At what stage and level will the ' gay babyboom ' in countries like the USA and UK peak?

Well, as soon as the gender fetishists manage to erase women as a legal sex class no women will have reproductive autonomy and can be forcibly farmed out as surrogates. Is that the future you're looking forward to?

Who said I was looking forward to anything r1? Are you sure the scenario you outline isn't a touch melodramatic?Forced pregnancy and surrogacy?

Look forward to the holidays, from all the quarantine breeding!

r2, if gender identity and sex are conflated in law, women lose all of their sex-based rights. They will no longer be the class of people who can and do become pregnant. And, no, it's hardly catastrophizing. All around the world, men claiming to be women are taking women's allotted slots in government, in companies, male rapists are being housed in female prisons, anyone claiming to be a woman can enter women's sex-segregated spaces and women are being thrown off of Twitter, Medium, Wordpress, Facebook for talking about it, they're being fired from their jobs for talking about it, they're being doxxed, harassed, stalked, beaten up for talking about it. It's already happening.

r4 I share some of your concerns but forced surrogacy??

When it's no longer trendy.

I’m getting an abortion tomorrow and I CANT WAIT!!!!!

I don't think it's peaked yet, but a lot depends on if the costs of surrogacy come down. Right now, it's still very expensive and thus out of reach for a lot of people.

But I do think there will be a big increase in the next 10-15 years as the younger gays who have always thought having kids was a possibility age and try for kids. I'm only 32, but when I was a teen, the whole adoption/surrogacy route seemed very out of reach and made me think a lot about whether I would want kids. I don't and that's 100% the right call for me, but maybe I would feel differently about it if I were a teen now.

r8 Good post

But I'm curious if you are in the USA because surrogacy costs in the UK are not spiralling out of control and prohibitively expensive. But our system is very different.

r6 What makes you think that it is trendy now?

[quote] All around the world, men claiming to be women are taking women's allotted slots in government, in companies, male rapists are being housed in female prisons, anyone claiming to be a woman can enter women's sex-segregated spaces and women are being

"All around the world" is an exaggeration. It seems to be happening only in Western Europe, Canada and the US. Maybe in Australia and New Zealand too. The SJW and trans brigade haven't taken over the rest of the world yet, unless you're a bigot who thinks only these countries matter.

When they get tired of either fucking them or paying for them.

Or both.

R9, The UK doesn't allow for commercial surrogacy and it's illegal to advertise for a surrogate that way. So the problem is a different one - you need to know or meet someone and have them want to be your surrogate in an arrangement that only covers expenses. The surrogacy agencies/advice groups throw mixers for people to try meet surrogates.

I think adoption should be promoted more as the way to go. There are too many people as it is.

Kids suck. I love my freedom too much. The breeder lifestyle is not appealing at all.

R9 Yes I'm in the US.

r11, the Academy of Australian Science has redefined the word "woman" to mean 'anyone who identifies as a woman'. In Mexico, men are dressing up as women to steal women's allotted council seats. In NY, a man who identifies as a woman has rewritten the law so that the one man/one woman rule for country representation now includes men who wear dresses. I would hope you're aware of what's been going on in the UK. So, yes, this is happening all over the world.

r5, do you know anything about the surrogacy farms in India?

[bold]Surrogacy is not a gay rights issue; it is a women’s rights issue[/bold]

On April 2, New York Governor Cuomo approved a bill legalizing commercial surrogacy despite opposition from women’s rights advocates and fellow lawmakers. The Child-Parent Security Act (CPSA) was tacked on to a budget plan rushed through in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, to provide paid sick leave for New York State, which has been hit hardest in the US, in an apparent attempt to prevent the surrogacy bill from being rejected a second time.

New York state legislators abandoned the CPSA last year after Gloria Steinem wrote an open letter to Gov. Cuomo, outlining the health risks and ethical concerns posed by the industry. She argued:

“Any legislation that legalizes and allows profiteering from body invasion — for instance, becoming an organ donor, an egg donor, or a surrogate womb for impregnation and nine months of pregnancy — must have many more safeguards than this legislation does. For all the years from menstruation until the end of fertility, it could turn the bodies of disenfranchised women, both U.S. citizens and legal and undocumented immigrants, into profit centers.”

In addition, over one hundred New York-based women’s rights campaigners signed a letter expressing their opposition to the CPSA last May, including Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.According to Bien-Aimé:

“Both commercial surrogacy and prostitution are industry-driven — one by gestational surrogacy companies, and the other by a multi billion-dollar sex trade and its lobby. Both thrive on the vulnerabilities of disenfranchised people, especially women of colour. Both turn their profits on growing demand for women’s bodies as commodities, and both kick open a wide door for sex and reproductive trafficking.”

Last year, state assemblywoman Deborah Glick, who became the first openly gay member of the legislature in 1991, told the New York Times that surrogacy is not centred on LGBT rights. “I’m not certain that, considering the money involved, that this is an issue for the broader LGBT community… It is pregnancy for a fee, and I find that commodification of women troubling.”

Though New York is only one of three US states that had not yet legalized commercial surrogacy, local legislation previously allowed for what is termed Compassionate Surrogacy, wherein a willing mother may volunteer to birth and give her infant to an intended family. Also protected under New York law was the ability for a mother to keep the child she delivers should she have a change of heart. The CPSA has now removed this right: “The law will make it clear that donors do not have parental rights or obligations and that those rights and obligations reside with the intended parents.”

Referring to women as “gestational carriers,” the bill provides no protection against the trafficking and exploitation of marginalized women over state lines. In order to be considered a “gestational carrier,” one must only have resided in New York for 90 days. Background checks are not required, meaning that anyone could potentially traffic women from any country into New York as a “gestational carrier.”

However, the CPSA was drafted with at least a few good intentions. For instance, the bill specifically allows the mother to make her own decisions about her health, which had not been a right previously protected under other surrogacy contracts globally. It has been standard procedure in multiple countries where commercial surrogacy is practiced, as in India, to allow clinics and intended parents to monitor a woman’s diet and exercise and to deny her pay for breach of contract should she be deemed negligent with her health. In this regard, the senators responsible for drafting the bill no doubt feel they are progressive, and possibly “compassionate” themselves. Yet it is not immediately clear why a state where non-profit surrogacy is already legal would seek to advance the commercialization of womb rental. That surrogacy has primarily been framed as a fight for LGBT rights rather than an issue impacting women’s rights is similarly baffling.

Indeed, New York state Senator Brad Hoylman, one of the key supporters of the CPSA, is a gay man who purchased his two daughters through a “gestational carrier.” He also sponsored a bill aiming to legalize the sale of breast milk in order to create a breast milk industry, and advocates for the legalization of sex trafficking.

Writing for Buzzfeed, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared:

“By banning gestational surrogacy, we are saying to the LGBTQ community and those who struggle with infertility: You can’t have a child in your own state.”

Cuomo’s statement is not entirely accurate, and appears deliberately misleading. Gestational surrogacy refers specifically to transferring a fertilized embryo into a woman’s body to which she has no genetic connection. Surrogacy itself is not banned in New York — it is commercial surrogacy, along with gestational surrogacy, that are currently banned. It is legal for a woman to volunteer to act as a birth mother for another couple using IVF, or through natural conception, if she is not financially compensated.

Gestational surrogacy potentially involves the use of two women’s bodies: the egg donor, who is administered powerful hormones to put her body into a temporary state of menopause in order to better harvest her eggs, and a second woman to accept the fertilized embryo transplant and carry the fetus. The only reason intended parents would need to travel out-of-state would pertain to situations involving embryo transplantation, or if no women are willing to act as a “gestational carrier” without economic coercion.

Cuomo, along with supporters of the surrogacy industry, are attempting to portray the issue as an advancement of LGBT rights. Following Taiwan’s 2018 decision to legalize gay marriage, US surrogacy corporations flooded into the country. New York-based campaign group Men Having Babies (MHB) held their first conference in Taipei in 2019 to promote the rental of US women’s wombs by Chinese men. MHB has been actively organizing and campaigning to change international surrogacy laws. In 2019, for instance, the American-based organization held yet another conference in Belgium, asserting that gay men have a right to pay to use women’s bodies to reproduce for them.

Ron Poole-Dayan, founder and executive director at MHB, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation:

“We have been witnessing over the last three years, a growing interest from Asia — mostly Chinese — intended parents coming to the United States for surrogacy. People are starting to realize… the fact that they’re gay doesn’t mean that they’re not going to be able to have a full life including starting a family and having children.”

Surrogacy is a women’s rights issue, and not a human rights issue for homosexual men. This view removes women from the centre of the debate, reframing male entitlement to women’s reproductive function as a pitiable cause to elicit sympathy from would-be progressives. The majority of lesbian couples do not have a pressing need to rent a woman’s body. Even infertile couples have other options, such as IVF, though drugs involved in this type of treatment may increase a woman’s risk of contracting fibromyalgia, ovarian cancer, or a fatal condition known as ovarian hyperstimulation (OHSS). The decision to take these risks is presumably motivated by the woman’s own desire to have a child, rather than by economic coercion to produce a child for someone else (though coercion from a male partner to undergo IVF is not unheard of). Therefore, it is rather obvious that the commercial womb-rental industry confers the greatest benefit to same-sex attracted men, or infertile women, neither of whom undergo the myriad of health risks involved for women who give birth via surrogacy contracts.

Though the CPSA was supported by Democrats and championed by media and politicians as protecting the rights of the LGBT community by supporting their “right” to a family, the CPSA was based on the same principles used by conservatives to control women’s reproductive capacity: namely, that the right to a child carrying one’s own DNA (also known as paternity certainty) is a higher priority than the freedom, health, and lives of women.

Easier access to ethical adoption and addressing discrimination against same-sex couples is an issue of LGB rights; surrogacy is fundamentally concerned with female bodies, and no one, regardless of their orientation, has the right to pay for the use of a woman’s body. It is a disservice to women and the LGB community alike to continue to frame the ability to rent women’s bodies as a right — one that is inextricably linked to same-sex orientation. Bills that seek to regulate the industry often reveal their homophobia by excluding sperm donation, which benefits lesbian couples, or by also banning adoption for gay couples. Women must demand that this issue focus on the rights of women, or we will continue to have our rights legally bound to men’s sexual rights.

But, perhaps to obscure this reality, the language of the CPSA went to great lengths to erase biological sex. A significant number of edits were made by Democratic lawmakers wherein “mother” was crossed out and replaced with “gestational carrier,” or “person who gave birth.” Such terminology explicitly mirrors the way conservative anti-choice advocates view women, referring to women as “host bodies,” for example. In this case, “gestational carrier” is used to refer to the woman whose body is being used to gestate a fertilized embryo that does not carry her DNA, though “handmaid” might be a more appropriate term.

Similarly, many instances of the term “woman,” “man,” and “paternity” have been removed and replaced:

“A [woman] genetic surrogate agrees either to be inseminated with the sperm of a [man] person who is not her [husband] spouse or to be impregnated with an embryo that is the product of [an] the genetic surrogate’s ovum fertilized with the sperm of a [man] person who is not her [husband] spouse.”

Language is being deliberately obfuscated to cover up what this issue is really about: fundamentally, legalizing commercial surrogacy would secure male entitlement to paternity certainty — so a man can be assured the child is his genetic descendant. This is not a new concept — rather it is the basis of patriarchy. For centuries, men have subjugated women in order to secure their paternity.

At Fair Observer, Dianne Post explains:

“The birth mother is not in the place of another; she is the mother. That was the law in every country in the world until now. We always knew who the mother was — she was the one who gave birth. That is the first definition of a mother. We weren’t so sure about the father, which is why women’s freedoms have been curtailed so men could be assured of their lineage. Now, with DNA, we can be scientifically certain of the father. So the first ‘success’ of the surrogacy movement was to change the definition of the mother and remove the woman who gave birth from the frame. By applying the word ‘surrogate’ to the wrong person, it depresses the position of the birth mother but does not elevate the position of the other woman. Instead, the position of the sperm donor, or the father, is elevated as the only person with rights.”

In reality, a surrogate is someone other than the birth mother who raises a child; this means that commercial surrogacy refers to the birth mother as the improper parent, while conferring authority and legitimacy to the male parent or intended parents. In this way, the true aim of the industry reveals itself: the commodification of the female body for the extraction of reproductive labour, in order to protect paternity certainty and replicate the male’s genetic material for him.

This is especially troubling given that there are no official records kept regarding how many women die in the surrogacy industry. In January, Michelle Reaves died due to complications from a surrogacy birth. Reaves succumbed to a condition known as an amniotic fluid embolism. According to a statement from the Center for Bioethics and Culture (CBC):

“Recent studies have shown that surrogate pregnancies are different and are high-risk. Studies show that women pregnant with donor eggs (as in gestational surrogacy) have a more than three-fold risk of developing pregnancy induced hypertension and pre-eclampsia.”

All surrogate pregnancies are medically classified as “high-risk” due to the use of hormones involved, and even egg donation confers risks of developing endometriosis, infertility, or the fatal condition of OHSS.

By passing the CPSA quietly and attaching it to a budget intended to help those suffering financial repercussions as a result of a global pandemic, New York lawmakers are sending a clear signal that they are deliberately ignoring women’s opposition to the surrogacy industry, and that they value profit and male entitlement to use female bodies over women’s safety and health. Surrogacy is a predatory, profit-driven industry — whether appealing to women’s kindness through terms like “compassion” and “altruism,” or exploiting marginalized women in economic need, it turns both women’s bodies and children into a commodity to satisfy the desires of the wealthy for a child that carries their genetic material.

r20 Your posts add to the discussion but you are overlooking that far from all of the pregnancies adding to the gay babyboom or parenthood boom is as a result of surrogacy.

There are organisations promoting ethical surrogacy including advocating a ban on using the poor in other countries. I could see India banning international surrogacy at some point.

So what rough percentage of gay men will become fathers do we reckon at the peak of the gay babyboom? This is my main point of interest rather than a debate on the ins and outs and rights and wrongs of surrogacy.

Depends on the if Covid or anything else continues to affect city life. If more former city gays seek residence in more suburban or rural surroundings, then I'd expect a bigger boom than if everyone stays in the city - not that numbers won't increase even then.

What percentage of gay men are fathers. And who are we counting - out gays?

I actually have no idea where it would peak - 20-25% of gays? That seems high and low.

r23 Aren't rural areas more likely to be homophobic eg in the USA?

Can't a woman do what she wants with her body?

Certainly, poorer women will likely take advantage of this, but it gives them an opportunity and an income source they would not have had.

Poorer people tend to join the military for the income and benefits and we don't recognize that as exploitation.

I bet more straight couples use surrogacy than gay couples.

I think they prevalence of same sex marriage and access to surrogacy (both physical and financial) will be the determining factors, OP. I'd guess the "boom" will trend upwards as long as acceptance of gay couples/dads continues to spread (we hope), and the cost/ease of access to surrogates continues to fall.

Tangentially, I spent time in China pre-Covid and found the prevalence of well-off Chinese gay couples coming to the US for surrogacy on a real upswing. Same sex couples still cannot marry or adopt in China, but children are valued highly (in part as a legacy of the one child policy), and gay men seem to see kids as desirable goal. Many gay couples find their families suddenly welcome their partners as soon as a grandchild is in the mix.

Anyone know what percentage of gay men became fathers at different points over recent decades ?

Maybe, R24, but I'm thinking more of gays leaving larger cities who can make a heavily vetted decision about where exactly to move, not so much gays "stuck" in a particular rural locale for whatever reason - though I'd imagine even some of them are fathers or will become fathers. Rural America isn't uniform.

Thanks r28

Do you think in countries like the USA and UK that the majority of gay men will end up becoming dads or does that seem to high? I'm surprised at the information you supplied about Chinese gay men and surrogacy. It would not have occurred to me those developments were happening over there.

2010 Census data showed it to be about 25% of same-sex households raising children, although that would include lesbians as well. I'd think that number will have rose significantly in the last decade as well, probably close to 35-40%, although I feel like lesbians skew that number much higher than it would be for just gay men.

A few years ago there were a couple separate cases of couples, one gay and one hetero suing ivf clinics because the kids came out a different race and so was obviously not related to them. I've often wondered how common these mix ups are. I bet a lot of times they remain undiscovered because the kid has the same ethnicity as the bio parent so no one guesses.

Licensed fertility clinics are regulated, R32. Especially with widespread genetic testing now, you can't extrapolate from a couple of anecdotal episodes to question an industry., Well, maybe if you're fox news you can.....

R31, I somehow missed the fact that OP included fostering---> adoption as well. I'm sure there are statistical analyses, but I'm guessing most gay men who become dads do so via adoption or pre-coming out relationships with women. Surrogacy is still logistically difficult and v expensive. It's still way more common for lesbians to parent because they can become pregnant, not to mention societal biases that favor women over men in child-rearing.

Thank you r31

I would still chose not to have kids if I was straight.

Why? r36

F&F R1. Homophobia.

r37 I love my life and freedom the way it is. I like kids, but the kid lifestyle is not a good fit for everyone. I enjoy my friend & family kids, but zero interest in becoming a full-time parent. Several of my good straight friends (m & f) are childfree. It's becoming a lot more commonplace. Unless you live in religious Hillbillyville of course.

Indeed r39 Voluntary childlessness amongst heterosexuals is reaching record levels it seems.I wonder though how much the gay babyboom may offset it?

R40 Just percentage-wise, the gay babyboom wouldn't make much of a difference. If gays are 4-5% of the population, that means that even half of gays having children would only be about a 2% increase, and that's assuming it was at 0 before, which it wasn't.

I also think voluntary childlessness isn't increasing, having children is just being delayed later in life as women have more demanding careers and more options with regards to fertility past the age of 35. A Pew Research Center analysis in 2014 showed the percentage of women who are in their mid 40s and childless was at its lowest point in 20 years.

Voluntary childlessness absolutely is increasing. It may be experiencing a momentary dip, but overall it is on an upward trajectory. This is in addition to people having kids later than previous generations.

r41 I feel sure the percentage is higher than 4 or 5% but I get your wider point.

So gay men under 45 how many of you want to or plan to have children?

Surrogacy is sexual slavery.

Adopt! This works has enough unwanted children. Gays would make good adopted parents.

If you MUST have one of your own then adopt one as a second child.

r45 Even if freely entered into?

Surrogacy is not the only route gay men who want to become dads have open to them anyway.

r47, Two things to consider:

1) As with prostitution, while there may be a small group of people who really do enjoy the 'job', most do it out of desperation and lack of equal or better paying opportunities; where these things are legalized, demand increases which of course increases the numbers of people being forced (and trafficked) into these situations.

2) Commodifying a person's sexual organs, whether it's for recreational sex or gestation, creates a class of Other whom society deems anyone with enough money can dehumanize. You can only buy people are not seen as actually human by the status quo.

[quote]Surrogacy is not a gay rights issue; it is a women’s rights issue

These so-called feminists want to control a woman's body the same way the Right wants to control a woman's right to an abortion. These are the same ones that want to outlaw porn because it's degrading to women. Mind your own fucking business.

[quote]Surrogacy is sexual slavery.

Oh, brother. You may want to talk to women living in the Middle East. No one is putting a gun to any women's head forcing them to become a surrogate. Banning surrogacy is control a woman's body. End of story.

COVID COVID COVID COVID

But sure let's pretend OP's bullshit is a thing.

Cue the troll @ r1, etc.

[quote]Adopt! This works has enough unwanted children. Gays would make good adopted parents. If you MUST have one of your own then adopt one as a second child

Why do gay men have to take on the burden of irresponsible breeders who in almost every case damaged these kids to some degree? Gay men have as much right to raise biological kids from birth as heterosexual or lesbisn couples do.

Adoptive parents are looking at years and years of behavioral therapy and legal costs when the kid (who was likely abused, neglected, and at BEST did not bond properly with the bio parents), starts to act out and harm themselves and others. Many of these kids suffer from Reactive Attachment Disorder which is an utter nightmare to deal with.

Make birth control free and easy to obtain; make early abortion cheap and legal (so there isn’t an inventory of unwanted, mentally damaged kids to begin with). And keep surrogacy LEGAL too - it is THE way to go if you’re a male couple who want to raise a child.

r52, surrogacy is sexual slavery.

Handsome family. Wish them all the best!

Because BBC News reports a 'Jaw-dropping' global crash in children being born and every country could have shrinking populations by the end of the century. Ok its a ways off for most of us on here.

[quote][R52], surrogacy is sexual slavery.

Not if a woman wants to do it for a friend or family member, or wants to do it for an infertile couple. Do you think blood and bone marrow donors are slaves too?

Women also have the right to give up their children for adoption or foster care without the child’s say at all. At least the surrogacy is planned for a willing couple and the child won’t be traumatized from being bounced from home to home to home

Elton John and his husband David Furnish have two kids. They used a surrogate. Elton is RICH so the cost wasn't an impediment .

r55, wrong. Read the attached, then, let's talk:

r48 sn't most of that applicable to many jobs? Supermarket workers etc

I would say its pretty close to peak now, even if I could easily and affordably have kids, neither me or my partner have the slightest desire to have them. I regard being childfree is when of greatest advantages of gay life and am often finding myself thankful for being gay when I encounter other people's children out in public

And I know I am far from alone in that, as R14, R36 and R39 point out

r56 Do we reckon that surrogacy is disproportionately more common amongst wealthy gay men then ?At least in the USA?

R60-Anderson Cooper is RICH. He used a surrogate for his child.

Never wanted kids, but if I did, I think I'd rather a co-parenting situation than surrogacy.

The gay dads in OP's pic are hot.

r62 My thinking tilts in that direction too although I'm not judged about gay guys who make a different decision.

r51 True but how many men like that are there?

Who cares?

You do r66

Tl, dr. Sorry, but I just had to express and Ugh! I can’t imagine wanting to deal with a child for numerous reasons. And despite my “live and let surrogacy happen” mentality, I still think most gay men think of a child as a perfect accessory, or pronouncement of their arrival into hetero-dom.

I love my many nieces and nephews, and I have accepted my role as a powerful, opinionated and vocal uncle. I wouldn’t want any of these kids as my children. It’s just too hard

And anyone telling me they’re not, then please share your own personal sob stories you poor sons of bitches,

r68 Just for clarification so I'm sure that I am not misunderstanding you.Are you saying you are powerful as an Uncle because you are opinionated? How much influence would you say you have over your nieces and nephews?

I detest surrogacy. I understand that it's their right and a woman is getting paid for this but it's so stupid and only about ego. The United Nations Children's Emergency Fund estimates around 150 million orphans in this world. Children in need sit in limbo while gay and straight couples go to these extremes to pass on their genes, sometimes with the DNA of a stranger. Madness.

Of course, you can't say these things out loud but it is a sad state of affairs.

R70 I’m an adopted child(not from the third world)and I agree that adoption is a way to help both parties. The parents and the child. I had the most wonderful youth. No we weren’t wealthy but I grew up in a real home. I’m forever grateful.

r70 I totally get the points your making but is madness really the right word for what you want to describe?

SA... I meant a powerfully opinionated uncle. One that does hold some sway and sets an example to them. Albeit a bit of a differently informed example that their parents may have set. Like a second opinion.