Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on how gay couples from Germany, who found a family through surrogacy, engage with and overcome heteronormative kinship structures and thus construct new forms of kinship ties outside of the parental dyad by integrating the surrogate mother and the egg donor to their family narrative.

Paper long abstract:

In Germany, gay couples who want to fulfill their wish for a ('biological') child face political and legal restrictions: They are not allowed to adopt and surrogacy is illegal. Moreover, public debates about gay parenthood are controversial, arguing that a child needs a mother and a father.

Concentrating on gay couples from Germany, who founded a family through surrogacy, the paper shows how their kinning practices involve ambivalences. Since they are not accepted as 'normal' families and experience discrimination, research indicates that they engage in heteronormative kinship narratives, objecting the idea of 'queer kinship', while at the same time criticizing persisting inequalities. However, that is only one side. In contrast to heterosexual couples, they circumvent such narratives by integrating at least two further parties to their family: the surrogate mother and the egg donor. My interviews showed that biological ties are an important factor for their construction of kinship. They keep in contact with the women involved in the family founding process to allow their children to get to know them. From a kinning perspective it is interesting how especially the surrogate mother becomes part of the family narrative, while at the same time de-kinning practices disengage her from being a family member. I intend to show how parents and surrogate mothers construct a field of intimacy and social bonds that exceeds heteronormative assumptions about kinship patterns, mutual responsibility and care. These new perspectives on kinning practices reveal valuable insights for public policies as well as jurisdiction.