Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Surrogacy

Join to connect with others in similar situations and discuss legal processes, costs, well-being, and types of surrogacy.

Gay surrogacy

231 replies

Queenieoh · 20/01/2026 19:19

My male gay best friend and his husband are using an American surrogate to have a baby. I am anti-surrogacy and finding it so hard to be supportive about it. I want them both to be happy but I really don't think this is the right thing to do. I know my opinion won't change their mind and most of our friends think surrogacy is fine. I guess I am not looking for advice, just some solidarity in the fact that buying a baby (for a huge sum of money) is wrong! They're even choosing the sex which is just so creepy IMO. Also, they're both very busy professionals so will undoubtedly have a nanny to raise the child... Why do people think they're entitled to have children?!

OP posts:
Unforgettablefire · 20/01/2026 23:29

BeMellowAquaSquid · 20/01/2026 21:49

I completely disagree with this statement. My sister has a dd by a male donor as she simply didnt meet a man she felt anywhere near suitable to have a child with and at 40 knew her time was running out. She went to Greece for treatment and my niece is a well loved, well grounded child. I’m glad she did it on her own and not with some half wit that could have potentially completely ruined my nieces life. There are millions of children whom ever know one parent who turn out perfectly fine. There’s probably millions more growing up in broken homes conceived the more conventional way that end up messed up individuals.

Great post x

LilyFeather · 20/01/2026 23:32

There is a couple on Instagram right now who have just bought a baby girl. Adam frisby and his partner. He is at pains to say to all the ‘haters’ who comment that this baby doesn’t have a mother. His exact words? ‘She doesn’t have a mum’ (in reply to those expressing concerns about her not being with her mother from birth)

the reason she doesn’t have a mum is that they used a donor egg and a separate woman to carry the baby. So they think they’ve created a baby with 2 dads and no mother

and they’re just fine with that. Anyone arguing with them over this point is just homophobic and a hater ..:

LilyFeather · 20/01/2026 23:34

We don’t take puppies away from their mum until they’re 8 weeks old. But it’s fine to remove a baby straight from the womb .

baffling

Areweoutofthewoodsyetgood · 20/01/2026 23:41

I know I'm going to be slated for this as it goes against the grain of most of the opinions on these threads but here goes! A few counter thoughts:

The argument that children need a "mother" and "father" is hugely old fashioned (and do you really think that the nuclear family was the norm for most of human history). I know a few solo mums by choice, I'd rather be their child then grow up in a dysfunctional relationship for example.

Lots of mothers work and use nannies, unless your friends are giving 24/7 care to a nanny which seems unlikely. Also I don't like the insinuation from some that all gay men are pedophiles and can't be trusted with children of a particular sex.

The vast majority of surrogates carry eggs that aren't theirs so they aren't the biological parent of the child. I think it's very subjective how people feel about this. I have friends who have used donor eggs but 100% feel like that child's parent. I know someone who was an altruistic surrogate multiple times (didn't get paid, completely her choice) and used her own eggs yet didn't see herself as those children's mother. I personally wouldn't be a surrogate and I have moral qualms about women being put through pregnancy for money. Particularly where its unregulated. The USA is probably a far better place to do it than other countries. However I don't see it as a child being ripped from its mother. Presumably one of the intended parents is the child's biological father whereas the surrogate isn't biologically related. Yes it is paying for a baby but so is ivf or using donor gametes.

My children are hugely attached to me as their mother because I'm their primary caregiver. If I'd tragically died in childbirth and someone else was doing the majority of care then they'd be as attached to them. As long as the children in question have a clear idea where they come from (explained to them from a young age) and a range of role models in their life I think it can be fine.

Anyway OP it sounds like you should phase out this friendship if you can't get over it ideologically.

Itsnotallaboutyoulikeyouthink · 20/01/2026 23:46

LilyFeather · 20/01/2026 23:32

There is a couple on Instagram right now who have just bought a baby girl. Adam frisby and his partner. He is at pains to say to all the ‘haters’ who comment that this baby doesn’t have a mother. His exact words? ‘She doesn’t have a mum’ (in reply to those expressing concerns about her not being with her mother from birth)

the reason she doesn’t have a mum is that they used a donor egg and a separate woman to carry the baby. So they think they’ve created a baby with 2 dads and no mother

and they’re just fine with that. Anyone arguing with them over this point is just homophobic and a hater ..:

I came here to say the exact same thing. It’s the denial that there is a mother. In actual fact that child has two mothers a biological mother and a surrogate mother without either that baby wouldn’t have been born.

I am a widow and to deny a child of a parent is abhorrent. I have seen what it’s done to my children but their situation was t by choice.

But if you state that to him you get called a fuck tard. They will use that baby for likes.
not even a week old and it’s face plastered all over the socials.

BeanQuisine · 21/01/2026 00:12

It's like those couples who buy an expensive pedigree dog to "keep up with the Joneses" and then basically ignore it.

Only even worse because it's a human being.

sittingonabeach · 21/01/2026 00:18

@BeMellowAquaSquid why did your sister go to Greece? Are donors anonymous in Greece? If that was the reason, then that is abhorrent

MagpiePi · 21/01/2026 08:47

I wonder how it feels when you find out that you were ordered and bought like a bespoke pair of shoes. I expect you would be told 'we wanted you so much we were prepared to pay a lot of money for you', but it must be hard to know that you are just a commodity. Especially if you discover how exploitative the surrogacy business can be.

Arran2024 · 21/01/2026 09:45

Areweoutofthewoodsyetgood · 20/01/2026 23:41

I know I'm going to be slated for this as it goes against the grain of most of the opinions on these threads but here goes! A few counter thoughts:

The argument that children need a "mother" and "father" is hugely old fashioned (and do you really think that the nuclear family was the norm for most of human history). I know a few solo mums by choice, I'd rather be their child then grow up in a dysfunctional relationship for example.

Lots of mothers work and use nannies, unless your friends are giving 24/7 care to a nanny which seems unlikely. Also I don't like the insinuation from some that all gay men are pedophiles and can't be trusted with children of a particular sex.

The vast majority of surrogates carry eggs that aren't theirs so they aren't the biological parent of the child. I think it's very subjective how people feel about this. I have friends who have used donor eggs but 100% feel like that child's parent. I know someone who was an altruistic surrogate multiple times (didn't get paid, completely her choice) and used her own eggs yet didn't see herself as those children's mother. I personally wouldn't be a surrogate and I have moral qualms about women being put through pregnancy for money. Particularly where its unregulated. The USA is probably a far better place to do it than other countries. However I don't see it as a child being ripped from its mother. Presumably one of the intended parents is the child's biological father whereas the surrogate isn't biologically related. Yes it is paying for a baby but so is ivf or using donor gametes.

My children are hugely attached to me as their mother because I'm their primary caregiver. If I'd tragically died in childbirth and someone else was doing the majority of care then they'd be as attached to them. As long as the children in question have a clear idea where they come from (explained to them from a young age) and a range of role models in their life I think it can be fine.

Anyway OP it sounds like you should phase out this friendship if you can't get over it ideologically.

I adopted two children from the care system and it is not as easy to just learn about your past and get on with it as you suggest.

Due to my experience and knowing hundreds of other adoptive families, I would say we mess with dna and child/parent relationships because it suits the adults, not the children.

No one in the surrogacy world wants to believe that there is a problem in handing babies over to commissioning parents -with hardly any background checks. They ignore adoption practice, which used to involve similar, until everyone realised how damaging it was for the babies.

Adoption practice now centres the child and services are expected to try to maintain links with biological family by looking for family members to adopt or have special guardianship, or offering a new baby to the family who already adopted a sibling. If that's not possible, ongoing contact with members of birth family is expected, unless birth family is deemed too dangerous.

UK surrogacy allows for the child to know its bio birth parents at 18. Of course hardly anyone does surrogacy here as you can't pay for eggs or surrogates other than give them expenses.

Agencies from America hold seminars here aimed specifically at gay men. There is something very wrong imo anout a big room full of men being advised, by other men, how to exploit women for their eggs and bombs, to then walk away from both of them and never let the child know either.

Men used to have to be involved with a woman to be a father. Now they can just skip that part out. Women are redundant other than as a service provider who can be discarded.

We don't know enough about the outcomes of surrogacy like this to say that the children will be OK. There have been cases of people in their 70s bringing children into the country - we cannot assume that people rich enough to use surrogacy will be ethical about what they do.

Imo there ARE particular issues with gay and single men using surrogacy. One is that they often have dual surrogates on the go at roughly the same time - so each man has his own baby. Adam Kay and his husband did this and complained about how exhausting it was. Alternatively they get the surrogate to carry both babies, each created with separate sperm.

The impact on the women, many of whom are tricked or forced into it, or who were too naive to understand how giving up a child never to see it again, is another thing. Surrogacy risks in pregnancy are much higher. The agencies take most of the money and the surrogates get a smallish fee. Often it is husbands forcing their wives to do it.

We should see this as the patriarchy finding a new way to dominate and exploit women and children imo. What started out as an altruistic act of sisterhood has become much more sinister.

SoIMO · 21/01/2026 10:38

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

ChangeIsDue · 21/01/2026 10:40

Why knock the nannying? One of my best friends is a nanny. She does WAY more for those kids than the other mums I know have time to, including myself. She collects them on time every day from school, organises something for them every day of the holidays, outings of all kinds, ensures that their tablet time is limited, plans interesting creative tasks for them on the days when they have nothing else on, hosts so many play dates, supports them with their homework, cooks nutritious meals from scratch for them every day. She takes them to all the out of school clubs their parents want them to. As far as I can see (and I know their parents as well) these kids have a wonderful existence.

I’m sure a good childminder for families with a different budget do so much too. Other families with both parents working (which is the norm now) will turn to grandparents.

Which of us really has the time and emotional strength to give ourselves completely to our children, no matter how much we love them, not matter how much we are their birth parents? Child care these days is completely the norm. It’s a weak argument against surrogacy.

SoIMO · 21/01/2026 10:40

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

LittleJustice · 21/01/2026 10:56

boxuponbox · 20/01/2026 20:00

I find it interesting, and a little depressing, that posters are mostly objecting to it from a women’s rights perspective.

I also object to deliberately creating a child who will never know their biological mother, or/and the mother who bore them.

Knowing one of your parents only conceived you for money must be damaging for most people.

it’s just wrong to do this. Commercial surrogacy prioritizes an adults right to parent over the child and I don’t agree with this.

Agree with this 💯

UpmingtonHeights · 21/01/2026 13:44

boxuponbox · 20/01/2026 20:00

I find it interesting, and a little depressing, that posters are mostly objecting to it from a women’s rights perspective.

I also object to deliberately creating a child who will never know their biological mother, or/and the mother who bore them.

Knowing one of your parents only conceived you for money must be damaging for most people.

it’s just wrong to do this. Commercial surrogacy prioritizes an adults right to parent over the child and I don’t agree with this.

I would have thought it clear that the primary objection is obvious.

This isn't a wider discussion on Surrogacy, but rather comments on the OP.

It goes without saying @boxuponbox - and many of us have repeatedly expressed our distress and sadness for the baby in these situations - that the horror and disgust we feel is, first and foremost for the infant.

boxuponbox · 21/01/2026 14:01

GrillaMilla · 20/01/2026 21:29

My friend commented on gay couples using a surrogate, and said it wasn't too bad for gay men to have a baby boy, but not a girl, as they need mums. As a mum of two boys, that upset me? Boys need mums too!

Yes you are right. The ideal is for children to have two parents, one of each sex.

boxuponbox · 21/01/2026 14:06

Arlanymor · 20/01/2026 21:34

To those who think that same sex couples shouldn't raise a child - how do they feel about single parent families where there is only ONE parent available? What's the difference? Two loving parents of the same sex is as valid as a single parent upbringing. I know it's a bit off topic but people do like to post before they think.

I think you should not deliberately create a child to be raised by only one parent.

Single parents who are single parents not by choice raise children in difficult circumstances. But I don't believe its right to deliberately create a child to be raised in that situation.

bumblingbovine49 · 21/01/2026 14:23

I disagree woth a lot of ivf treatments, though not all of course. My main objections are always from the point of view of what the child will have to live with as they grow up and find out about who they are.

I was desperate for a second child but my menopause hit at 39 so my only ivf option was an egg doner with dhs sperm and with the potential for me to carry the foetus possibly. I just kept imagining how I would explain to my not yet born child that their sibling had inherited his granparents ethnicity on my side but they had not and I new couldn't do it.

I know lots of people use donated sperm and it is accepted nowadays with apparently no real issues but I am uncomfortable even with that tbh. Surrogacy as in using someone to carry a pregancy to term is a massive step too far for me. I have less of an issue if a family member carries the pregnancy or donates the egg or spetm but that is my line

I think as long as the child knows whose sperm/egg it was, particularly if they related I can get on board and imagine how to explain it without a high risk of the child feeling othered in their own family but otherwise not really

Adoption is different as that is a done deal, but deliberately setting up your child to have unanswered questions about who and what their genetic heritage is, seems to be incredibly selfish to me

SouthOfSanity · 21/01/2026 17:00

Surrogacy should be banned. I don’t care whether it’s a gay or straight person/couple, it’s awful. Renting wombs and buying babies is wrong.

EspressoMachiato · 21/01/2026 18:17

It's utterly immoral and amounts to the commodification of the womb (usually the womb of a vulnerable/desperate woman) and the sale of a human being which is supposed to illegal.

It's individuality taken to its most extreme form and I really fear for the women and children who are being treated as commodities by pampered narcissists.

CremeEggsForBreakfast · 21/01/2026 19:03

MagpiePi · 20/01/2026 21:45

I consider surrogacy to be the commissioning and purchasing of another human being. Nothing at all like adoption where an existing child is in need of parents.

ETA: I wasn’t criticising your post, btw

Edited

I agree with you l. I was just trying to make the point that a child created through surrogacy has lost all connection to their biological and gestational family - just like an adopted child. They will literally have to be adopted by the commissioning parents. Yet there are not the same safeguards in place and the commissioning parents do not consider the trauma of losing that connection like an adoptive family do. Even when you adopt a newborn you will be trained and supported to manage the impact of your child losing their birth family but families that commission surrogacy do not do this - even though at a basic level (with all the emotions set aside for a moment) the situation is exactly the same.

You are creating a human in order to adopt it. You are creating a human child in order to remove it from its parents.

Your terms place emphasis on the morality of the commissioning parents. The terms I used place emphasis on the effect it has on the child. Both are jarring and necessary when having a rounded discussion on the effects of surrogacy on all parties.

Justlovedogs · 21/01/2026 19:59

boxuponbox · 20/01/2026 20:00

I find it interesting, and a little depressing, that posters are mostly objecting to it from a women’s rights perspective.

I also object to deliberately creating a child who will never know their biological mother, or/and the mother who bore them.

Knowing one of your parents only conceived you for money must be damaging for most people.

it’s just wrong to do this. Commercial surrogacy prioritizes an adults right to parent over the child and I don’t agree with this.

I understand the arguments from the woman's perspective, @boxuponboxbut I am wholly anti because of the child.
Slavery was abolished because treating human beings as commodities to be bought and sold is wrong and inhumane, so why do so many people think it's OK to buy or sell a baby/child? I find it quite baffling that this could ever be considered normal.

Daytimetellyqueen · 21/01/2026 22:21

Me too @Justlovedogs

Areweoutofthewoodsyetgood · 21/01/2026 22:37

@Arran2024 Children in care have often very complex backgrounds and early trauma so I don't think it's a direct comparison really.

Maybe children from donor gametes will all be really fucked up but I personally think as long as it isn't a big secret or a shameful thing then they probably won't be. It's becoming increasingly commonplace and normalised (I know at least five people who've used eggs or sperm donation). I'm talking about the range of using donor eggs or sperm here and not just surrogacy.

Areweoutofthewoodsyetgood · 21/01/2026 22:43

CremeEggsForBreakfast · 21/01/2026 19:03

I agree with you l. I was just trying to make the point that a child created through surrogacy has lost all connection to their biological and gestational family - just like an adopted child. They will literally have to be adopted by the commissioning parents. Yet there are not the same safeguards in place and the commissioning parents do not consider the trauma of losing that connection like an adoptive family do. Even when you adopt a newborn you will be trained and supported to manage the impact of your child losing their birth family but families that commission surrogacy do not do this - even though at a basic level (with all the emotions set aside for a moment) the situation is exactly the same.

You are creating a human in order to adopt it. You are creating a human child in order to remove it from its parents.

Your terms place emphasis on the morality of the commissioning parents. The terms I used place emphasis on the effect it has on the child. Both are jarring and necessary when having a rounded discussion on the effects of surrogacy on all parties.

If it is a straight couple using a surrogate, say because the woman can't carry a child, then the child is usually completely biologically theirs though- her sperm, his egg. So they aren't losing their connection to their biological family. That is their biological family.

If its a gay couple its a bit more complex as its usually one of their sperms and a donor egg. But again one of them is biologically related to the child. The surrogate is usually not.

These are just the facts. Not getting into the ethics of the relationship of the gestational carrier to the child.

Swipe left for the next trending thread