other mom 'replacg' the child’s birth mother and often get chosen quicker. The procs tak about two years and sts around $200, 000 per child - and prospective gay fathers don't meet eligibily creria for most health surance plans' fertily benefs, although this is begng to change. Brent Monsr, MD, recently helped lead a study to document tails of how gay men e assisted reproductive technology to build their fai, cludg qutns such as how many children they wish to have and how often their efforts succeed.

Your paper giv historil ntext for how shiftg attus toward LGBTQ fai have changed the climate for gay men who want to bee fathers. There has been a lot of foc the scientific lerature on whether children turn out OK if they have gay parents. Why is important for the experienc of gay men seekg fertily re to be reflected the scientific lerature?

Cisgenr gay men are almost never clud this rearch, so as physicians we don't know anythg about their characteristics as reproductive health patients, even basic rmatn such as their mographics, clil cisn-makg patterns or out. Our paper ed data om one of the very few fertily benef pani that do offer fertily verage to gay men. That gave a wdow to a natnal group of 119 cisgenr men, cludg five sgle men and 57 gay upl, who uniquely had fertily benefs.

LOOKG BACK ON TWO DES OF HELPG GAY MEN HAVE KIDS

It's important to keep md that our data reflect the experienc of dividuals who n afford reproductive medil re bee their employer-sponsored fertily benefs ver , and that is still an unual suatn for gay men. This data served as the foundatn for a grant applitn we've jt had approved to nduct a much larger populatn study that will give accs to rmatn on about 2, 000 embryo transfers annually gay men. A lot of people see a fertily doctor bee they have an unrlyg medil issue, whereas gay male upl ually have two possible sperm sourc, a young egg donor and a gtatnal rrier who has already had succsful pregnanci.

I thk that, bee of the medil factors, birth rat for gay upl uld serve as a morn standard for evaluatg the succs of IVF labs. We regnize that this may be bee a lot of gay men requt tws or may ultimately want two children, and fertily doctors may be transferrg two embryos to try to save their patients money so they only have to go through the fertily treatment procs once.

GAY PARENTS RAISG KIDS: HOW WILL THEY FARE?

But we need to ask: Are we puttg gtatnal rriers at unnecsary risk om tw pregnanci, and puttg gay upl at unnecsary risk of havg babi the NICU? Before I was an OB/GYN, I thought, "This is a health accs issue, and if gay men want tws we should rpect their tonomy.

What do add to have physician-scientists like you, who are gay, answerg rearch qutns about this populatn of prospective parents? I'm currently a fellow, and I have patients g specifilly to see me, not bee I'm the most amazg doctor but bee I'm gay, and they want a gay doctor. ”Amerin culture has not been particularly starved of imag of gay fatherhood, particularly recent years.

Celebri like Anrson Cooper have helped normalize the ia of gay men raisg children, and no longer feels revelatory to see them on televisn, as did when “Morn Fay” premiered mon, Mr. Heynen said, are imag of gay fathers who aren’t Instagram ready — like two men bg their dghters’ hair or tossg a football the ont yard.

MY HBAND IS GAY BUT WE’RE MARRIED WH TWO KIDS AND HAVE GREAT SEX

It’s an unrstandable impulse, which he attribut to a sire among gay parents to feel “normal” after havg their pabili as parents ntually lled to qutn. Heynen said, but rather a celebratn of the day-to-day liv of gay Jt for the YoungCly Rose, 61, and Ryan, 12Cly Rose, who liv Manhattan, was first photographed for “Dads” three years ago after meetg Mr.

Heynen “a lot of cred” for cludg a father like him — a sgle dad his 60s — sce he said there is often a lack of reprentatn of olr gay people art and media, which tends to foc on young, f men.

It's ma fewer headl than our fight for marriage rights, but 's been so important for so many fai jt now fdg that legal 20 years ago, I was approached by a young gay uple about havg a baby through surrogacy.

AFTER ORLANDO, 21 PHOTOS OF GAY DADS AND THEIR KIDS TO HELP YOU SE AGA

This was new ground for me: I had never been approached by a gay uple terted havg a child through surrogacy. Durg that time, part of a gay man's acceptance of his sexualy had clud givg up the ia of havg kids.

Knowg this se 20 years ago that the child would not have a mother, but would have two dads stead, was revolutnary back then, even for this gay physician.

In the mid-90s, the applitn of assisted reproductive treatments to gay men was also beg qutned by medil profsnals. Edorials were wrten on whether or not we should be providg fertily treatment to gay men at all. Common ncerns exprsed were that children of gay men would be stigmatized, that they would be more likely to bee gay themselv, and that gay mal may be more likely to be sexual predators and molt their own children ( fact, most child sexual predators are heterosexuals).

MOVG PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERS WH THEIR FAI ACROSS AMERI

In the end, love for the child and fay-buildg prevailed as open-md medil profsnals moved forward wh fertily servic to patients requtg assistance, whether they were gay or not. Over the past 20 years there has been a shift societal acceptance of gay people, gay relatnships, gay marriage and gay fai.

Women who provi this service are amazg dividuals who give generoly and eely to help others share the joys of e of egg donatn and gtatnal surrogacy to allow gay men to have children of their own has now been ed for nearly two s. In the begng gay men stggled to fd willg physicians, attorneys, surrogat and egg donors to help them build their fai.

Wh the support of mted profsnals on both asts, the protols for fay buildg for gay men have slowly evolved.

MORE GAY MEN "MARRIED WH CHILDREN"

While surrogacy remas illegal some stat and many untri, here California we n help any same-sex uple wh the hop of buildg a mand for gay fay buildg has ntuoly creased wh tert om around the world. Today, all gay men who are terted havg their own blogil children n seek out fertily re and explore this optn.

The days, gay parents are no novelty: We see them strollg through our neighborhoods, participatg our PTA meetgs, and, perhaps most notably, appearg on our TV screens: Mchell and Cam, fathers to Lily, on the ratgs smash Morn Fay; Glee’s Sue Sylvter, expectant mom to a baby nceived wh an as-yet-unrevealed sperm donor, and Rachel’s dads, played wh humor and grace by Jeff Goldblum and Brian Stok. The Hollywood exampl are important that they’ve helped prent gay parentg as not unlike straight parentg: challengg, joyful, plited, and most of all, entirely normal. Though this media mastreamifitn of gay parentg is a relatively new phenomenon, for s, gay parents have had children all sorts of fay nfiguratns—whether through adoptn, prev heterosexual relatnships, or, creasgly, by choosg to have blogil offsprg g vro, surrogate, and other methods.