Dr. Doyle on ethical surrogacy practices – Paris 2011

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Dr. Doyle of CT Fertility Calls for Ethical Surrogacy Standards in Groundbreaking Paris Conference, Challenging the French to Embrace the Practice

  9.28.2011 – PRWEB.com

American experts, a surrogate mother, French parents and academics weighed in on a topic that divides France, where surrogacy is still illegal. Instead of pros or cons, they concentrated on providing guidelines on how surrogacy can be carried out ethically. The ethical principles Dr. Doyle outlined include fully informing and protecting surrogates and donors from medical and psychological risks, treating them with dignity and respect, and considering the long term well being of all involved, including the surrogates’ families, and the children they help create.

Paris, France (PRWEB) September 28, 2011

Surrogacy in France is illegal and still controversial, yet an increasing number of French people who cannot have children on their own are turning to various surrogacy and egg donation arrangements abroad. Attempts to change the law are hotly debated and even presidential candidates are taking sides. Yet in a recent groundbreaking Paris conference hosted by the French organization ADFH, several American and French experts weighed in for the first time not on the merits of the practice, but on how it could be done in a more ethical manner. While political debates often over-simplify, “every surrogacy journey is different,” said Dr. Michael Doyle, an American IVF and surrogacy expert, as he laid out the ways clinics, agencies and prospective parents can assert control and shape their surrogacy journey in line with their moral convictions.

The “Ethical Surrogacy Journeys” seminar took place on September 19, 2011, in a packed wedding hall at Paris’s 3ème municipal building. In addition to Dr. Michael Doyle, the panel also included Karen Synesiou of Center for Surrogate Parenting, Dr. Kim Bergman, a psychologist who works with parents and surrogates at the Growing Generations agency, Colleen Iversen, an American surrogate mother, Alexandre Urwicz and Hervé Lancelin, co-presidents of ADFH, Dominique Mennesson, a French parent and the president of CLARA, and the French sociologist Irène Théry.

“We must remember, realize and embrace that this is not just a financial transaction, that this is much more than a sequence of medical procedures, since we are creating new families and bonding existing families to each other,” said Dr. Doyle. “The role of the medical clinic is to maximize the efficiency and quality of the services, minimize the risk that each party is subjected to, and to control the costs of that process. It is essential that the physician fully informs everyone involves concerning the medical steps, alternatives and risks”, he added, “even though fortunately these risks are now extremely rare and can be further minimized with adequate screening, tests and treatment protocols.” For instance, “minimizing the risk for surrogates involves transferring the fewest number of embryos of the highest quality, which increasingly in the United States is a single embryo transfer. It is also important that we support and consider the well being of all the parties, including the surrogate’s entire family, and the future children that will result from the decisions that we make today,” said Dr. Doyle.

Colleen Iversen shared her experience being a two-time gestational surrogate for a couple that with severe infertility problems. As one of the CT Fertility’s staff she witnessed the couple’s failed attempts have a baby on their own, until she finally stepped up and offered to become the couple’s surrogate herself. “I didn’t do this for financial gain,” said Colleen. Similarly to many gestational surrogates she met working at the clinic, Colleen had several easy pregnancies carrying her own children, and felt empathy towards this couple and a strong urge to help fulfill their dream of becoming parents. “Was I compensated? Yes. But was I putting my body through risks? Yes. My 5th and final pregnancy resulted in hospital bed rest where I was unable to care for my children, unable to go to work, and the health of the baby inside of me became my sole focus until the birth,” she recounted. Indeed she understands why the financial compensation is something that intended parents insist on: “if they hadn’t paid me I think they would have felt terrible putting me through all those cycles, and would have given up prematurely.” Despite the medical risks and hardships, looking back at her experience Colleen stated that she was honored to be a surrogate and “knowing that I have forever changed the lives of one family will never lead me to regret my decision to do this.”

Questions from the audience included requests for practical advise, but also concerned that surrogates may be exploited, perhaps by business women who may wish to hire a surrogate just to avoid disrupting their careers. Both Karen Synesiou of CSP and Dr. Doyle clarified that such women will not be accepted to their program, as prospective parents are also screened for their motivation and their willingness to support and treat the surrogate with respect. “There will always be unscrupulous people who may wish to exploit and take advantage of others, and it is the responsibility of those of us in the practice to maintain the highest possible ethical and professional standards and refuse to cooperate in these individuals,” replied Dr. Doyle and was greeted by applause from the audience. He challenged the self-declared feminist who asked the question not to doubt the ability of other women to make decisions that are in their best interest. “I speak from my experience with the numerous women I have worked with, as Colleen has just articulated, who say surrogacy has been one of the most empowering experiences of their life.”

Another questioner voiced concerns about babies that may be abandoned due to birth defects, and that surrogacy could lead to more questionable practices like cloning. “It is easy to take a topic like surrogacy that may seem different and challenging, and link it to things like cloning, birth defects, or embryo biopsy, that are not specific to surrogacy,” replied Dr. Doyle. “These may be worthy topics for ethical discussion some other time, but should not be used to attack the very valid notion of surrogacy which we hope you can as a culture and as a nation embrace.”

in IVF / Legal / Legislation / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Anderson Cooper, Rodemeyer Parents Confront Bullies

Advocate.com by Diane Anderson-Minshall

October 4, 2011

On Monday’s special anti-bullying episode of Anderson Cooper, the talk show host spoke with Tracy and Timothy Rodemeyer, parents of Jamey Rodemeyer, a gay teen who took his own life only weeks ago after constant bullying became too much for him to bear. The heartbreaking episode was taped just nine days after Rodemeyer was found hanging from his swing set by his sister.

While photos of a cute and cherubic Rodemeyer flashed on screen, his mother solemnly told Cooper, “It is the same swing set that he was on since he was three years old. That we built special for them.”

Jamey’s sister, Alyssa, performed a tribute song she wrote for her brother. She courageously admits to her own bullying behavior, apologizes for her wrongs and shares how Jamey’s death has affected her.

Cooper introduced the Rodemeyers to the Jacobsens, another family mourning the loss of their son to suicide over bullying, in hopes that these families can support each other as they grieve. Cooper also spoke with a bullying survivor, Emily Carey, and her mother, Carla. And Dr. Dorothy Espelage offered up tips for parents and the community on what they can do to help prevent bullying, and how to tell if something is going on with a child.

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Gay Marriage Foe NOM Pours Water On Jared Polis Birth Announcement

By On Top Magazine Staff
Published: October 03, 2011

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) on Monday criticized Colorado Rep. Jared Polis’ announcement of his son Caspian Julius.

On Friday, Polis and his domestic partner, writer Marlon Reis, announced the birth of Caspian, making Polis, who is serving his second term in office, the first openly gay parent in Congress.

“Baby and parents are doing well, [and] baby has learned to cry already!” Polis and Reis said in an emailed birth announcement. “No gifts please, just nice thoughts for Caspian, humankind, the planet, and the universe!”

Caspian Julius weighed in at 8 pounds, 12 ounces.

“We have no clue whether it was a planned motherless family or whether he and his partner stepped in to give a motherless child a family – since he will not say,” NOM wrote in a blog post titled Rep. Jared Polis Announces With Pride His Child Has No Mother.

“But he and his partner are proud to announce they were both ‘very excited to become new parents.’”

What Polis has not discussed is whether the child was adopted or conceived through a surrogate pregnancy.

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CENSUS: California has more same-sex couples than other states

SDGLN.com Staff
September 29th, 2011

Editor’s note: These estimates include only couples where one partner is identified as being the spouse of the person who owns or rents the house.

SAN DIEGO – California leads the nation with the most same-sex couples, according to the 2010 Census.

The Golden State had 98,153 same-sex couples, followed by New York with 48,932, Florida with 48,496 and Texas with 46,401. North Dakota had the fewest same-sex couples with 559, just ahead of Wyoming with 657 and South Dakota with 714.

Among the nation’s largest cities with a population over 250,000, San Diego ranked No. 5 with 5,910 same-sex couples. Los Angeles was No. 1 with 13,292, followed by Chicago with 10,849, San Francisco with 10,461 and Seattle with 6,537.

The U.S. Census Bureau this week released revised estimates on same-sex married couple and unmarried partner households: There were 131,729 same-sex married couple households and 514,735 same-sex unmarried partner households in the United States.

The 2010 Census marked the first time the Census Bureau tracked information about same-sex spouses.

Gay groups react

Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, noted that the organization worked closely with the Census Bureau to document data on same-sex households.

“The data … represent another step in erasing the invisibility of our lives. No longer are our marriages rendered invisible in the snapshot of our country provided through the census. And no longer can anyone ignore the presence of our relationships all across the country,” Carey said.

“While this marks a huge step forward, it is not the end of the journey. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals still are not counted in the census or dozens of other surveys that are supposed to reflect the diversity of people in America. When LGBT people are not counted, we don’t ‘count’ when it comes to money for services, resources and programs.

“Census and other data are the basis for how the government spends billions of dollars each year. Without an accurate count, LGBT people are forced to go without funding for real, everyday services and remain virtually nonexistent in the eyes of our government. This is unacceptable. We continue to work with policymakers to ensure LGBT people are included in data collection on a broad spectrum of critical issues, including those involving our health, our families, our economic well-being, our safety and much more,” Carey said.

Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, applauded the data.

“The Census Bureau’s most recent estimates of same-sex couples reiterate the need to end marriage discrimination once and for all. The number of gay and lesbian couples in committed, loving relationships, raising families together, continues to grow, leaving more and more families without the critical safety-net of marriage,” Wolfson said.

“These findings also confirm that those who most need the support marriage offers – particularly in these tough economic times – live in the places with the fewest protections. The South is home to more gay parents than any other region in the nation. And yet, these families are not only discriminated against by their home states, which exclude them from marriage and bar even lesser protections such as civil union and domestic partnership, but are also targeted for an additional layer of discrimination from the federal government under the so-called Defense of Marriage Act,” he said.

“When DOMA was stampeded into law back in 1996, no gay couples were married anywhere in the world; Congress was voting on a hypothetical. Now we have Census confirmed couples across the country who are harmed by this unconscionable law. In the United States, we don’t have second-class citizens, and we shouldn’t have second-class marriages. It’s time to follow the Golden Rule and the Constitution and end marriage discrimination once and for all.”

Census Bureau explains why it revised its numbers

The results of the 2010 Census revised estimates are closer to the results of the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS) for same-sex married and unmarried partners. The 2010 ACS estimated same-sex married couples at 152,335 and same-sex unmarried partners at 440,989.

The new, preferred figures revise earlier estimates of same-sex unmarried partners released this summer from the 2010 Census Summary File 1 because Census Bureau staff discovered an inconsistency in the responses in the 2010 Census summary file statistics that artificially inflated the number of same-sex couples.

In addition, a breakdown of couples who reported as same-sex spouses is now available. The summary file counts originally showed that there were 349,377 married couple households and 552,620 same-sex unmarried partner households.

Statistics on same-sex couple households are derived from two questions on the census and ACS questionnaire: relationship to householder and the sex of each person. When data were captured for these two questions on the 2010 Census door-to-door form, the wrong box may have been checked for the sex of a small percentage of opposite-sex spouses and unmarried partners. Because the population of opposite-sex married couples is large and the population of same-sex married couples in particular is small, an error of this type artificially inflates the number of same-sex married partners.

New methodology implemented

After discovering the inconsistency, Census Bureau staff developed another set of estimates to provide a more accurate way to measure same-sex couple households. The revised figures were developed by using an index of names to re-estimate the number of same-sex married and unmarried partners by the sex commonly associated with the person’s first name.

“We understand how important it is for all groups to have accurate statistics that reflect who we are as a nation,” Census Bureau Director Robert Groves said. “As scientists, we noticed the inconsistency and developed the revised estimates to provide a more accurate portrait of the number of same-sex couples. We’re providing all three — the revised, original and ACS estimates — together to provide users with the full, transparent picture of our current measurement of same-sex couples.”

The 2010 Census preferred estimates have been peer-reviewed by Gary Gates, a demographer with the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, by Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and by Megan Sweeney, professor of sociology at UCLA. These experts concluded the methodology behind these revised estimates was sound.

All three sets of estimates are available at both the national and state levels and provide estimates of the presence of the couple’s own children. The 2010 Census revised estimates provide a 10-year benchmark, while the ACS estimates are useful for looking at a yearly time series.

in In the News / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

In Study, Fatherhood Leads to Drop in Testosterone

September 12, 2011
New York Times
By PAM BELLUCK

This is probably not the news most fathers want to hear.

Testosterone, that most male of hormones, takes a dive after a man becomes a parent. And the more he gets involved in caring for his children — changing diapers, jiggling the boy or girl on his knee, reading “Goodnight Moon” for the umpteenth time — the lower his testosterone drops.

So says the first large study measuring testosterone in men when they were single and childless and several years after they had children. Experts say the research has implications for understanding the biology of fatherhood, hormone roles in men and even health issues like prostate cancer.

“The real take-home message,” said Peter Ellison, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard who was not involved in the study, is that “male parental care is important. It’s important enough that it’s actually shaped the physiology of men.”

“Unfortunately,” Dr. Ellison added, “I think American males have been brainwashed” to believe lower testosterone means that “maybe you’re a wimp, that it’s because you’re not really a man.

“My hope would be that this kind of research has an impact on the American male. It would make them realize that we’re meant to be active fathers and participate in the care of our offspring.”

The study, experts say, suggests that men’s bodies evolved hormonal systems that helped them commit to their families once children were born. It also suggests that men’s behavior can affect hormonal signals their bodies send, not just that hormones influence behavior. And, experts say, it underscores that mothers were meant to have child care help.

“This is part of the guy being invested in the marriage,” said Carol Worthman, an anthropologist at Emory University who also was not involved in the study. Lower testosterone, she said, is the father’s way of saying, “ ‘I’m here, I’m not looking around, I’m really toning things down so I can have good relationships.’ What’s great about this study is it lays it on the table that more is not always better. Faster, bigger, stronger — no, not always.”

Experts said the study was a significant contribution to hormone research because it tested men before and after becoming fathers and involved many participants: 600 men in the Cebu Province of the Philippines who are participating in a larger, well-respected health study following babies who were born in 1983 and 1984.

Testosterone was measured when the men were 21 and single, and again nearly five years later. Although testosterone naturally decreases with age, men who became fathers showed much greater declines, more than double that of the childless men.

And men who spent more than three hours a day caring for children — playing, feeding, bathing, toileting, reading or dressing them — had the lowest testosterone.

“It could almost be demonized, like, ‘Oh my God, fathers, don’t take care of your kids because your testosterone will drop way down,’ ” said Lee Gettler, an anthropologist at Northwestern University and co-author of the study, published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “But this should be viewed as, ‘Oh it’s great, women aren’t the only ones biologically adapted to be parents.’

“Humans give birth to incredibly dependent infants. Historically, the idea that men were out clubbing large animals and women were staying behind with babies has been largely discredited. The only way mothers could have highly needy offspring every couple of years is if they were getting help.”

Smaller studies, measuring just snapshots in time, found fathers have lower testosterone, but they could not establish whether fatherhood brought testosterone down or lower-testosterone men were just more likely to become fathers.

In the new study, said Christopher Kuzawa, a co-author and Northwestern anthropologist, having higher testosterone to start with “actually predicted that they’re more likely to become fathers,” possibly because men with higher testosterone were more assertive in competing for women or appeared healthier and more attractive. But regardless of initial testosterone level, after having children, the hormone plummeted.

Scientists say this suggests a biological trade-off, with high testosterone helping secure a mate, but reduced testosterone better for sustaining family life.

“A dad with lower testosterone is maybe a little more sensitive to cues from his child, and maybe he’s a little less sensitive to cues from a woman he meets at a restaurant,” said Peter Gray, an anthropologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who has conducted unrelated research on testosterone in fathers.

The study did not examine specific effects on men’s behavior, like whether those with smaller drops in testosterone were more likely to be neglectful or aggressive. It also did not examine the roles played by other hormones or whether factors like stress or sleeplessness contributed to a decline in testosterone.

Other studies have suggested, though not as definitively, that behavior and relationships affect testosterone levels. A study of Air Force veterans showed that testosterone climbed back up after men were divorced. A study of Harvard Business School students found that those in committed romantic relationships had lower testosterone than those who were not. Another study found that fathers in a Tanzanian group known for involved parenting had low testosterone, while those from a neighboring culture without active fathering did not.

Similar results have been found in birds and in mammals like marmosets, said Toni Ziegler, a senior scientist at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center.

Experts say the new testosterone study could offer insight into men’s medical conditions, particularly prostate cancer. Higher lifetime testosterone levels increase the risk of prostate cancer, just as higher estrogen exposure increases breast cancer risk.

“Fathers who spend a lot of time in fathering roles might have lower long-term exposure to testosterone,” reducing their risk, Dr. Ellison said.

Many questions remain. Does testosterone, which appeared to decline most steeply in fathers during their child’s first month, rebound as children become older and less dependent? How often do levels fluctuate?

To read the complete article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/health/research/13testosterone.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fnational%2Findex.jsonp

in Parenting / Personal Stories  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

One Sperm Donor, 150 Offspring

September 5, 2011

New York Times

By JACQUELINE MROZ

Cynthia Daily and her partner used a sperm donor to conceive a baby seven years ago, and they hoped that one day their son would get to know some of his half siblings — an extended family of sorts for modern times.

So Ms. Daily searched a Web-based registry for other children fathered by the same donor and helped to create an online group to track them. Over the years, she watched the number of children in her son’s group grow.

And grow.

Today there are 150 children, all conceived with sperm from one donor, in this group of half siblings, and more are on the way. “It’s wild when we see them all together — they all look alike,” said Ms. Daily, 48, a social worker in the Washington area who sometimes vacations with other families in her son’s group.

As more women choose to have babies on their own, and the number of children born through artificial insemination increases, outsize groups of donor siblings are starting to appear. While Ms. Daily’s group is among the largest, many others comprising 50 or more half siblings are cropping up on Web sites and in chat groups, where sperm donors are tagged with unique identifying numbers.

Now, there is growing concern among parents, donors and medical experts about potential negative consequences of having so many children fathered by the same donors, including the possibility that genes for rare diseases could be spread more widely through the population. Some experts are even calling attention to the increased odds of accidental incest between half sisters and half brothers, who often live close to one another.

“My daughter knows her donor’s number for this very reason,” said the mother of a teenager conceived via sperm donation in California who asked that her name be withheld to protect her daughter’s privacy. “She’s been in school with numerous kids who were born through donors. She’s had crushes on boys who are donor children. It’s become part of sex education” for her.

Critics say that fertility clinics and sperm banks are earning huge profits by allowing too many children to be conceived with sperm from popular donors, and that families should be given more information on the health of donors and the children conceived with their sperm. They are also calling for legal limits on the number of children conceived using the same donor’s sperm and a re-examination of the anonymity that cloaks many donors.

“We have more rules that go into place when you buy a used car than when you buy sperm,” said Debora L. Spar, president of Barnard College and author of “The Baby Business: How Money, Science and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception.” “It’s very clear that the dealer can’t sell you a lemon, and there’s information about the history of the car. There are no such rules in the fertility industry right now.”

Although other countries, including Britain, France and Sweden, limit how many children a sperm donor can father, there is no such limit in the United States. There are only guidelines issued by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, a professional group that recommends restricting conceptions by individual donors to 25 births per population of 800,000.

No one knows how many children are born in this country each year using sperm donors. Some estimates put the number at 30,000 to 60,000, perhaps more. Mothers of donor children are asked to report a child’s birth to the sperm bank voluntarily, but just 20 to 40 percent of them do so, said Wendy Kramer, founder of the Donor Sibling Registry.

Because of this dearth of records, many families turn to the registry’s Web site, donorsiblingregistry.com, for information about a child’s half brothers or half sisters.

Ms. Kramer, who had her son, Ryan, through a sperm donor, started the registry in 2000 to help connect so-called donor families. On the Web site, parents can register the birth of a child and find half siblings by looking up a number assigned to a sperm donor. Many parents, she said, are shocked to learn just how many half siblings a child has.

“They think their daughter may have a few siblings,” Ms. Kramer said, “but then they go on our site and find out their daughter actually has 18 brothers and sisters. They’re freaked out. I’m amazed that these groups keep growing and growing.”

Ms. Kramer said that some sperm banks in the United States have treated donor families unethically and that it is time to consider new legislation.

“Just as it’s happened in many other countries around the world,” Ms. Kramer said, “we need to publicly ask the questions ‘What is in the best interests of the child to be born?’ and ‘Is it fair to bring a child into the world who will have no access to knowing about one half of their genetics, medical history and ancestry?’

“These sperm banks are keeping donors anonymous, making women babies and making a lot of money. But nowhere in that formula is doing what’s right for the donor families.”

Many of those questions were debated in Britain shortly after the birth there, in 1978, of Louise Brown, the first baby born using in vitro fertilization. In 1982, the British government appointed a committee, led by Mary Warnock, a well-known English philosopher, to look into the issues surrounding reproductive health.

The groundbreaking Warnock Report contained a list of recommendations, including regulation of the sale of human sperm and embryos and strict limits on how many children a donor could father (10 per donor). The regulations have become a model for industry practices in other countries.

“It is quite unpredictable what the ultimate effect on the gene pool of a society might be if donors were permitted to donate as many times as they chose,” Baroness Warnock wrote recently in an e-mail.

Without limits, the same donor could theoretically produce hundreds of related children. And it is even possible that accidental incest could occur among hundreds of half siblings, said Naomi R. Cahn, a law professor at George Washington University and the author of “Test Tube Families: Why the Fertility Markets Need Legal Regulation.”

Sperm donors, too, are becoming concerned. “When I asked specifically how many children might result, I was told nobody knows for sure but that five would be a safe estimate,” said a sperm donor in Texas who asked that his name be withheld because of privacy concerns. “I was told that it would be very rare for a donor to have more than 10 children.”

He later discovered in the Donor Sibling Registry that some donors had dozens of children listed. “It was all about whatever they could get away with,” he said of the sperm bank to which he donated. “It is unfair and reprehensible to the donor families, donors and donor children.”

To read the entire article, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06donor.html?_r=1&hp

in Anonymous/Known Donation  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

New Numbers, and Geography, for Gay Couples

By SABRINA TAVERNISE – New York Times – August 25, 2011

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. — So much for San Francisco.

The list of top cities for same-sex couples as a portion of the population does not include that traditional gay mecca, according to new census data. In fact, the city, which ranked third in 1990 and 11th in 2000, plummeted to No. 28 in 2010. And West Hollywood, once No. 1, has dropped out of the top five.

The Census Bureau data, finalized this week and analyzed by Gary Gates, a demographer at the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, gives the clearest picture to date of same-sex couples in America. In absolute numbers, they jumped by half in the past decade, to 901,997.

Most surprising is how far same-sex couples have dispersed, moving from traditional enclaves and safe havens into farther-flung areas of the country.

Consider, for example, the upstarts on the list: Pleasant Ridge, Mich., a suburb of Detroit; New Hope, Pa.; and this beach town in southern Delaware. All three have been popular destinations for gay people locally but had never ranked in the top 10.

The No. 1-ranked town is Provincetown, Mass., at the tip of Cape Cod.

The reordering reflects a growing influence of baby boomers, who became adults in the 1960s and 1970s, when the social stigma was starting to ease, and are more willing than previous generations to stand up and be counted, Mr. Gates said.

Now that generation, arguably the first in history with such a large contingent that is out, is beginning to retire, and its life transition is showing up in the data, with older cities as the new popular choices.

“As the baby boomer generation ages into retirement,” Mr. Gates said, “we see its impact really strongly in the geography.”

The pattern was in evidence in Rehoboth Beach, a family resort town of 1,300, which was fourth on the list of same-sex couples per capita and did not figure in the top 10 rankings in 1990 or 2000.

“The change was pretty dramatic,” said Rick McReynolds, 58, a resident. “It used to be all these boys,” but now, he said, the gay population in town is older and has less of a singles scene.

But people who used to party here, like Bob Moore, a retired communications professor from Pennsylvania, have since returned with their partners to live. Mr. Moore, who came out in his 40s, after two children and a divorce, said he and his partner were looking for a place that was gay friendly, but not an exclusive enclave.

“We liked the fact that it was gay without being the Castro” neighborhood of San Francisco, said Mr. Moore, 59, who was sitting with his partner, Steve Ortleib, in Rigby’s Bar and Grill on Tuesday night.

He said they had visited four top retirement destinations for same-sex couples — two in California and two in Florida — before settling on Rehoboth.

In interviews in San Francisco on Tuesday, several gay people said the city attracted people who did not always want to become part of a couple. The census does not ask about sexual orientation.

“You settle down in small towns because there is not much to choose from,” said Nick Meinzer, 41, a hairstylist who works on Castro Street. “In urban areas we wait longer to settle down. I’ve been single for two years. They’re not counting those of us who are single.”

Of the top cities like Pleasant Ridge, Mr. Meinzer said: “I’ve never even heard of those places. You’d think if they were so great you’d have heard of them.”

Dennis Ziebell, 61, the owner of Orphan Andy’s, a Castro neighborhood diner he opened 35 years ago, said he did not believe the count was accurate. “Take another survey, that’s all I can say,” he said. “I’ve been in a relationship for 36 years and nobody from the census asked me about it.”

Last year was the third time the Census Bureau counted same-sex couples. The count included people of the same sex in the same household who said they were spouses or unmarried partners (spouses were not included in 1990). Mr. Gates calculated how many same-sex couples there were for every 1,000 households within towns and cities across the country.

New York is too big to figure prominently in top city rankings for same-sex couples per capita (it was 67th in 2010, Mr. Gates said), but it does rank by county, alongside more the more traditional locations. Manhattan is No. 5, after San Francisco County, Hampshire County, Mass., Monroe County, Fla., and Multnomah County, Ore.

The city ranking is a barometer of the changing demographics among the population of same sex couples, which has grown more diffuse throughout the country over the past 20 years.

In interviews here this week, several couples said that social attitudes had softened overt time and that living farther afield was now easier to do. Mr. Gates compared the phenomenon to immigrants who no longer sought the safety of an enclave.

Steve Elkins, who runs a nonprofit community center called Camp Rehoboth, which acts as a liaison with the gay community, said cultural training classes for the summer police force would be met by stony stares in the early days. More recently, when he asked the police officers if they knew a gay person, two people in the class raised their hands to say they were gay.

“It’s a generational change in thoughts and attitudes,” he said. Rehoboth, he likes to say, used to be an island of tolerance in a sea of homophobia, and now is an island of tolerance in a sea of outlet malls.

Further evidence, Mr. Elkins said, was the quick passage of a civil unions bill that is set to take effect in Delaware on Jan. 1.

TO READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE, GO TO: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/us/25census.html

in Adoption / IVF / Parenting / Second Parent Adoption / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

North Jersey sees 30% growth in same-sex couples

Sunday, August 14, 2011    Last updated: Sunday August 14, 2011, 5:24 PM

BY HARVY LIPMAN AND DAVE SHEINGOLD
STAFF WRITERS
The Record

By the 2000s, though, they had noticed a dramatic rise in the number of gay couples living in the suburbs, a trend confirmed by new census numbers released last week.

According to those figures, culled from the 2010 census, the number of households in North Jersey headed by same-sex partners grew by 30 percent in the past decade. 

By the numbers

The number of same-sex couples rose in most North Jersey municipalities last decade.

Bergen County  2000  2010
Allendale 1 17
Alpine 8 4
Bergenfield 51 62
Carlstadt 11 14
Cliffside Park 72 56
Closter 10 15
Cresskill 5 7
Demarest 4 8
Dumont 20 25
East Rutherford 27 19
Edgewater 32 38
Elmwood Park 33 49
Emerson 14 17
Englewood 63 73
Englewood Cliffs 3 10
Fair Lawn 49 64
Fairview 34 35
Fort Lee 65 127
Franklin Lakes 14 28
Garfield 51 68
Glen Rock 15 20
Hackensack 112 145
Harrington Park 6 34
Hasbrouck Heights 19 9
Haworth 3 4
Hillsdale 19 23
Ho-Ho-Kus 8 8
Leonia 17 35
Little Ferry 24 27
Lodi 44 64
Lyndhurst 35 58
Mahwah 27 49
Maywood 24 32
Midland Park 6 8
Montvale 8 10
Moonachie 4 4
New Milford 16 37
North Arlington 28 39
Northvale 6 9
Norwood 6 7
Oakland 18 21
Old Tappan  6 8
Oradell 13 14
Palisades Park 37 41
Paramus 17 35
Park Ridge 7 11
Ramsey 20 20
Ridgefield 24 31
Ridgefield Park 21 34
Ridgewood 22 38
River Edge 24 19
River Vale 9 23
Rochelle Park 12 14
Rockleigh 0 0
Rutherford 48 65
Saddle Brook 15 40
Saddle River 6 7
South Hackensack 4 5
Teaneck 80 126
Tenafly 11 18
Teterboro 0 0
Upper Saddle River 12 13
Waldwick 10 16
Wallington 30 25
Washington Township 10 27
Westwood 19 21
Woodcliff Lake 1 5
Wood-Ridge 10 20
Wyckoff 17 24
     
Passaic County 2000 2010
Bloomingdale 14 23
Clifton 132 243
Haledon 13 20
Hawthorne 32 48
Little Falls 33 42
North Haledon 10 24
Passaic 142 107
Paterson 349 290
Pompton Lakes 15 29
Prospect Park 11  8
Ringwood 26 37
Totowa 13 25
Wanaque 22 20
Wayne 75 105
West Milford 58 63
West Paterson 20 32
Staff analysis by Dave Sheingold> 

Interactive map

Click here for other census results. 

And a substantial portion of those couples are raising children, like the Galluccios of North Haledon. Nearly one-fourth of North Jersey households headed by male partners and almost a third of female couples have related children living in their homes. 

“At the end of the ’90s and 2000s, there was a whole big push toward having children and it was very public, so the concept of gay couples having children was a natural progression,” said Michael Galluccio, who serves as a member of the school board at Manchester Regional High School. “It was the first time that there was an acknowledgment that we could be not only couples but families with children.” 

Same-sex partner households still represent a small portion of Bergen and Passaic county residents: just one in 160 households in Bergen County and one in 149 in Passaic County – or a total of 3,216 households in the two counties. 

Across New Jersey, one in 133 households is headed by same-sex unmarried partners. 

Steven Goldstein, the head of the leading statewide advocacy group for the gay and lesbian community, said that he too has seen a big increase in the number of same-sex couples living in the suburbs of New Jersey. 

“As we’ve gotten more rights, we’ve become more mainstream and been looking to move to the suburbs,” said Goldstein, who serves as chairman of Garden State Equality. “My partner and I did not want to continue to live in an 800-square-foot studio apartment in Manhattan with a bike taking up half the space for $1 million, so we looked to the suburbs. New Jersey is the ultimate suburban state. 

“What the census is really saying is that we same-sex couples can be as fabulously boring as everybody else,” said Goldstein, of Teaneck. “We complain about the parking in Garden State Plaza, we bitch about taxes and worry about getting a quality education for our kids.” 

Census may be low

 

The jump in the number of gay couples is just one piece of a broader change in the makeup of North Jersey families, with more households headed by single parents and an increase in the number of adult children living with their parents. 

Goldstein thinks the census figures fall short of the actual number of same-sex couples in New Jersey. 

“The census is an undercount,” he said. “For instance, Garden State Equality’s members include more same-sex couples in Asbury Park than the number reported by the 2010 census.” 

Goldstein said the problem lies in the way the census determines whether people are living as same-sex couples, which is by having the head of a household pick from a list of checkboxes to describe the relationships of each person living there. “Unmarried partner” is one of the choices, along with options like “other relative,” “husband/ wife,” “housemate” and “other non-relative.” 

“The census still doesn’t ask the question right out: Are you a same-sex couple?” he noted. 

Goldstein said he wondered whether the growth in New Jersey’s same-sex partner households will continue, given the passage of New York’s gay marriage act this year; New Jersey has yet to adopt such a law. 

“With New York having passed us on marriage equality, it will be interesting to see if the trend still holds true,” he said. 

The census’ data on the number of same-sex partner households with related children represent the first time the bureau has compiled that information. More than 900 same-sex couples in North Jersey reported having children living in their homes. 

Michael Patrick and Randy Dixon of Franklin Lakes are among them. The couple have lived in New Jersey for 11 years and have two adopted children: 9-year-old daughter Blake and 5-year-old son Gardner. 

“One of the reasons we moved to New Jersey was that at that stage it was one of the few states where you could adopt a child as a same-sex couple,” said Dixon. 

For that, they can thank the Galluccios. The couple, who lived in Maywood at the time, won a landmark case in 1997 when Bergen County Superior Court Judge Sybil R. Moses ruled that they could jointly adopt their foster son. 

The couple lived in California for several years, being married there, before they moved back to New Jersey in 2008. 

Jon Galluccio said that for the most part living in New Jersey has been a positive experience for the couple and their three children. 

“I would say it’s been 90 percent a great experience, maybe 95 percent,” he said. “That 5 percent is just the general crap that people have to deal with. With another family, it could be because they are Italian on an Irish block. For us, it’s because we are a gay couple.” 

Patrick and Dixon said they worried at first about what sort of reception their daughter would get in school. When Blake was small, they enrolled her in a private Montessori school. 

“As she got older, we finally decided that the Franklin Lakes schools have a great reputation, so we decided to put her in public school,” Dixon added. “We were pleasantly surprised to find there were no issues. Our daughter and son have play dates with other kids, our daughter’s friends come for sleepovers.” 

Living in an upscale, well-educated community helps, he acknowledged. “A lot of our neighbors work in the city and they know gay people. It’s not a big deal to them.” 

Nevertheless, the couple said they feel some pressure to be the best parents possible.

“One of the things that happens as gay parents is you feel you have to make sure you’re doing the best job and your children never are in any trouble,” Patrick said. “God forbid something should happen and people say, ‘It’s the gay parents.’ ”

Melissa B. Brisman, a Montvale attorney whose firm specializes in helping clients deal with reproductive legal issues, said she handles more than 50 adoptions annually for gay and lesbian couples. Another 75 or so homosexual couples a year hire her firm to help them have children through surrogate mothers.

Brisman estimated that gay and lesbian couples account for about a quarter of her clients.

“I own a surrogacy agency and we get a ton of gay men coming to surrogates to bear children,” Brisman said. The number of gay men using surrogate mothers to give birth is on the rise for a number of reasons, she added.

“One is just that surrogacy is more readily available and acceptable,” Brisman said. She pointed out that several gay celebrities, including Elton John, Neil Patrick Harris and Ricky Martin, have publicly discussed having their children through surrogate mothers.

“The science is also better,” Brisman added. “Where once the odds of success were around 10 percent, now they’re around 80 percent.”

For many female couples, in-vitro fertilization using donor sperm is the path to having children, noted Dr. Serena H. Chen, director of reproductive medicine at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science at Saint Barnabas Health in Livingston.

“I would say maybe 5 percent of our clients are lesbian couples,” Chen said. “It’s something we see on a regular basis, and it’s not something anybody blinks an eye at.”

in In the News / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

The time I had two mommies: Being raised by a gay couple was hard in the 80s & 90s

 Daily News

By Matt Borden Thursday, July 28th 2011

You might think it strange that, as a straight man, I shed tears of joy when I learned that same-sex marriage was coming to New York. Even I was taken aback by my own reaction, because for me and my wife, life won’t be much different. However, as one of the millions of people who were raised, or partially raised, by a gay couple, I felt indescribable relief knowing that the stigmatization I experienced as a child will (hopefully) not be an issue for future generations.

I am a child of famously liberal Manhattan, but growing up in the ’80s and ’90s with a gay mother was not easy. For all of New York’s diversity, it was still a homophobic place. Gay people were tolerated only as long as they lived a marginalized Greenwich Village existence. Gay bashing on Saturday nights was such a frequent occurrence that a militant advocacy group called the Pink Panthers walked around the West Village wearing shirts that said “Bash Back” to those at risk. Gay families weren’t welcome at PTA meetings or soccer games.

Of course, no friends of mine had parents who were gay – everyone knew that gay people didn’t have children. They couldn’t even adopt in New York State until 2002. So what did that make me? Legally, at least, I didn’t exist.

When my mother began her relationship with another woman in 1988, Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell were still kissing men in movies, and Mariel Hemingway was but a twinkle in Roseanne’s eye. The seeming normalcy of “Will and Grace” was still a decade away. George Michael, now openly gay, was a heartthrob for teenage girls.

Soon after they started dating, my mom partner’s moved in with us, and although we never talked about what was happening, I knew that my family was different. My father lived across town, and even though he had joint custody and I saw him every other day, I never told him about my mom, fearing that the government would find out and deem her an unfit parent.

I kept the relationship secret from my friends, too. When my mom and her partner held hands in public, I cringed in discomfort and made them promise not to do it in front of me. I feel embarrassed to admit it now, but when people came over to my house and my mom’s partner was present, she always had to pretend to be a roommate or a friend – I didn’t care what, really, but the truth had to be concealed at all costs. I even refused to go to their commitment ceremony at a Chinese restaurant in the West Village when I was 13 because it just felt too weird.

That’s the funny thing about social mores: They exert their unseen influence whether you’re aware of it or not. My mother’s happiness shouldn’t have been a burden to me, but it was. And I wasn’t alone in feeling this way. As Danielle Silber, New York chapter president of Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere, has said, “In middle school, because of pervasive homophobia and taunting, I didn’t tell any of my new friends in school about my family.” This stigmatization by proxy put a generation of people just like me in the closet, bearing the burden of our parents’ choices in a homophobic society.

I reluctantly “came out” about my mother’s relationship when I was 18, but only because I had developed an ulcer from keeping my life a secret, popping Tums like they were Tic Tacs. And even then, I told only those closest to me, including my father, who, in an interesting twist, informed me that he had figured the situation out years before.

Fortunately, my friends and family were supportive – and over time the shame I used to feel has completely disappeared. Now, I’m not concerned about the gender of the person my mom is with, only their shared happiness. That has as much to do with society’s progression as it does with my own personal journey.

Future sons and daughters of gay families will surely have struggles of their own. Just as the passage of civil rights legislation did not end racism, the passage of marriage equality will not end homophobia. However, victories like marriage equality will shape new attitudes and help move us toward becoming a society that prevents a new generation of children from having to face the same burdens that I faced.

I know that, right now, there is a kid somewhere with two moms or two dads who will one day soon be able to go to school and proudly announce, “My parents got married this weekend!” and no one will have anything to offer but congratulations. And that thought alone gives me hope for the future.

in Family Stories / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments