Gay Men Pursuing Parenthood through Surrogacy


Book Description

Dean Murphy analyses how relatedness is enacted in the context of gay men pursuing parenthood and a ‘child of one’s own’ through both domestic and transnational surrogacy arrangements. Drawing on data collected from in-depth interviews with gay men living in Australia and the United States, and news media, the book explores how gay men ‘enact’ parenthood and family life in ways that both challenge and reinforce dominant notions of kinship and masculinity. These men represent an important first generation to access assisted reproductive technologies for this purpose and are part of an increasing proportion of gay men becoming parents outside a (previous) heterosexual relationship. The findings demonstrate that men come to experience parenthood desire largely because of the new narratives and opportunities being made available to them today.




Gay Men Pursuing Parenthood Through Surrogacy


Book Description

Dean Murphy analyses how relatedness is enacted in the context of gay men pursuing parenthood and a 'child of one's own' through both domestic and transnational surrogacy arrangements. Drawing on data collected from in-depth interviews with gay men living in Australia and the United States, and news media, the book explores how gay men 'enact' parenthood and family life in ways that both challenge and reinforce dominant notions of kinship and masculinity. These men represent an important first generation to access assisted reproductive technologies for this purpose and are part of an increasing proportion of gay men becoming parents outside a (previous) heterosexual relationship. The findings demonstrate that men come to experience parenthood desire largely because of the new narratives and opportunities being made available to them today.




Unhitched


Book Description

A leading expert on the family, Judith Stacey is known for her provocative research on mainstream issues. Finding herself impatient with increasingly calcified positions taken in the interminable wars over same-sex marriage, divorce, fatherlessness, marital fidelity, and the like, she struck out to profile unfamiliar cultures of contemporary love, marriage, and family values from around the world. Built on bracing original research that spans gay men’s intimacies and parenting in this country to plural and non-marital forms of family in South Africa and China,Unhitcheddecouples the taken for granted relationships between love, marriage, and parenthood. Countering the one-size-fits-all vision of family values, Stacey offers readers a lively, in-person introduction to these less familiar varieties of intimacy and family and to the social, political, and economic conditions that buttress and batter them. Through compelling stories of real families navigating inescapable personal and political trade-offs between desire and domesticity, the book undermines popular convictions about family, gender, and sexuality held on the left, right, and center. Taking on prejudices of both conservatives and feminists, Unhitched poses a powerful empirical challenge to the belief that the nuclear family--whether straight or gay--is the single, best way to meet our needs for intimacy and care. Stacey calls on citizens and policy-makers to make their peace with the fact that family diversity is here to stay.




Mommy Man


Book Description

As a teenager growing up in the 1980s, all Jerry Mahoney wanted was a nice, normal sham marriage: 2.5 kids and a frustrated, dissatisfied wife living in denial of her husband s sexuality. Hey, why not? It seemed much more attainable and fulfilling than the alternative coming out of the closet and making peace with the fact that he d never have a family at all. Twenty years later, Jerry is living with his long-term boyfriend, Drew, and they re ready to take the plunge into parenthood. But how? Adoption? Foster parenting? Kidnapping? What they want most of all is a great story to tell their future kid about where he or she came from. Their search leads them to gestational surrogacy, a road less traveled where they ll be borrowing a stranger s ladyparts for nine months. Thus begins Jerry and Drew s hilarious and unexpected journey to daddyhood. From then on, they re in uncharted waters. They re forced to face down homophobic baby store clerks, a hospital that doesn t know what to do with them, even members of their own family who think what they re doing is a little nutty. One thing s for sure. If this all works out, they re going to have an incredible birth story to tell their kid. With honesty, emotion, and laugh-out-loud humor, Jerry Mahoney ponders what it means to become a Mommy Man . . . and discovers that the answer is as varied and beautiful as the concept of family itself."




Companion to Sexuality Studies


Book Description

An inclusive and accessible resource on the interdisciplinary study of gender and sexuality Companion to Sexuality Studies explores the significant theories, concepts, themes, events, and debates of the interdisciplinary study of sexuality in a broad range of cultural, social, and political contexts. Bringing together essays by an international team of experts from diverse academic backgrounds, this comprehensive volume provides original insights and fresh perspectives on the history and institutional regulatory processes that socially construct sex and sexuality and examines the movements for social justice that advance sexual citizenship and reproductive rights. Detailed yet accessible chapters explore the intersection of sexuality studies and fields such as science, health, psychology, economics, environmental studies, and social movements over different periods of time and in different social and national contexts. Divided into five parts, the Companion first discusses the theoretical and methodological diversity of sexuality studies.Subsequent chapters address the fields of health, science and psychology, religion, education and the economy. They also include attention to sexuality as constructed in popular culture, as well as global activism, sexual citizenship, policy, and law. An essential overview and an important addition to scholarship in the field, this book: Draws on international, postcolonial, intersectional, and interdisciplinary insights from scholars working on sexuality studies around the world Provides a comprehensive overview of the field of sexuality studies Offers a diverse range of topics, themes, and perspectives from leading authorities Focuses on the study of sexuality from the late nineteenth century to the present Includes an overview of the history and academic institutionalization of sexuality studies The Companion to Sexuality Studies is an indispensable resource for scholars, researchers, instructors, and students in gender, sexuality, and feminist studies, interdisciplinary programs in cultural studies, international studies, and human rights, as well as disciplines such as anthropology, psychology, history, education, human geography, political science, and sociology.




Julien's Journey


Book Description

Beth McCain's new novel, Julien's Journey, is the much anticipated sequel to And Then They Were. Four year old Julien doesn't understand his sister, Abby, her abilities, or the pressure he feels from his family that his sole purpose in life is to protect his older sister. He doesn't even feel comfortable in his own skin. Abby tells him that he was once a spirit guide before being born, but he has no recollection. It happens that in fact he was being groomed to be Abby's protector. He didn't want the job.Then came the day when Abby's time had come which put Julien, the family, and their friends in grave danger. It was the time that Ma and Cal had predicted since they had become a part of Abby and Julien's lives. This inspired a quest to find others like Abby only to learn that there is a much more sinister force in the Universe engaged in global kidnappings of children like Abby for the sole purpose of using them for greed, and to control other unwitting victims. But no one knows the true nature of the World Voice except for a chosen few who must save the children for the future of the world.




LGBTQ-Parent Families


Book Description

This textbook offers a comprehensive overview of research on LGBTQ-parent families. The new edition of the textbook provides updated information and expands on the range and depth of current research. The volume features contributions from scholars in psychology, sociology, human development, family studies, gender studies, sexuality studies, legal studies, social work, and anthropology. In addition, the textbook offers an international perspective, with coverage spanning many diverse nations and cultures. Chapters highlight key research, exploring sexual orientation in relation to other key social identities, such as gender, race, and nationality. Chapters also discuss new, emerging areas of research, including asexuality and immigration. The textbook concludes with a section on the growing sophistication of research methodology in the study of LGBTQ-parent families. The second edition includes new chapters discussing: LGBTQ-parent families and health. LGBTQ foster parents. LGBTQ adults and sibling relationships. LGBTQ-parent families and poverty. LGBTQ-parent families and separation/divorce. LGBTQ-parent families and religion. LGBTQ-parent families and grief/loss. Methods, recruitment, and sampling in research with LGBTQ families. Teaching/pedagogy on LGBTQ-parent families. LGBTQ-Parent Families, 2nd Edition, is a valuable updated resource for graduate students as well as veteran and beginning clinicians across disciplines, including family studies, family therapy, gender studies, public health, social policy, social work and child and adolescent psychology as well as related disciplines across mental health and educational services.




Regulating Reproductive Donation


Book Description

Brings together different disciplinary perspectives and new empirical insights to explore the regulation of assisted reproduction around the world.




Birthing a Mother


Book Description

Birthing a Mother is the first ethnography to probe the intimate experience of gestational surrogate motherhood. In this beautifully written and insightful book, Elly Teman shows how surrogates and intended mothers carefully negotiate their cooperative endeavor. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork among Jewish Israeli women, interspersed with cross-cultural perspectives of surrogacy in the global context, Teman traces the processes by which surrogates relinquish any maternal claim to the baby even as intended mothers accomplish a complicated transition to motherhood. Teman’s groundbreaking analysis reveals that as surrogates psychologically and emotionally disengage from the fetus they carry, they develop a profound and lasting bond with the intended mother.




Pride and Joy


Book Description

There have always been lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) parents. But now there is a 'gayby boom'. Changes in social attitudes, the law and medical technology mean that more LGBT people are becoming parents, and living proud and open family lives. Yet there are still few role models. Pride and Joy is full of stories, advice and real-life experience from LGBT parents and their children. Sometimes funny, sometimes moving, sometimes surprising, every story sheds new light on what it's like for LGBT people raising children in the UK and Ireland today. Pride and Joy is positive and practical. It covers everything from starting a family, dealing with schools, talking with children about different families, and maintaining an LGBT identity as a parent. This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to better understand issues facing LGBT families including parents or prospective parents; extended families and friends; and social workers, teachers and other professionals.