[Australia] - Surrogacy for Gay Men Forum - Report

On Saturday, 5 November 80 men (and a few women) gathered at the JOY 94.9 Studios in Melbourne for the 8th Surrogacy for Gay Men Community Forum.  Melbourne turned on a glorious day for the participant who came from Melbourne, rural Victoria, Queensland, ACT, New South Wales and even flying in from as far away as Singapore.  Some guys had already started the journey to fatherhood but the majority were just beginning and this forum was their first step along the road to becoming a dad.  The forum, in it's 8th year, has grown from a handful of gay men 8 years ago to a room busting at the seams.  The forum is organised by the gay dad volunteers from Gay Dads Australia and this year was hosted at JOY 94.9, who generously donated use of their function room to help us accomodate the growing number of gay guys wanting to learn more about becoming dads via surrogacy.

The topics covered in the forum included altruistic surrogacy in Victoria, ACT, New South Wales and Queensland as well as commercial surrogacy in the USA, India and Thailand. It was great to have both Sam Everingham and Adrian Perillo as presenters at the forum.  Their personal stories were incredibly powerful and inspiring.  

As one of the organisers, I was excited and impressed with the number of gay men who are keen to become dads.  The word is out to the gay community in Australia.  You can be a father, you can pursue that dream of parenthood.  Being gay is not a barrier.  Of course, becoming a dad via surrogacy is not a simple course to follow, but ultimately for gay men it is one of the few options available to have a family.  I found myself asking why has it become so popular.  The answers are quite simple.  Gay men are no different than straight men in their desire to be parents, there is a real and passionate desire to have a family for many gay men. The popularity of the forum comes form the fact that our families are now so visible to the gay and straight community.  Our families and our stories are in newspapers, on television, on radio.  From the SBS documentary "Two Men and a Baby" 8 years ago about Tony and Lee, a melbourne couple who created their family via surrogacy to more recently, Adrian and his partner Ralph who bravely and publicly took the GLBTI community through the pregnancy and birth of their two gorgeous children on the Andy and Adrian breakfast show on JOY 94.9.

When we packed up and left the JOY studios on Saturday, my husband Jeff said that he was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the guys that came along.  Everyone had a story of their desire to be parents.  Like Jeff, I was excited to see the next generation of gay dads coming together.  The baby boom for gay men is here and it is only going to get bigger.

Rodney Chiang-Cruise

Co-Moderator 

Gay Dads Australia

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[Australia] - The Modern (Gay) Family - circa 1850

On a recent trip to Ballarat and Sovereign Hill, my husband, son and I donned 1950s clothes for a period photo.  A 1850's Modern Family!

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[Ireland] Stand Up! – Don’t Stand for Homophobic Bullying

A wonderful Public Service Annoucnement (PSA) from Ireland on the subject of homophobic bullying.  Brilliantly done and something that should be shown in every school followed by discussion.  These messages need to get out to send positive messages to our youth and to let people no that bullying is not ok.  Watch and enjoy!

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[Australia] - Announcing the 6th Surrogacy for Gay Men Forum in Melbourne – Saturday 5th November 11am to 2pm

Jeff, Ethan & Rodney Chiang-Cruise

Gay Dads Australia is pleased to announce that we will be holding the 6th Surrogacy for Gay Men Forum in Melbourne onSaturday 5th November 2011 from 11am to 2pm.

We are pleased to be able to hold this important forum at the JOY 94.9 function room in Melbourne’s CBD.  JOY 94.9 is Melbourne’s Gay and Lesbian Radio Station and is an amazing supporter of gay dads and rainbow families. We are thrilled that they are supporting us in holding this forum.  Please support them.

We will be announcing full program and registration details shortly but if you are interested in finding out more about becoming a dad via surrogacy then please mark this in your diary.  We will have some great speakers to help you learn about surrogacy in general, surrogacy in Victoria, surrogacy in USA and surrogacy in India.  Light refreshments will be provided.  The forum is more than just a chance to learn about surrogacy, it is also an opportunity to meet and network with guys going through the process as well.

The forum as always will be FREE and put on entirely by volunteers.  

Last year we got around 90 guys coming along to the forum (some are now dads!!!) and we expect that there will be a similar demand for the forum this year.  When registrations open it is important to register early to ensure a place as numbers are limited by the size of the venue.  We will certainly try to accomodate everyone we can.

You can email me directly on rodneycruise@gmail.com to indicate your desire to attend however we will open formal registration later in the week.

Every years we get guys from around the country (and from outside Australia) flying in for the forum and we certainly encourage guys interstate to come if they can.  

A big thank you goes to Adrian Perillo and JOY 94.9 for their amazing support to help us put on this forum.

Further details and registration forms will be posted on this website within the next week.

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[Australia] – Sydney Morning Herald – “Lucy has a gay dad and a ‘tummy mummy’” by Neil McMahon

Stuart Gent & Lucy

In today’s Sydney Morning Herald there is a lovely piece about Stuart Gent and his daughter Lucy.  It is wonderful to see such positive and life affirming articles on surrogacy particularly when they have gay men involved.  What makes this one a little different than the usual is that Stuart is a single gay man.  Congratulations Stuart – Lucy is beautiful and thank you for sharing your journey.

STUART GENT hopes his daughter Lucy will grow up believing herself blessed, a girl conceived and born with love in mind and with the greatest care and deliberation. She was no accident or afterthought.

At two years and seven months old, she knows she has a ”tummy mummy”, a biological one, and a dad who adores her. Planning of her life began in London; the first steps to conception were taken in Boston; she was born in California; she’s being raised in Melbourne.

”Lucy knows,” says Mr Gent, 38, who is gay.

”I tell it in the way of a fairytale.

I tell her that I wanted to have a little baby girl and that I went to a big land called America … and they were able to help me find a nice lady who helped me have my little girl and there was another lady who gave me the seed. The story changes, it gets more elaborate as she gets older.”

Mr Gent is speaking about his experience at a moment when surrogacy is again in the headlines. Last week Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban announced they had become parents via a surrogate mother in the US. At Christmas, Elton John and his partner David Furnish revealed they had become parents by the same route.

Mr Gent hopes his story can also shed light on a practice steeped in controversy.
When in his early 30s, he had been living in London for more than a decade, a long relationship had ended and he was starting to ponder his future. A certainty was that he wanted a child. He considered adoption, but was defeated by red tape. So he turned to surrogacy.

Online, he established contact with a surrogacy agency in Boston. The agency matched him with an egg donor, then with a woman to carry the child. Everyone involved had psychiatric and medical tests. He first met Lucy’s ”gestational carrier” Stacy and her husband at a Californian restaurant and the match seemed perfect.

Mr Gent’s sperm fertilised the eggs, which were implanted at an IVF clinic. Result: pregnancy. Nine months later, in July 2008, Lucinda was born in California. Her dad missed the birth when she arrived a few days early. He made a cross-Atlantic dash to the hospital.

”I went up to the nursery and they said, ‘Which one do you think is your daughter?’ and I said, ‘The little one, frowning.’ And I was spot on.

I just knew.”

Mr Gent brought her home to Melbourne a month later. His family was supportive. Friends rallied around. He now has a partner, Craig Swain, although they don’t live together.

”I’m a single father, that’s it,” Mr Gent says. ”I just happen to be gay. It took three years for me to become a father. There’s a lot of love goes into that. My objective is to give her as much courage and confidence as

I can so that if there are any problems, she can weather them.
”It comes down to the amount of love you give to a child, and she has plenty of love.”

[Source: Original Article Alternate Version]

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[Australia - New South Wales] – The Daily Telegraph – “Baby law ‘will make parents into liars’ warn legal experts” by Letitia Rowlands

LEGAL experts are urging State Parliament to reconsider new surrogacy laws they say will lead to couples lying to authorities, friends and family about their children’s births.

Under altruistic surrogacy laws from March 1, any NSW resident who travels overseas for commercial surrogacy can on return be fined $110,000 and imprisoned for two years, reported The Daily Telegraph.

They will also not benefit from other changes making it easier for couples to be recognised as parents of a child born via an altruistic surrogacy.

Commercial surrogacy, where a surrogate mother is paid for carrying a couple’s genetic child, is illegal in all states of Australia.

Community Services Minister Linda Burney said the laws aimed to stop exploitation of women in other countries who might be forced to become a surrogate for financial reasons.

University of Technology Sydney law professor Jenni Millbank said couples desperate to have a child would still seek commercial surrogates overseas and lie about it.

It comes as a gay Melbourne couple who paid an Indian surrogate to give birth to twin girls won a major Family Court case for parenting rights for the non-genetic partner.

Justice Paul Cronin said: “While it is clear that the Act talks about a parent as a mother and a father … biology does not really matter. It is all about parental responsibility.”

[Source: Original Article]

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