LGBTQ PARENTHOOD

For this issue of L’Uomo Vogue, inspired by his own wish to become a father one day, Ethan James Green has shot a joyful and candid portfolio of LGBTQ parents and their children ( page 152). Here we speak to some of Green’s subjects about their experience

By David Kaufman

You might say that this is the best of times and – perhaps – t he worst of t imes f or LGBTQ f amilies in America. On one hand, t his still relatively t iny community h as never f elt more v itally r epresented in culture, s chools, churches a nd playgrounds. LGBTQ f amilies a re vocal presences i n books, on television and, most prominently, across social media. From Elton John and David Furnish to director Lee Daniels, pop icon Ricky Martin and two-time Academy Award-winner Jodie Foster, LGBTQ families are finally edging close to the mainstream.

There are roughly 115,000 same-sex households raising children throughout the United States – of the children i n t hese f amilies a round 80 p er c ent are biological of fspring and 20 per cent adopted, according to the Wi l l iams Inst it ute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy at t he UCLA School of Law.

Conventional wisdom might suggest that most LGBTQ fami l ies prefer the relative openness of progressive coastal regions like California or New York. But even traditional ly conservative states such as Mississippi, Wyoming and Alaska report signif icant communities of same-sex parents. “Of course geography matters because acceptance is not always the same across the board,” says Dennis Wil liams, a gay father of a four year-old son living in Brooklyn. “It’s unfortunate, but things can stil l be easier when you’re i n a big c ity.” Nonetheless, queer fami l ies are very much everywhere – and they’re clearly here to stay.

LGBTQ families come in every color and size and conf iguration – i l lustrating the very best of The United States of America’s sacred traditions of f reedom, t olerance and a respect for i ndividual rights. Williams, for instance, is an African-American television executive who had his son, Elan, via surrogacy and is raising him on his own. “Creating a family has absolutely been the most important and rewarding thing I’ve ever done,” Wi l l iams says. “This was a very serious and rigorous course of action,” he continues, “you could say Elan was the ultimate example of ‘ family planning’.”

Then there’s Cooper Boone, a countr y music star and television personal it y l iving deep in rural upstate New York with his husband Mark Veeder and their four year- old t win daughters, Cici and Crosby. While their fathers make music, write cookbooks and run their luxury B+B estate, the g irls enjoy f arm-grown organic food, pristine mountain air and vast open spaces. “Sure, we’re a bit of a dif ferent kind of family from the norm around here,” Boone says. “We have experienced homophobia, but we’re very comfortable with being gay dads; we have very t hick skins.”

Max Masure, meanwhile, is a French-born gender-nonconforming creative director and transr ights advocate also l iving i n New York whose four year-old daughter, Josephine, is a product of an earlier marriage with a man. Formerly a cisgender woman, Masure – who prefers the pronouns “they”/”them” – says they’ve “had the chance to experience l i fe as both a woman and mom – as wel l as a dad.” Their verdict: “As a woman people always told me how to hold my daughter’s hand or how to do this or do that,” they explain. “But as a man, nobody ever tel ls me what to do.”

Masure, Boone and Williams are among a handful of LGBTQ families shot by NYC-based fashion photographer Ethan James Green for the portfolio on these pages. Green – who typically photographs campaigns for fashion houses l ike Prada, Kenzo and Alexander McQueen – came to this project for i ntensely personal reasons. “I decided to shoot LGBTQ families [ because] having my own family one day has been something I’ve realized I truly want,” Green explains. “There aren’t many images that exist of these fami l ies so I wanted to shoot something LGBTQ people could aspire to and that would al low the idea to be normal ized further.” Green’s motives could not be more timely. For even today – nearly 30 years after the Stonewal l Riots ushered in the modern LGBTQ rights movement and three years since marriage equality was approved by the U.S. Supreme Court – hostile political f orces a re t hreatening t o e rode m any o f the hard-won battles achieved over the past few decades. Indeed, whether through adoption or surrogacy, marriage or pure circumstance, LGBTQ families stand at the intersection between a progressive American publ ic and a pol itical culture increasingly steeped in regressive and reactionary rhetoric. In Michigan, for i nstance, a pediatrician refused to treat an i nfant with lesbian parents, while i n L os A ngeles, a g ay c ouple i s s uing t he U.S. State Department for denying one of their sons an American passport. For the moment, these remain relatively isolated instances. But the recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court recognising the rights of companies t o r efuse s ervice t o LGBTQs because of their owners’ ‘religious beliefs’ opens to the door to a potential f loodgate of further bigotry and discrimination.

Stil l, the slow ( but steady) increase in LGBTQ fami l ies seems al l but unstoppable – even as the Trump White House proves ever-more unsympathetic to minorities of al l types. “A decade ago it was men in their 40’s and 50’s coming for surrogacy, now folks are starting even i n their 20’s,” observes Ron Poole-Dayan, Executive Director and Founder of Men Having Babies, a non-prof it that assists gay men in having biological children. Even in the face of rising conservatism, Poole-Dayan says surrogacy is f inal ly losing its stigma for gay men. “Perhaps in Europe there is stil l resistance, but in the U.S. we don’t real ly see that any more. If anything adoption remains far harder for gay people.”

Despite the many real chal lenges st i l l facing LGBTQ families, this remains a community that refuses to retreat or hide. In fact, many gay parents actual ly feel emboldened by the specter of living – and loving – openly amid this era of pol itical uncertainty. After all, these are parents who already risked losing their original fami l ies during what for many were painful ‘coming-out’ experiences in e arly adulthood. Surviving t hese i nitial battles – along with society’s larger, sti l l-l ingering homophobia – has prepared them to defend the new families t hey worked so hard to create.

Derek Fleming – who with husband Sonny Puryear is father to six year- old twin boys Dex and Zane – says his own father had a hard time with his decision to begin the surrogacy process in India. “But we never let this deter or limit us. Now he is so proud to be our sons’ grandfather,” Fleming says. “We understand today that the current political climate is not about us,” he adds. “And we are teaching our boys that they are special and worthy and that our family is just as good as all of the other families out t here.”