Who Magazine - "Not Your Average Family" by Michael Crooks & Emma Dimwiddie

Two same-sex couples share the joy and challenges of parenthood.

Whenever their eyes settle on their little girl, Kirk and Rob Marcolina's faces beam. Although Sophie is already 20 months old, her two dads are still overwhelmed with having a daughter and relishing their role as fathers. "The most rewarding things are seeing here take her first step, say her first word or give you her first kiss," says Rob, 37, in the couple's Rose Bay, Sydney, home. "It is so much fun to watch her grow and learn about the world."

That they treasure such moments isn't surprising. To have Sophie - Kirk's biological child - has been a lengthy, often complicated, process for the couple. Indeed, for any gay or lesbian couple desiring children of their own, the journey can be costly and often relies on the goodwill of others, including sperm and egg donors and surrogate mothers. Then, once they become parents, homosexuals don't have the same rights and privileges as heterosexual couples - a hot issue during the federal election campaign. (In June, WA became the first Australian state to allow a gay couple to adopt a child.) Indeed, it's not easy, says Kirk, 37, "for a gay couple to have a child."

Not that they were ever deterred. Kirk and Rob's plant to start a family was on the agenda from the moment they met as neighbours in Los Angeles in 2001. "One of the things that attracted us to each other was the fact we both wanted to have kdis one day," says Kirk, a stay-at-home dad and former TV producer from Philadelphia. He and Melbourne-born Rob, who was working in Los Angeles when they met, married legally in Canada in 2003 and set about starting a family. "It was a question of how," says Rob, now a management consultant in Sydney for a US-Based company.

They decided on the surrogacy route, and Rob's sister, Kym, a Melbourne mother of two, volunteered to donate an egg. Kirk would provide the sperm for the in-vitro fertilisation treatment. "Kym knew how important it was for me to have a child," says Rob, who proudly points out that Sophie has a resemblance to his side of the family. Adds Kirk: "It was an amazing gift to us." The next challenge was finding a gestational surrogate (a "traditional" surrogate involves the woman's own egg). While paid surrogacy is illegal in Australia, in the US there are agencies that cate for gay and lesbian couples. Through the Los Angeles agency Growing Generations, Rob and Kirk were put in touch with Sonia, who was implatnted with the fertilised egg (the couple preferred not to disclose what the surrogacy cost, but the price can range from $US115,000 to $US150,000). "We had full involvement during the pregnancy," says Rob, "and we were at the birth, which was a wonderful experience. When Sophie was born, the doctor handed Sophie to Kirk and I got to cut the cord."

Being a two-dad family might be different - "At some of the playgroups, you definitely sick out," says Kirk - but the couple haven't yet faced any social hurdles. "People are curious because it's not your average family." says Kirk. "But everyone has been very positive."

Sydney couple Kendi and Leigh Burness-Cowan have also had a favourable experience in raising their two children. "I don't feel there is any difference really between us and other couples with children." says 32-year old Kendi, a Sydney communications officer who gay birth to both the couple's children, Hunter, 3, and Hugo, 7 months (the couple use a sperm donor found through a personal ad). "A few people took a while to warm to the idea, but nobody has said anything negative."

Where problems can arise is in the rights of the parents. THe Burness-Cowans and the Marcolinas "are not legally recognised as couples," says human-rights commissioner Graeme Innes. "It can have an impact in terms of access to the Medicare safety net, access to various tax provisions and access to leave which might relate to looking after a sick child."

For Kendi, this hasn't posed a problem, "apart from crossing out lots of "father' columns on various forms," she says. "Where it would be an issue would be if the parents separated and there were custody issues, although the courts consider a child's 'best interest.'" And Rob and Kirk say they simply want more acceptance of gay and lesbian families in Australia. "A lot of people say gay people shouldn't be parents," says Rob. "What I'd like to say is that when a gay person has a family, they really want that child - they're the most wanted kids, in a way Sophie has the love of two dads, two loving parents, which is all you can really ask for."

Read More

Review Asia - "All in the family : A Double Dose of Love" by Emma Westward

For gays and lesbians, having kids used to be an impossible dream. Emma Westwood meets two Australian couples who are building a brave new family world

CASE 1
Two mummas
Parents: Janet Asser and
Zoë McCallum
Children: Felix and Sebastian
(twins age 21 months)

For Zoë McCallum, kneeling in front of the coffee table with reheated pasta and one ear trained on the bedroom where her twin boys, Felix and Sebastian, sleep is a typical daily ritual. Like other families in Australia today, she tag-teams parenting with her partner who’ll be home from shift work at 11pm. In that way, McCallum is your average mum. Start her talking about the current crisis in childcare, and she is as impassioned as the next person. But if raising a child wasn’t difficult enough, McCallum and her partner, Janet Asser, have double the responsibility (twins) and they’re also in a same-sex relationship – one that has no legal recognition in the eyes of the Australian government and one that saw them jump through a number of hoops
and loopholes to realize the family they believe they deserved.

As the biological mother of the children, McCallum conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF) and the altruistic “gift” from a traceable sperm donor. However,
just like a mother in a stable heterosexual relationship, she equally shares the parenting duties with Asser – which includes being called mumma. For the boys, Asser
and McCallum are both their parents, even though the law prevents Asser from appearing on their birth certificates. “We had twins who required both of us to be involved from the moment they were born,” says Asser of their individual responsibilities in the nurturing of their children. “There was not an abundance of breast milk so top-up bottle feeds were required. Each feeding session took about an hour and a half. Zoë would breast feed one then I would bottle feed that child and repeat the process with the second.

“I never saw the boys as anything but my children,” she continues. “I was there from their creation to birth and beyond. It is all and much more than I expected. The
only thing I didn’t factor in was how vulnerable it makes you. I fear for my kids in
a gut-wrenching way. It is a bizarre sensation to know that you have two beautiful
creatures who rely on you for everything and you must protect them.”

The road to domestic bliss – or should we say, “domestic hubbub” in the case of the energetic Asser-McCallum twins – was not smooth sailing. Issues surrounding assisted reproductive technology for same-sex couples in Australia are complex and vary across states. For lesbian couples, the only alternatives are the rather crude “turkey baster” method or to access IVF by masquerading in a heterosexual relationship and proving that the woman is medically infertile. In the state of Victoria, IVF is not available to single women, and lesbians are officially deemed “single” by an outdated system.

“I had never felt discriminated against before,” laments McCallum. “Never in my entire life, despite being an ‘out’ and professional female, so being discriminated
against with regards to having kids was a life-changing thing. To have your rights curtailed about reproduction is probably one of the most emotional things, I would argue.

“I made myself aware of what laws were available and what the options were,” adds McCallum, who speaks with anger over a situation she feels is yet to be rectified.
“I’d followed debates for some time and had written letters to the prime minister
over the years challenging his family values and the absolute myths of the nuclear
family and the fact that all that stuff was predicated on wrong data – or no data.”
Eventually, McCallum’s research and unwavering determination to create the family she had always desired led her to the Rainbow Families Organization, a support group established for samesex parents. Through RFO information sessions, Asser and McCallum met other women in similar circumstances to themselves and eventually were referred to a doctor who was sympathetic to their cause.

With McCallum trained as a pediatrician and Asser a pediatric nurse, both were aware of problems arising from genetics and, therefore, mindful their donor’s full profile was readily available to them. The next hurdle was choosing who would carry the child.
“That was a huge quandary for us because we had to consider Janet being the biological mother rather than me, which I had never prepared myself for,” explains McCallum. However, Asser’s attempts at conception proved fruitless and McCallum, suspected to have polycystic ovaries, was then able to step up as a “back-up womb”.

“I had to think of Janet as the biological mother of my child in a way I never had before,” says McCallum. “The only sadness of that was, when she didn’t fall pregnant, we had to grieve for that. She had to face up to the fact that she could not have one. It sounds a bit clichéd, but it definitely solidified our intent to have a family and made us more true co-parents. “I’m still sad that I can’t parent her biological child in the way any other partner would if they were straight or gay. I suppose that’s been reinforced by having my own biological kids and seeing the true gift of it. Janet said the other day, ‘I never once have felt that these children are not mine.’ ” While McCallum and Asser have been supported in their workplaces as two mothers raising two boys, inevitably there are the knockers who consider their situation “unnatural”. “I used to be angry and want to educate them, but now I pity them,” says McCallum.

As part of any community, the boys have constant male role models and their parents are even contemplating employing a “manny”, but regardless, Asser is unashamedly a tomboy and, unlike McCallum, knows how to play “boy-style”, throwing balls around and the like.

“Janet and I are so different and have one of those relationships where we are much
bigger than the sum of our parts because of our differences,” says McCallum. “Hopefully, we’ll set a good example for the boys because our relationship shows how two completely different people can live fantastically together – fulfilling very happy lives – and make society a better place, despite having completely different ways of doing it.”

CASE 2
Daddy and Tatay
Parents: Jason and Adrian
Tuazon-McCheyne
Children: Ruben (age 20 months)

When meeting Jason and Adrian Tuazon-McCheyne at a café, it is hardly difficult
spotting them walking down the street. “We’ll be the two guys – one white, one Filipino – pushing a pram,” laughs Jason. For some, being in an interracial relationship is challenging enough, let alone living openly as homosexual men and overcoming the many roadblocks to fathering a child together. In order to complete their family unit, though, Adrian and Jason were willing to go to the ends of the Earth.

Their journey took them to Los Angeles, to be exact – via Toronto in Canada, where the two officially married in 2004 because homosexual marriages are still not legal in Australia. Well before that, in 2000, they discussed the possibility of starting a family and resolved that it was a path they were both very eager to tread.

Firstly, the two men investigated adoption, but very quickly found the door slammed firmly in their faces. “We were told not to bother even coming to the information session,” says Jason. The next option was surrogacy through an American agency – a costly, time-consuming and controversial process, but one Adrian and Jason were willing to endure in order to pursue their dream.

“All of the surrogates are screened medically and psychologically,” explains Jason. “They have to have had children already. They have to be financially independent, although they receive a modest stipend. They have to be an appropriate person to be a surrogate first before they even go into the pool.

“In our case, she [the surrogate] provided the egg, but most surrogates don’t – they just carry the fertilized embryo,” says Jason. “We used what they call ‘traditional
surrogacy’ where it was done through insemination. But it could only be from one of us, and whether it was one or two babies was a natural occurrence.”

As with all pregnancies, the experience was what Adrian calls a “roller-coaster ride”. In fact, before Ruben, their surrogate suffered a miscarriage. “It was really, really sad because you just don’t know what’s going to happen next,” says Adrian. “You’re not sure whether it’s going to work.”

Yet, the men were keen to push forward in their attempts for a successful pregnancy and, as far as they were concerned, they would continue pushing until they had a child.
“We went to America four times,” reveals Jason. “Once to start the process, two to meet her, three to see how the pregnancy was going and four for the birth. It was good that we were far away because we couldn’t worry about the day-to-day.”

Adrian adds: “The main thing we didn’t want her to do was drink or smoke, which she didn’t.” “It was never her baby,” says Jason. “She never felt that it was her baby. Her partner and children never bonded with the pregnancy.

Legally, once Ruben was conceived, he was our child. And that was important. Over there, it’s all legally and ethically done above reproach. They’re more concerned
that you won’t come and take your child. After all of this, if you don’t take your child, they go up for adoption.” Just like any fathers, Adrian and Jason were present at the birth of their child – videotaping and taking photographs for posterity. Their surrogate only saw the baby the next day after the birth, although the two families got together for lunch before Adrian and Jason flew with little Ruben back home to Australia.

They retain friendship ties to this day. “We had to work really hard, seven days a week, for five years beforehand to be able to afford the process, prepare everything, fly to the United States, have the car seat in the car ready for when Ruben got home… and somehow that’s bad?” says Jason in response to any critics.

“There’s this widespread belief that men are not natural parents, which is definitely not true,” adds Adrian. “It’s always that the women are more important than men.” As far as Ruben is concerned, having two dads is as natural as a mother and father. “He differentiates between the two of us – daddy and Tatay, which is ‘daddy’ in Filipino,” Jason says.

“When it comes down to it, gender is not important anyway. He loves trucks and cars and trams – he’s not a doll boy. His orientation will be whatever it is, and it will
probably be straight, which is great. But if it’s not, we certainly know what his journey will be like and we’ll be able to help him.”

When it comes to telling Ruben about his unique introduction into this world, Adrian and Jason have no solid plans, but will instead just go with the flow. “When he’s old enough, we’ll just show him and tell him this great story about how all these people came together so he could be born,” says Jason. “It’s a fantastic story. There’s no abandonment. It’s just – wow! I think he should be pretty excited about it.”

[Link: Original Article]

Read More

Melbourne Community Voice - "When should gay dads come out to their kids?" by Tracie O'Keefe

How and when should gay dads come out to their kids? Tracie O’Keefe offers some advice.

Recently I gave a talk to gay dads about coming out to their children. One of the things I discussed was how the phrase ‘gay’ can be constricting for men who sleep with and have relationships with men. If you’ve slept with your child’s mother, you don’t ever want that child to think they were a mistake, so you’ll need to present yourself as being bisexual to your children when they were conceived.

Why come out to the kids?

Children need a number of things from parents, including food, shelter, love, education and an opportunity to explore themselves and their personalities. The most important thing, though, is to be able to trust their carers. They need to be able to believe that daddy is not a liar. Trust and honesty support love, whereas dishonesty on the part of the parent can undermine the child-parent relationship. Children are much more worried about whether they can trust daddy and is daddy fun, rather than whether he’s a screaming queen.

When is the right time to come out to your kids?

The answer to this depends on every individual family and every individual child. Certainly the sooner you start being honest with your kids, the easier it will be for them to trust you. You have to do the ground-work of ensuring your children value and respect all people equally. If you’ve taught them to be bigots, then you’ll reap what you sow.

When to come out also depends on how amiable the birth mother, wife or ex-partner is; but it can be helpful to discuss this with the adults in the family, so that they can support your disclosure. The last thing you want is your great Aunty Mavis turning up at the door and telling the twins to tell daddy that she “loves the gays, and would they please tell that to their dad?”

Where is the best place to come out?

Respect your child’s private space, which of course is generally their bedroom. Tell them in a place that’s more neutral, such as the sitting room or the garden; perhaps even have a family picnic. Just remember not to make it a drama, but simply another piece of life’s information that little Pia or Jake needs to know. Remember that wherever you tell them, it’s a memory that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Don’t do it while you’re running around Bunning’s Hardware, either: do you really want to answer a lot of personal questions while in the checkout queue?

What is the best approach to ensure material is broached sensitively?

Stories are great vehicles for seeding the ideas that being a gay man or a man who loves men is OK. Expose them to stories of happy gay families and happy heterosexual families. Remember to normalise the gay experience. It will now of course be very useful to point out that Professor Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series is gay; that he is a very happy wizard who is every nice person’s friend – and he can do magic.

How can I still be credible to my family?

Credibility is about honesty, trust, decency and kindness, not about whether you fit into other people’s rigid ideas, philosophies or religions. Your job as a father is to give your children a role model by which to live their life; and to instill values that will lead them to happiness. It’s not about the misery of keeping up with the Joneses. Be proud of being queer and show other people that you are proud by teaching your children how to respect you.

Dealing with the future

Just think about the advantages of your child having a gay or queer dad; they get to go to Pride March and Carnival. One obvious advantage from your child’s perspective is that if daddy has a boyfriend, you might even get more presents on your birthday; you also get someone who came out and put themselves on the line to love you and tell you the truth about themselves.

It could help for families to get some family counseling to deal with the complications that may occur due to power-sharing between two homes. Some men prefer to stay in the relationship with their ex-wife or partner because they are such good friends, but dads should make sure they know their rights of access to their children in all situations.

Remember that lack of trust in a parent is the foundation for many mental disorders later in life, but that parental trust, honesty and love helps children transcend all life’s difficulties and helps them remember daddy fondly.

Dr Tracie O’Keefe DCH is an individual, family, couples and sex therapist. Visit www.tracieokeefe.com .

[Link: Original Article]

Read More

Sydney Star Observer - "Prospective Rainbow Parents Wanted" by Cara Davis

PROSPECTIVE RAINBOW PARENTS WANTED by Cara Davis

Cathy and her female long-term partner have long dreamt of becoming parents, but have struggled to find a gay couple to co-parent with.

The women want to find a gay man who is interested in their child’s life, but the opportunities for meeting and socialising with other prospective parents are rare.

For years, lesbians and gay men have been asking Dominic Gili from Rainbow Families where they can meet others to co-parent with but, with so few options available, Gili has had to suggest placing an advertisement in a local paper, or joining an online forum.

Gili, through Rainbow Families, has now organised a night for prospective rainbow parents at the Bank Hotel, Newtown, on Monday 26 November.

Gili said the night is intended to help those who have hopes of becoming parents and have not met someone to co-parent with. But it also will give people the opportunity to share stories and discuss child-related issues.

“Like-minded people can just come together and chat, and someone might make a contact who, down the track, they can co-parent with,” he said.

“It sounds too much like a dating game when you say it that way, but there is just no forum for that in Sydney at the moment.”

Gili said he had received a lot of interest from the men wishing to be dads, via the Gay Dads NSW group, and now hoped to spread the word among the lesbian community.

The Prospective Rainbow Parents night will start at 7pm. For more information email Dominic at nsw@gaydadsaustralia.com or call 0400 296 253 or 9573 0372.

[Link: Original Article]

Read More

The Age - "Parent case may alter 'family'" by Karen Kissane

IN A case that could change the definition of "family", a gay man who fathered a child has asked the Family Court to recognise his gay partner as a co-parent.

At a child access hearing in Melbourne yesterday, a registrar warned that the men were asking for a special status not normally given to parents in blended relationships.

"People separate or they have other partners, but (the new partners) are not regarded as having the same rights as biological parents, or the same parental responsibilities," the registrar said.

"That's what (the applicants) want, and it's not what is usually given. It's a vexed issue."

A trial expected next year will decide whether the father's partner can be recognised by the court as having "shared parental responsibility" for the child, to whom he has no biological link.

The child, a boy, lives mostly with his biological mother and her lesbian partner. He was conceived within their longstanding relationship using sperm donated by the gay father.

The mother and father agreed that both would have a role in his upbringing.

The mother's and father's relationship has since broken down. A report to the court by an independent expert said the boy was happy, confident, articulate and creative. He was affectionate with both couples, but regarded the women as his parents.

Yesterday's hearing was over an application by the father to have more time with the boy.

The expert report had suggested he see more of his father, who was a significant figure in his life. The child's independent lawyer told the court: "(He) needs more time with his father, whether his mother likes it or not."

The registrar reserved his decision about increased access for the father.

[Link: Original Article]

Read More

Same Same - "Cos The Kids Are Alright" by Cheetah77

Gay parenting is a subject that always gets people talking. Whether you want that for yourself or not, or whether you agree with it, the fact is that it’s happening, and has been for years.

Arguments against gays raising children are many. We aren’t built to pro-create with each other therefore we shouldn’t breed. Gays raising kids are going to influence their children into being gay themselves. It’s selfish to have children because of our lifestyles and gay parents don’t provide the male/female role modelling kids need to grow up balanced. We are only setting our kids up to have difficult childhoods largely caused by school yard homophobia. And the list goes on.

On the other side of the fence many argue that a child raised by gay parents gets the same, if not more love and care because of the hardships the parents have to go through to have that child in the first place.

Is there really little difference as these supporters and many gay parents suggest, or are there issues and challenges faced that often don’t get spoken about? A lot gets said about what’s best for the children, but who’s ever bothered to sit down and ask them about their perspective?

Amber was raised by a lesbian couple in NSW’s Blue Mountains. She found that growing up with gay parents wasn’t that very different from the other kids she went to school with.

From the age of nine when her mother met her current partner, she always received lots of support and love growing up. Their family was surrounded by a huge network of gay families in the same situation. Fourteen years down the track she says that the positives of being raised in her family greatly outweigh any negatives she may have experienced.

“Of course I knew we were a bit different from other kids at school, but at the same time, I knew so many kids with gay parents that I never felt too different. How do you compare your life to someone else’s anyway?”

She admits that she was probably helped by the fact that both her mother and her mother’s partner were community workers so communication was always a big thing in their house. Raised in an environment like this certainly helped her stand up for what she believed in. Amber now works for one of the major political parties – a far cry from the Greens supporting household she grew up in.

Many argue that gay parenting sets children up for a life of homophobia, and that it’s simply not fair to the kids. However, in Amber’s case, the only time she really felt the difference was after marching in the Mardi Gras parade when she was twelve years old. At school a few days later, one of her classmates told her that he’d seen her on the TV and made a bit of an issue out of it. Apart from feeling a need to hide the situation of her family in her younger years before she knew how to handle those types of comments, she said this was really the only negativity she ever experienced.

“I actually used to enjoy sitting listening to people bag out gays and then I would pull out the ‘my mother is a lesbian and I’m very offended by what you just said’ card and found it was good for shock value,” laughs Amber.

Amber wishes she’d been given access to children’s books that focused on the rainbow family when she was growing up. She thinks they would be invaluable in helping gay parents raise children in today’s society. It’s something that recent Same Same 25 member and author Vicki Harding has been pushing with her Learn To Include project.

The push for gay friendly books is happening all over the world, and it’s stepping on toes. Recently in the US there was a huge uproar about children’s book And Tango Makes Three. The book told the true story of two male penguins who raised a penguin chick and was removed from school bookshelves, many saying that it advocated homosexuality. It also has the honour of being the most complained about book in 2006.

If anything, Amber’s experience shows that books of this type are in fact highly beneficial in helping kids understand the differences, not only for those with gay parents, but their friends as well.

The issue of gay parents not being able to provide both male and female role models is one that’s often talked about. While having strong female role models certainly wasn’t an issue in Amber’s case, she didn’t have any contact with her father and had limited other male roles in her life. According to her, this may be a contributing factor to her having some difficulty relating to and forming close relationships with men. Although that being said, she’s far from being gay – she has many gay male friends, but when it comes to liking boys or girls, she is definitely straight – so there’s another myth blown right out of the water.

Amber spoke at a Gay Dads forum a few months ago and afterwards found herself in conversation with a deeply religious Christian gay couple who were worried about bringing a child into what is seen by many to be a sinful life. Amber says after their chat, the couple seemed more comfortable and relaxed about the whole thing, which she was pleased about. She says that moments like that prove how invaluable it is for anyone thinking about going down this path to speak to others who have already done it themselves.

Gay Dads Australia and Rainbow Families both hold regular information sessions for existing and prospective parents to get together to meet and share stories and experiences.

Her advice to any gay couples thinking about parenting is that they should just relax a little. “A lot of them are so worried about messing up their kids but there are plenty of fucked up kids from straight families too.”

If anything stood out to me about Amber, it was how overwhelmingly normal she was. She lives in Surry Hills in a share house, has a mixture of queer and straight friends and like most grown up kids who have moved away from home, she looks forward to weekends at her mum’s house in the calming and relaxing mountains, where she can go to just chill out.

Want to know more? Then check out www.rainbowfamilies.org.au.

[Link: Original Article]

Read More

Herald Sun - " Homosexual mum and dad go to court" by Craig Binnie

A LESBIAN mother is battling to stop the gay father of her child from having his homosexual lover declared one of the child's parents.

The Family Court heard this week the mother had been in a relationship with another woman for about 10 years when she asked a gay friend to impregnate her.

The court heard that even though the child's mother and father lived apart they agreed they would both have a role in the child's upbringing.

The mother, however, is fighting attempts by the father to have the court recognise his gay lover as the child's second father.

The court heard allegations that the child's father was involved in sadomachistic sex and bondage, had an interest in child porn and possessed a magazine containing an article about a father who had sex with his son.

The man denies the claims, which were made by one of his former lovers.

The mother's lawyer told the court the boy would automatically spend time with his father's lover when he had access to the child and that there was no need to have him formally noted as a co-parent.

She said the father's lover was acting out a political agenda by trying to have authorities officially recognise him.

The court was told the father wanted the child to have two fathers and two mothers.

The court was told the only difference to an normal separated couple with new partners would be that the fathers were a couple and the mothers were a couple.

A lawyer appointed by the court to act on behalf of the child told the court the father and his lover had a stable relationship.

He said the child was progressing and developing well and there was no evidence of abuse having taken place.

Whether the father's lover will succeed in being named as a co-parent will be decided at a trial in November.

[Link: Original Article]

Read More