Meloni and our children

How a concerted global effort on banning surrogacy might have broader consequences for our community

On Wednesday, Italy passed a law criminalizing surrogacy abroad. Our community, often ambivalent about surrogacy, did not say much. 

It has been on my mind, though. How couldn’t it not be? I had my children through surrogacy, which is now a crime in the eyes of the Italian Government. 

I always felt societies should regulate surrogacy but not out of animus against gay people.  I feel the same way about trans medical care and participation in sports. Yet, homophobia and transphobia seem always to be lurking behind every regulatory move on these topics.

Our plight is linked to the political manipulation of a universal human instinct to want to feel superior to at least one group. I observed that instinct at the root of discrimination against Batwas people in Congo, Dalits in India, and Roma people in Europe during my career at the World Bank and the United Nations. I saw it, too, in the context of racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and transphobia. 

During the anti-same-sex marriage movement in France in 2013, people were marching in the streets for the right to at least be better than the gays. If the gays, "worse than dogs and pigs,” had the same rights, then who were they superior to? 

The moment same-sex marriage was legalized in France on May 17, 2013, a month before my children were born, the “Manif-Pour-Tous” suspiciously pivoted to championing the ban on surrogacy and access to reproductive technologies for lesbians. These technologies had been around for a while, and conservatives did not care about them. But suddenly,  their attention had shifted; if LGBTQ+ were not allowed to have children, then surely they were inferior.

This newfound interest in the well-being of surrogate mothers and that of our children was a little suspicious. It’s not like those people fought for better working conditions and living wages for women or to protect LGBTQ+ children from homophobic rhetoric and violence at home.

I found myself on the receiving end of this scrutiny. As I announced our surrogate was pregnant, some family members told me outright that gay people shouldn't have children. I remembered one saying, "If God wanted you to have children, He would have equipped you to do so." I felt it only fair to remind her that she had needed fertility treatments herself, and by that logic, maybe she wasn’t "meant" to have children either. She did not appreciate it. I should have noted instead that if God didn’t want gay people to have children, how does she explain Ricky Martin’s kids having perfect hair? I also had to jump through strange hoops for the twins to be French, as Consulates were actively trying to deprive children born through surrogacy of their French nationality, something the “Taubira circular” fixed a year later. In 2017, the conservative magazine Valeurs Actuelles published a vicious article titled “The Unsavory Envoy of the United Nations,” attacking my family because I had children through surrogacy and had separated from their other father even though it had nothing to do with the purpose of my visit.

Even today, I still experience judgment for the way I formed my family. I sat with my father a few years ago, watching my mother play with my children in their garden. I said to him, "Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all," and he replied, "I’m allowed to be ethically opposed to surrogacy." I remember thinking how coincidental it was that, of all the ethical questions our World is facing, this was the one he chose to take a stance on.

When I look at my children, I find it hard to imagine they aren't part of God's plan. I post too much about them because I've always wanted to tell the world they're fine. And when I say they "saved me” - homophobia left me rootless, and the twins gave me a family - I can’t help but feel a sense of guilt. When we have children, it's described as a selfish and self-centered act or the dictatorship of our desires, but when straight people do, it's a noble, self-sacrificing endeavor.

There may be more at play in the renewed crusade against surrogacy than just the desire to keep LGBTQ+ people in their place. Last week, I read an interview with conservative politician Philippe de Villiers in Paris Match, and one line struck me: "Today we are caught in a vise between 'Islamistan' and 'Wokistan.' The latter will disappear by sterilizing itself." This cryptic and violent reference to sterilization reveals a more profound wish—the hope that we won't have children to prevent us from passing our values and worldview to future generations.

Italy’s decision is part of a renewed concerted effort to ban surrogacy everywhere. This January, I wrote about the Pope’s comment that he “hope[d] for an effort by the international community to prohibit this practice universally.” I am told that France’s new Interior Minister, a staunch Catholic, notably one of the leaders of the Manif pour Tous movement, is planning to make it difficult for gay couples to register their children. And then there is the UN. In 2019, I contacted Family Equality, warning them of the risk of international human rights law affecting national laws. I wrote about an ongoing effort to frame surrogacy at the national level as "the sale of children" (as outlined in a 2018 event): "The Special Rapporteur underlined that commercial surrogacy as currently practiced usually constituted a sale of children under human rights law” urging them to engage with the UN. If the UN accepted that notion, it would have tremendous consequences on LGBTQ+ American families and local laws. They responded: “We are just stretched to our limits policy-wise with this Administration.”  

The problem is that it is only a question of time before the newfound European obsession with surrogacy spreads to other aspects of our lives. As I quoted last week, “Europe’s far right is now its establishment.”

Last night, I was watching "L'enlèvement" (Kidnapped), a rivetting 2024 movie about the actual 1858 case of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy who was taken from his family in Bologna by the Papal authorities. A Christian servant had secretly baptized Edgardo during an illness, and under the laws of the Papal States, a baptized Christian could not be raised by non-Christian parents. This led to his forced removal. The case shows how unbridled hatred of a community can quickly turn into cruel, absurd laws and arbitrary rules.

One interesting parallel in the movie was how jewish civil society, then powerless and somewhat disorganized, had to come together - unsuccessfully [spoiler alert], Edgardo died a priest - to fight for their rights. In a way, we face a similar challenge today. As LGBTQ+ families are increasingly scrutinized and targeted by legislation, we must be more proactive and better organized. This isn’t just about surrogacy; it’s about being able to live without fear of being stripped of our rights at the slightest change in government or public opinion.

The Italian government’s decision, moves in other countries, and the rhetoric within institutions like the UN remind us that all our rights are fragile; we are but guests of straight people like jewish communities in Papal states. It’s a wake-up call that our families are still vulnerable, and only through collective action, careful consolidation of our power, and allocation of our resources can we protect our future generations from being subject to the whim of demagogic rulers.