Gay Men and Surrogacy

Berkowitz, Dana

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-35610-1_8

Dana Berkowitz³

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Abstract

The visibility of gay fathers is on the rise and scholars are just beginning to understand the diversity of structures, arrangements, and practices within gay father-headed family constellations. This chapter provides an overview of the scholarship on one of these types of families—gay men who have become parents through the assistance of a surrogate mother. I begin the chapter by outlining some of the dominant theoretical perspectives that have been used to frame this body of scholarship. After explaining the different types of surrogacy arrangements and the demographic profiles of those gay men who use surrogacy, I review the small but notable studies on gay fathers and surrogacy. These studies consider a range of dimensions about gay-headed surrogate families, including the rationales behind men’s choice to construct their family using this pathway; the relationships that develop among expectant fathers, surrogate mothers, and their children; and the family experience for gay fathers and their children. I then discuss how gay men were implicated within the rise and fall of reproductive outsourcing or the trend of paying for overseas surrogates from countries in the Global South. I conclude by detailing the current legal issues facing gay fathers who use surrogacy and offering suggestions for research, theory, policy makers, and practitioners. Throughout this chapter I demonstrate how privilege and marginalization intersect in gay surrogate families in profoundly complex and sometimes paradoxical ways.

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Notes

1.
Consistent with the majority of research in this area, I use the term gay fathers throughout this chapter to serve as an umbrella term for sexual minority fathers. That said, however, it is important to note that the overwhelming majority of research on sexual minority men, fatherhood, and surrogacy has been conducted with gay fathers, not bisexual or transgender fathers.
2.
This number is only reflective of the 37 out of 40 men in the study who answered the question on income.
3.
Although most health insurance companies regularly cover pregnancy-related expenses, some have started to add “surrogacy-exclusion” provisions to their policies.

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Department of Sociology and Program in Women’s and Gender Studies, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
Dana Berkowitz

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Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA
Abbie E. Goldberg
Department of Human Development and Family Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA
Katherine R. Allen

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Berkowitz, D. (2020). Gay Men and Surrogacy. In: Goldberg, A.E., Allen, K.R. (eds) LGBTQ-Parent Families. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35610-1_8

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35610-1_8
Published: 04 April 2020
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-35609-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-35610-1
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Images of Parenthood, Family Life and Reproductive Strategies Among Gay Men in the Czech Republic

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