Brian Rosenberg is on a very personal mission to help LGBTQ+ people build their families. When he was in his 20s and 30s, he said in an interview, “Gay men were not thinking about becoming parents because everyone who would have done it was dying, and many of us, like myself, have HIV, and so we weren’t planning for it.”
Now, Rosenberg and his husband, Ferd van Gameren, who live in the Boston area, are the fathers of three young teens and co-founders of Gays With Kids, an online community and resource for gay and queer men parents and prospective parents, which will soon expand to serve the entire LGBTQ community.
Their own path to parenthood in the late aughts was “complicated and confusing,” with “scant resources available,” Rosenberg said. After some twists and turns, they had a son via adoption and twin girls via surrogacy, but Rosenberg reflected, “I don’t think that there is a single decision we made, either in surrogacy or during our adoption journey, where we felt really confident about that decision.”
Rosenberg noted that he is the girls’ genetic parent, which is “really no one else’s business,” but that he mentions “because I’m also HIV positive. I have been since before I met my husband, and we’re about to celebrate our 31st anniversary.” Rosenberg explained, “I want to make sure people know if they’re HIV positive, it doesn’t stop them from being able to become dads through adoption, foster care, or surrogacy and IVF.”
As new dads, they knew they stood out. “We had three little babies, one of them is Black; we had a chihuahua; and we’re two men,” Rosenberg related. “Wherever we went—and I’m not exaggerating—it was like the circus sideshow.” Straight people would ask intrusive questions, and “we were constantly having to explain our stories.” Rosenberg longed to hang out with other gay dads where he wouldn’t feel so “other,” and to share learnings from their own parenthood journey. He couldn’t find the community he sought, however.
Fast forward to 2014, when their oldest was in preschool, and the twins were out of diapers. ”Let’s launch something for all gay dads and dads-to-be,” proposed Rosenberg, whose background was in sales and marketing. Gays With Kids was born.
Initially, the site focused on sharing queer dads’ stories. “We did a lot to give visibility to our families. I know we helped change hearts and minds,” he said.
About three years ago, however, one of the site’s readers reached out to thank Rosenberg “for inspiring me to become a dad.”
Rosenberg was touched, and asked, “What are you going to do now that you’re inspired?”
The man responded, “I have no idea. I guess I’ll just have to wing it.”
“I had an aha moment,” Rosenberg said. While visibility and inspiration were important, he realized they weren’t enough. Instead, he said, “I really wanted to provide a tangible and valuable service.”
That led to the 2022 launch of GWK Academy, which offers community, education, and resources, including online courses and coaching, for gay and queer men considering parenthood. Before the end of 2024, Rosenberg said, his goal is “to expand our content and our focus to include everyone under the LGBTQ+ umbrella.”
They say it takes a village to raise a child. The truth of the matter is, for those in the LGBTQ+ community, it also takes a village to create a child.
The site also just became free to join, and Rosenberg hopes that gay and queer men—and soon any LGBTQ+ person—will use it as a first stop to “get educated” if they are thinking about parenthood. Topics covered include the various paths available, costs, timeframes, types of organizations people will need to work with, which ones are LGBTQ+ competent, and more. “They say it takes a village to raise a child,” he said. “The truth of the matter is, for those in the LGBTQ+ community, it also takes a village to create a child.”
After getting educated, he said, people will be able to have more productive conversations with clinics, agencies, and other family-building organizations. The problem today, however, is not the lack of such organizations, but the sheer number of them. “A lot of people find it overwhelming,” he observed, noting that part of GWK Academy’s value is “to help them get through all the clutter.” It therefore works with an “exclusive network of surrogacy and IVF family building partners,” whom Rosenberg ensures are “as passionate as I am about LGBTQ+ family building.” Referral fees from those partners comprise GWK Academy’s revenue stream. While site members can work with any agency or clinic they choose, he said, “I know that ours will take good care of you.”
The site also partners with organizations dedicated to foster care and adoption (but earns no fees from them), and Rosenberg is eager to encourage more gay and queer men to consider becoming foster parents and adopting from foster care. He also makes sure GWK Academy’s programming talks specifically about LGBTQ+ youth in the foster care system, asserting, “I feel like we have some kind of moral obligation as the adults within the community to make sure our young ones are taken care of properly.”
He is in turn inspired by the next generation. “What I love, love, love today,” he said, is that all of the dozens of young gay men he has spoken with in recent years “knew they would have to think about whether they wanted to become parents.” For almost all of them, the answer was yes. “They just weren’t sure yet when or how,” he said. “Sometimes I would cry because it wasn’t an option for us. To see how much things have changed in that respect is so powerful for me.”
Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column.
