Chapter 11: Family Relationships in Gay Father Families with Young Children in Belgium

Chapter 11: Family relationships in gay father families with young children in Belgium, Spain and the United Kingdom

Marcin Smietana, Sarah Jennings, Cathy Herbrand and Susan Golombok

Introduction

Over the last decade in Europe, a growing number of openly gay men have become fathers, mainly through adoption, coparenting or surrogacy. This chapter will explore how gay men who became parents in countries relatively open to gay and lesbian parenting chose their specific route to fatherhood and how they subsequently enacted family relatedness. Each option has its specificities, advantages and difficulties in terms of legal accessibility, financial costs, social acceptance and consequences for family structure and relationships. The analysis will highlight contrasting views regarding relatedness and family norms among gay fathers and show that although socio-legal constraints and context shaped their decision to become parents, their choice of a specific means of having a child was strongly influenced by the fathers’ priorities regarding their autonomy as parents, the perceived importance of genetic links to their children and sexually differentiated parental roles, and their moral view on the different reproductive options available to them.

The chapter is based on three different qualitative research studies which were conducted with gay coparents in Belgium, gay men in Spain who used transnational gestational surrogacy with egg donation, and gay adoptive fathers in the UK. These three contexts are interesting at a legal level as laws in favour of gay and lesbian rights have been adopted in these countries over the past two decades. Although legislation differs slightly regarding surrogacy and domestic adoption, these countries have in common a relatively open and tolerant culture for gay parenting, which can explain some of the similarities found within the three studies. In each case, the specific social and legal context will be described before exploring the men’s perceptions of family norms, gendered parental roles and biological relatedness within these different reproductive and national settings.

Gay parenting in Belgium, Spain and the UK: common characteristics and concerns

Although social mores and legislation are becoming ever more favourable towards gay and lesbian people, it is important to keep in mind that having a child is still a struggle for gay men for subjective, social and economic reasons. Indeed, within Belgium, Spain and the UK, there are still discriminations and taboos against gay men, especially when they want to become parents. For instance, some adoption agencies remain reluctant to let a gay couple adopt a child, even when the law permits, and public opinion of surrogacy remains contentious.

At a more personal level, the initial challenge for many of the interviewed gay men who wanted to become parents was the task of integrating parenthood with their gay male identity. Indeed, despite the fact that most men, or at least one in each couple, felt they had always wanted a child, they often went through a period of mourning, thinking they had to abandon this idea because of their gender, their homosexuality, or because some aspects of gay culture distanced them from parenthood:

I’d been always told the story that ‘if you’re gay, gay men can’t be fathers’. Such education influences one a lot. They start repeating this to you when you’re discovering your sexuality at 15-16 and so you assume it as a part of the contract. (father by surrogacy)

These gay men therefore had to overcome internalised heteronormativity and homophobia which made them question whether same-sex parenting would negatively affect their prospective children. However, whether sexuality was experienced as a limiting factor varied with many gay men, especially the younger ones. Most of the younger men had a strong sense of their desire to become a parent from the outset and had decided that their sexuality would not prevent them from having a child.

For many men, the desire to have a child was prompted by social changes that brought gay fatherhood into their consciousness, such as changes in the law and the growing representation of gay parents in the media. It was also influenced by meeting a partner who strongly desired fatherhood. However, particularly in the coparenting arrangements, some of the interviewed gay men decided to become parents independently of their relationship status or their partner’s opinion. This means that the interviewed fathers in the three studies included single fathers, couples where both men were highly involved and couples where one man was leading his partner into the parental project or conducting it in a more individualistic way.

Coparenting arrangements

As a means of gaining access to parenthood, coparenting enables a man and a woman who are not a couple to have a child together and to raise the child in separate households. They might do so with their own same-sex partner. One significant feature of such coparenting arrangements is that the father plays an active parental role unlike most lesbian family projects accomplished by means of insemination with a known donor (Dunne, 2000; Haimes and Weiner, 2000). They also usually involve more than two people who take care of the child and, unlike step-families, these adults become actively involved in the project even before the child’s birth.

The findings discussed here come from a broader sociological research project on multi-parenthood, which was based on the study of gay and lesbian coparenting arrangements in Belgium (Herbrand, 2008). The analysis involved nine different coparenting cases, each including between two and six coparents and between one and two children aged under 15. Several couples connected and organised around different child projects: for example, if a lesbian couple could not conceive their second child with the first child’s father and had to find another father. Thus the coparenting cases in this research were each quite different. In total, extensive biographical interviews were conducted with twenty-six coparents, comprising eleven women and fifteen men, all living in Belgium.

Social and legal context

From a socio-legal perspective, coparenting is currently an easier route to parenthood for gay men in Belgium than adoption and surrogacy. Although gay men in Belgium have had legal access to adoption since 2006, it is still very difficult in practice for them to adopt a child, particularly through international adoption. Surrogacy is not legally regulated and potential fathers have some leeway with respect to surrogacy arrangements. However, it can be very difficult for a single man or a gay couple to come back to Belgium with a child who was born from surrogacy abroad and be recognised as the child’s legal parent(s). In the case of coparenting, however, fathers do not require approval from any institution and are always designated as the child’s legal father from the start, if they acknowledge the child at birth.[1] This also means that the birth mother’s partner cannot have any legal parental position or rights regarding the child, since legal parenthood is limited to two in Belgium. Despite this, the gay coparents in this study rarely referred to legal reasons for choosing coparenting. Some did not even know about the recent legal changes regarding gay and lesbian parenting. When legal changes were mentioned, it was more to emphasise the impact they had on public opinion towards gay and lesbian people or on the men’s decision to enact their desire to have a child.

Family norms

Most gay coparents in this study stated that having a child was not a decision taken lightly. Although they could have opted for other routes to parenthood, it was quite clear that they chose this type of family building after giving it much thought and for very specific reasons.

The need to have a ‘biologically’ related descendant was a core theme in the interviews with the coparents whose sperm was used to create their child (herein referred to as the ‘biological father’). Their wish was, in fact, not only to have a child but to have their ‘own child’ or biological offspring. Many regarded the biological tie as synonymous with ‘real kinship’ and genealogical connection. For example, one biological father mentioned, “I have to fulfil my need to create life”.[2] Another biological father said that he could not consider adoption, even if the inseminations did not work, “because I want it to be my child, and by that I mean a biological part of me”.

This idea of biological inheritance also represents generational transmission, wherein the continuity of family lineage passes through one’s “blood” or “flesh” (“chair”). In the case of many coparents, adoption is rejected or regarded essentially as “a good deed” in order to save a child, rather than as a way of reproducing and continuing the family lineage. As expressed by one of the biological fathers:

If need be, I don’t exclude adoption but I would first like to conceive a child who comes from myself, who really comes from my flesh (‘chair’), from my family lineage with all my background. It might be a male vision of things but this is my perception. Then, possibly, once this step has been fulfilled, I might have some space in my life. I might then feel like welcoming a child and adopting him as a humanitarian gesture … So, as far as I’m concerned, fulfilling the need I have to create life, well adoption is not going to be the answer.

Having a biological child was also a way of knowing who both the child’s progenitors were. Indeed, most coparents found it unthinkable not to have access to this information and regarded it as important for the child for many reasons, particularly concerning their identity and well-being. Knowledge of parentage was also deemed essential in terms of having access to the child’s genetic history, both in case of health problems and to avoid risks of consanguinity due to possible incest.

On the whole, biological relatedness was crucial for most coparents’ conception of kinship, although it could be expected that gay and lesbian parents would be more open to social parenthood, given that both partners in a same-sex couple cannot be genetically related to their child. Indeed, many gay and lesbian activists and associations are questioning the biological definition of kinship and ‘prioritisethe notion of choice in defining kinship over the notion of biology’ (Weston, 1991). For example, when same-sex parental rights were on the political agenda in Belgium, gay and lesbian activists claimed full legal recognition of the non-biological parent on the basis that parental involvement and commitment are as important as biological factors (Herbrand, 2006). Nevertheless, many coparents said they would not have been happy with adoption, even if they believed this alternative should be available.

The gay coparents in this study not only wanted to know who the child’s progenitors were, but also believed that the presence of the biologicalmother[3] and biological father in the child’s life is of utmost importance. Finding an accessible traditional surrogate who could supply the child with information about origins was not sufficient, and the possibility of using gestational surrogacy with egg donation was not even mentioned by the interviewed fathers as the significance placed on the biological mother seemed to entail a close association between genetic and gestational origins. What many really wanted was for the child to be raised by both biological parents, with whom the child would form specific relationships. This was the main reason why the gay men who were interviewed opted for coparenting and often spent a long time looking for potential female coparent(s) with whom to conceive a child. They wanted a conventional family with two parents of the opposite sex. According to one of the biological fathers:

It makes it easier for the child ... Especially with regard to the outside world, it gives a somewhat more traditional picture and it enables the child to avoid problems he would otherwise encounter outside with regard to other children at school, or to neighbours, or things like that.

Although the interviewed coparents knew this idea could be regarded as “traditional”, “old-fashioned” or the “mum-and-dad” family, it was the one that made most sense to them whilst also allowing for social conformity. For many, for a child to be raised by a biological mother and a biological father was the best way of becoming a family and reproducing the family model that they themselves valued. This seemed particularly important for the gay men who thought that a child needed to be breastfed. The biological connection with the mother gained through breastfeeding was often valued highly by the fathers and in their view, increased the mother’s very specific and central role with respect to the child.

Parental roles and biological relatedness

Coparents’ focus on the genetic tie and on the mother and father figures led them to differentiate clearly between the biological parents and their respective partners. The biological father and mother were the only ones to be called ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ by the child. Indeed, biological relationships with the children were perceived and acknowledged by almost all the interviewed coparents as being specific and thus putting the biological parents in a privileged position with regard to the child and the wider society. For example, in two cases, the father’s partner wanted to take part in parenting as a second father from the very outset. However, in both cases, they were hindered or prevented by their partner who wanted to remain the main paternal figure for the child. One biological father explained that he did not regard his partner as a full parent and did not allow him to make joint decisions regarding the child because, according to him, the genetic tie was “the only real one” and it gave some priority towards the child.

The involvement of the biological fathers’ partners was also usually less important than the mothers’ partners. Indeed, biological fathers’ partners often played a secondary role, both with respect to parental responsibilities and daily care-giving. One of the reasons was that most fathers’ partners did not want children, either because they thought it was incompatible with their life as a gay man or because they did not feel ready to raise a child. Also, the child usually spent the majority of the week with the mother, going to the father’s house at weekends. This type of living arrangement did not facilitate the fathers’ partners in taking a child-rearing role and becoming more committed towards the child, especially during the early months and years.

These factors contributed to making the biological father approach the parental project more individualistically than the mother and her partner, even though he was living with someone. This does not mean, however, that coparents did not value the relationship of the father’s partner with the child nor want him to be socially recognised in his very specific role of social coparent that they were creating and legitimating in various ways (Herbrand, 2008).

Conclusion

Gay coparents’ representations of kinship appeared to be deeply rooted in biological connections. This often went along with gendered parental roles, whose extent and perceived ‘naturalness’ varied according to the individuals concerned. This could especially be seen through their rejection of other parenting options. Therefore, unlike gay fathers studied in other research, coparents here did not attempt to ‘decentralize biology in kinship’ as was the case for the ‘families of choice’ studied by Weston (1991). Nor did they attempt to ‘create equality between parents precisely by establishing a figurative or literal sharing of blood between the non-biological [parent] and her child,’ as pointed out by Hayden (1995). Some of the gay men could have considered mixing their sperm before insemination, in order to cloud the issue of genetic paternity. Another possibility would have been for the biological father’s partner to become the legal father and thus rebalance the relationship. Yet, the men who were interviewed had never considered these possibilities. On the contrary, coparents were keen to make a clear distinction between the biological parents and the social coparents with regard to the child, even when the social coparent became involved with the child to the same extent as the biological parent. Although coparenting alters conventional family forms by creating and experimenting with multi-parenthood, it also shows that essentialist family norms based on biological father, mother and child remain of utmost importance and still have an influence on these men. The family configurations offered by coparenting arrangements can thus help to normalise these gay men’s parenthood, which could otherwise be seen as deviant.