Gay Fatherhood: Narratives of Family and Citizenship in America

More and more gay men are becoming parents, and in Gay Fatherhood, Ellen Lewin presents an in-depth look at the experiences of this surprisingly overlooked group. Lewin takes as her focus people who undertake the difficult process of becoming fathers as gay men, rather than having become fathers while married to women. These men face many challenges in their quest for fatherhood, overcoming unique bureaucratic and financial hurdles as they pursue adoption or surrogacy and juggling questions about their future child's race, age, sex, and health. Gay Fatherhood chronicles the lives of these men, exploring how they cope with political attacks from both the Right and the Left-while also shedding light on the evolving meanings of family in twenty-first-century America. Book jacket.

Ellen Lewin is professor in the departments of Women’s Studies and Anthropology at the University of Iowa. She is the author of Recognizing Ourselves: Ceremonies of Lesbian and Gay Commitment and Lesbian Mothers: Accounts of Gender in American Culture.