Gay dads gain visibility

The advent of same-sex marriage in California is bringing added visibility to a group often not seen much outside play date get-togethers and school assemblies: gay fathers.

As the media shines a spotlight on those couples taking the plunge and exchanging marriage vows, many male couples will have their sons and daughters in tow. While gay dads have been a growing phenomenon for some time, up until now they have not garnered nearly as much attention as lesbian moms.

"I think for gay men particularly, parenting is kind of an invisible thing. There are relatively few of us and people don't really know what it looks like," said Oakland-based filmmaker Johnny Symons, whose award-winning 2002 film "Daddy & Papa" documented four gay male-led families, including his own.

But that is about to change, say gay fathers who have not just noticed more images of gay men raising children in the news but increased interest from other gay men who want to start families of their own.

Symons said he believes gay people having the right to marry will inspire more people to not only begin thinking about forming more permanent partnerships but also becoming parents.

"Of course we have done that a long time in the gay community but it was not legalized. It's a huge step forward," said Symons. "Marriage is not for everyone and parenthood is not for everyone. But now that that door is open, it will make more people think about it. It will make it more visible."

Symons, 42, who also made the film "Beyond Conception" about gay couples using surrogate birth mothers, is raising two brothers he adopted through Alameda County's foster care system with his partner of 14 years, William Rogers. Their oldest son, 8-year-old Zachary, is featured in his documentary, while 6-year-old Kenyon joined the family after the film.

In April, Rogers, 45, became director of Berkeley's Department of Parks, Recreation and Waterfront, a job he had served in an acting role for the past year. He is believed to be the East Bay city's only openly gay department head. He had been running the city's division on aging services.

Since his partner's film came out, Rogers said the couple has seen an increase in the number of gay dads in their sons' school and the community in general. He chalked up the change to the realization on the part of more gay men that raising children can be a reality.

"I think since my partner and I adopted and the film was made, we have seen just in our personal lives a number of more gay men who have decided to have children. I think part of it is for a long time - and this was true for us as well - we didn't know we could have children. We didn't know it was a possibility," said Rogers. "My partner's film has helped a lot of gay men understand they can create families with children. I think in the media there is much more prevalent coverage of gay fathers."

Probably the Bay Area's most famous gay dad is San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who fathered a daughter, Sidney, in 2006 with his best friend Rebecca Goldfader. The birth of their daughter created a media firestorm after local news anchor the late Pete Wilson called Dufty's child a "travesty" on his call-in radio show. Wilson's overheated reaction and self-confessed confusion over Dufty's becoming a dad brought to light the public's ignorance on the subject.

Since becoming a father Dufty has pushed Castro businesses to cater more to the growing number of parents, both straight and gay, who live in the city's gay neighborhood. He has worked closely with Family Builders by Adoption, which caters to LGBT people, and has put gay families and their kids front and center each year on his Pride Parade float.

He is hopeful the relocation of the Friends School from its building by Collingwood Park will be replaced by a family resource center, which he has long championed while in office. Recently, he spoke to the group Gay Future Dads, where 40 gay men both single and in couples, some already parents, had gathered to hear him talk about being a father.

"It was such a cross section of gay men as parents or perspective fathers," said Dufty. "There have been a lot of gay men who've become parents but perhaps their visibility has increased."

Parental instincts are not just becoming stronger for HIV-negative men either. Increasingly more and more HIV-positive men are finding that with their health stabilized due to better medications and treatments, they not only have the strength to be parents but can envision growing old with their kids.

Last year the state passed a bill, pushed by state Senator Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), allowing HIV-positive men to use their own sperm to father a child. Through a process called "sperm-washing," fertility clinics are able to remove the HIV virus from sperm and use it to fertilize a woman's egg without the risk of HIV transmission.

Los Angeles-based Growing Generations, the nation's largest surrogacy agency, just recently launched a new program that provides surrogacy and egg donation services to men with HIV that allows them to use their own sperm to create biological families.

The company already has five cases of men with HIV working with egg donors and surrogates, and expects the number to grow as more people become aware of the availability of the service.

"We are pleased that science and legislation have come together to provide a safe and reasonable approach on this issue," stated Growing Generations President Gail Taylor. "As we have been since our founding in 1996, we are committed to assisting individuals who have not always been embraced by the mainstream in creating loving homes for very wanted children. This includes gay men, single parents, and now people with HIV."

Other HIV-positive men are choosing to adopt or use a sperm donor to become dads. San Franciscan Gdali Braverman, 48, who has been positive for nearly three decades, is expecting twins this fall after asking friends to be the sperm and egg donors.

"I always wanted to. It was my objective to be a dad when in college 30 years ago. It got waylaid as I became an AIDS activist for a number of years," said Braverman, a co-founder of ACT UP/Golden Gate. "I was out in the 1970s as an adolescent and never felt my sexual orientation would inhibit my choice to become a parent."

He opted not to wait for Migden's bill to become law and set out down the surrogacy path to parenthood last summer. He said within the HIV-positive community more awareness is needed that becoming a father is possible.

"The HIV positive community probably is not very well appraised that the Migden bill has passed and this is an option. Having done my research nationwide, I found very few HIV-positive men who knew this was an option," he said. "I know very few HIV-positive men who are out and parenting in San Francisco."

To help educate more men about the path to fatherhood, Braverman has worked with Our Family Coalition to put together a panel on how gay men can become dads through surrogacy tomorrow Friday, June 13.

"We should all find creative ways as a community to support each other in parenting, whether that means co-parenting between gay men and lesbians or other alternative family structures," said Braverman. "We shouldn't feel confined by the pre-existing definition of family."

The panel discussion will begin at 6 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street at Octavia. To RSVP and to sign up for free on-site childcare, call (415) 981-1960.