Originally appeared May 18, 2000, in The Weekly News (Miami) and in other publications.
Easily observable at the recent Millennium March in Washington, D.C., was the prevalence of same-sex couples carrying toddlers or pushing baby carriages, as compared with earlier gay rights marches on the national Mall. We've grown accustomed to lesbian couples with children, but what was so striking was the abundance of gay daddies as well.
Slowly but surely, there's a baby boom taking place among gay men - a trend that is sure to escalate and reshape the face of gay America and the fight for gay rights. Lesbians, of course, have paved the way in terms of gay parenthood. That's not surprising, given that in the past many lesbians came out only after first doing what was expected - marrying and having kids. Another factor was that the technology of artificial insemination, and the rise of institutional sperm banks, lessened the barriers to lesbian parenthood (and no jokes about "turkey basters," please!).
It has only been recently that the biomedical technology has caught up for men, and much more is in development. Let me explain with a few examples from my own circle of friends and acquaintances.
A few years ago, a male couple I know in Maryland decided to have a child. Using a combination of classified ads and informal networks, they interviewed surrogate candidates over a period spanning several years. At one point they met a lesbian couple who also wanted a child, and the two couples spent the next few months getting to know one another and judging if this might work out. Eventually, it became clear that both couples wanted to be the primary parents, so it was back to square one. After a few other false starts, the gay couple found a suitable surrogate. A contract was drawn up with an attorney and signed by the parties, and one of the men contributed his sperm. Nine months later, a healthy baby girl was born and delivered to the couple. A happy ending, but one that took years of effort.
I know another gay couple in California that is currently "expecting," and it's a very different story. Primarily using the Web, they found an egg donor service they liked and, based on donor profiles, selected and purchased donor eggs (at a cost of several thousand dollars). Separately, a surrogate was hired from a professional agency, also selected through the Web. The idea of using separate egg donors and surrogates helps to clarify that the surrogate is not carrying her own child. Moreover, these agencies provide in-depth medical and psychological evaluation for surrogates, and help with the legal issues as well. Eggs were fertilized with one of the men's sperm and frozen. One at a time, an egg was then implanted into the surrogate until one took. Now, the couple is waiting the arrival of their child (and, like many expectant parents, they've chosen not to be informed of its sex). They plan to go through the same procedure again, but to have the egg fertilized by the other partner, so that both men will have biological children as part of their family.
Doing a general Web search using the terms "egg donors" and "surrogates" turns up many of the kinds of services described above. There's Creating Families, Inc. (www.creatfam.com), a center for surrogacy and egg donation that offers a database registry of 1,500-plus egg donors and surrogate mothers. According to their home page, "We assist couples, singles, and gay/lesbian couples residing throughout the world who are prepared to be loving parents." Another service, Growing Generations (www.growinggenerations.com), says its surrogates are "special women who have chosen to help the gay community realize the joys that a child can bring to life." A list of surrogacy and egg donation agencies by state can be found at www.surrogacy.com.
I should say that I also know of one other gay couple that has thought about becoming parents, but they're waiting for the next biomedical development - when the genetic code from one of the men can be artificially implanted within a donor egg, which would then be fertilized by his partner and implanted in a surrogate. They tell me they're keeping on top of the literature and believe that this option will be available sooner rather than later.
It's undeniable that a grassroots movement toward parenthood is afoot among same-sex couples, either through surrogacy for gay men, artificial insemination for lesbians, or - where legal and available - adoption. This baby (or gayby) boom will have an increasingly powerful impact on society and culture. No longer will gays feel that they must try to walk the straight and narrow path and marry against their natures in order to procreate (and I've met gay men, even in this day and age, who have tried to go straight for just that reason). Easy and available, and increasingly inexpensive, gay procreation could be the final curtain in the tragedy of married gays leading frustrated, double lives, for the sake of having kids (and if you read the recent biography of Anthony Perkins, you'll realize that's enough to drive anyone psycho).
It's true, of course, that gay marriage should not be premised on procreation. But as lesbian mothers and gay fathers become an increasingly accepted, and expected, part of the landscape, that hoary old argument against "nonprocreative" gay marriage will seem especially ridiculous.
Not all gays and lesbians want to partner-up and have kids. But a growing number do, and one way or another, will. It's part of the normalization of homosexuality that both gay militants and anti-gay zealots abhor, but that the gay grassroots is demanding. And biomedical advancements are making it all possible.