Gays With Kids founders Brian and Ferd Ferguson with their children
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com
As LGBTQ+ family-building becomes more common, the options for creating a family have become more complex. One new national organization — GWK Academy — works with several partner organizations and specialists presents all the options. Now, GWK Academy is bringing its Path to Parenthood Roadshow to the Interfaith Peace Chapel at Cathedral of Hope from 6-9 p.m. on Sept. 16.
For anyone wondering where to begin in building a family, this event is a good place to start. Among the presenters will be Brian Rosenberg, who created Gays With Kids and the GWK Academy, and Kristen Hanson of Simple Surrogacy, a Dallas-based agency that’s the oldest surrogacy organization in Texas.
Gays With Kids
Brian Rosenberg created Gays With Kids as an organization for gay men with kids to tell their stories to other gay men planning to have children. If his name’s familiar, you may have seen him on The Today Show earlier this month.
“I launched Gays With Kids after we became parents,” Rosenberg said of himself and his husband, Ferd. “We didn’t feel confident about anything. We came out of meetings with more questions than before.”
Rosenberg explained their son came to them through adoption, but his twin girls were the result of surrogacy — something Rosenberg thought wouldn’t be an option to him, because he’s HIV-positive. But surrogacy with a poz dad can be done safely for the women carrying the pregnancy, he explained.
“So we started with, ‘We’ll tell stories,’” he said. “As many stories as possible.”
They launched their storytelling project in 2014 and inspired people and changed hearts and minds, he said.
The stories described how each individual or couple became a parent to help others thinking about parenting make informed decisions about traditional adoption, foster to adopt, surrogacy, in vitro fertilization and other donor conception options.
After its inception in 2014, GWK was getting 10-to-12 new members a month and making money by getting referral fees from agencies. That led to creating the academy.
Stories are important, but Rosenberg said they wanted to teach LGBTQ+ people, step-by-step, how to become parents — using every available option.
They applied for their nonprofit status, which was granted last year. And they made another decision: To reach as many people as possible, the classes would be free, and they’d stop taking referral fees.
They also expanded their mission from is focus of helping gay men have children to helping all LGBTQ+ people wanting to become oparents.
“We now have courses for queer women,” Rosenberg said. “We have a trans dad who does coaching calls.”
And they’re now adding 10 to 12 new members a week with funding coming from grants and major gifts as well as smaller donations they receive at events.
Options for parenthood
Rosenberg said there are several options to grow a family, but where is the best place to start?
“I always thought I was going to be a dad,” he said. But after he was diagnosed as HIV-positive in the 1990s, he thought his dream had become impossible. But by 1997, HIV had become a manageable condition. And by 1999, Rosenberg had started thinking about becoming a parent again.
He and Ferd became dads in 2009.
Gays With Kids is partnering with the national organization Family Equality, which lists Gays With Kids as a family-building partner, he explained.
“Right now we have good laws governing surrogacy and adoption, but they’re under attack,” he said, “especially in red states.” The Texas Senate held hearings on the subject earlier this month, and the only speakers were people who oppose any form of surrogacy.
As some advice to anyone planning to become a parent, Rosenberg said, “If you’re not fully comfortable being a gay person, you better learn.” LGBTQ+ parents are always coming out, he explained — to doctors, teachers and just about anyone else. And if you don’t come out yourself, your kids will come out for you.
Simple Surrogacy
One of the organizations participating in GWK Academy in Dallas is Simple Surrogacy, the oldest surrogacy organization in Texas and one of the largest. Company founder Stephanie Scott said about 95 percent of her clients are LGBTQ+. And they are part of every step in the process.
First comes finding surrogates.
“Surrogates often find us,” Scott said, although her company is on social media and advertises occasionally. Some come from referrals from other surrogates who’ve had a good experience.
The potential surrogate goes through a credit check, insurance reviews and interviews. If she has a spouse, the spouse must be supportive. She has to be in top shape medically, not be on anti-depressant meds and have a good body mass index. Another consideration is whether she can cover her own cost of living and whether she is on financial assistance, Scott said.
“We want her in a stable home environment so she can focus on carrying the baby,” Scott said.
She said that using a friend for your surrogate can be very successful because there’s already a level of trust there — well, as long as the surrogate understands, “This is their baby, not mine. I’m doing this to create someone else’s family,” Scott said.
And Simple Surrogacy provides counseling to help potential surrogates with that.
Those considering surrogacy should make sure all the right legal documents are in place, including a gestational surrogacy agreement and a pre-birth order, which names the intended parents and puts both dads’ names on the birth certificate without having to get a court order.
Once eggs have been fertilized and implanted in the surrogate, the remaining eggs are stored for possible future use. Parents pay an annual storage fee.
“I counsel not to keep embryos forever,” Scott said. “I’ve had numerous gay couples donating to other gay couples. Then those embryos get life.”
She noted that straight couples don’t donate as frequently.
While surrogates have to qualify before being chosen, potential parents must qualify as well. One condition of being chosen to be matched with a surrogate is that there must be a medical reason for hiring a surrogate.
Being in a same-sex relationship would qualify. For women, an inability to get pregnant — having gone through menopause or having had a hysterectomy, for example, would qualify them. Risk factors increase with age, so a woman in her 40s would also qualify.
For a trans man with female reproductive organs, there’s a possibility of pregnancy. But the hormones taken might interfere with being able to get pregnant or maintain a pregnancy.
Scott said gay men taking testosterone may have fertility problems as well.
But, she said, she won’t take as a potential mother a woman who just doesn’t want to ruin her figure with a pregnancy when she can ruin someone else’s for the right price.
At Simple Surrogacy, Scott said, they’ll hold your hand through the process, adding that, “Everyone who works at my agency has been through the program.”
If you’d like to be a surrogate or have a child through surrogacy, reach out. They’ll send you a guide to becoming a parent through surrogacy. Or meet someone from the agency at GWK Academy. Or visit the website: SimpleSurrogacy.com.
Expect a background check. Scott said they won’t work with intended parents who show up on the sex offender registry — and you’d be surprised how many times that’s happened. Then there’s a psychological evaluation, a medical records review and a home visit.
And then, if you’re chosen as a Simple Surrogacy client, expect to be pampered.
Path to Parenthood takes place on Sept. 16 from 6-9 p.m. at the Interfaith Peace Chapel, 5910 Cedar Springs Road. Free but a donation of $25 supports the work of GWK Academy. Online registration at no charge is required at GWKAcademy.org/gwk-academy-roadshow-dallas.
Gay Parent Magazine
Gay Parent Magazine has been an LGBTQ+ parenting resource since 1998. Although it started as an in-print publication, during the pandemic the magazine went online only.
Each issue features a profile of a family headed by LGBTQ+ parents. Cover features have included lesbian parents Melissa Etheridge and Wanda Sykes. Part of each story is how they grew their family, whether through adoption or surrogacy or some other method.
In addition, the website features resources such as an LGBTQ-friendly adoption agency and foster care directory, an LGBTQ-friendly reproduction and surrogacy directory, an LGBTQ-friendly independent schools and preschools directory and an LGBTQ-friendly day camps, overnight camps and summer programs directory.
“GPM’s focus is on supporting LGBTQ parents and LGBTQ individuals wishing to become first-time parents,” the magazine’s publisher Angeline Acain explains on the website. “On our pages, parents speak candidly about their experiences with adoption, foster care, egg and sperm donors, surrogacy, parenting with an ex, coming out after being in a straight marriage, co-parenting, divorce and custody issues and discrimination.”
Visit GayParentMag.com.
— David Taffet