Over the past two decades, recognition of same-sex relationships and non-normative families has increased alongside greater access to reproductive technologies. Despite this progress, surrogacy, a potential path to parenthood for gay couples, remains banned in many countries. Research indicates that gay couples, facing legal restrictions, often seek reproductive services abroad, navigating complex legal, political and sociocultural contexts in both their home and destination countries. However, existing research lacks cross-country comparisons that explore how different contexts shape gay couples’ reproductive practices. This study enhances our theoretical understanding of the intricate interplay between social structure and social interactions. It explores how normative family conceptions, ingrained in legal frameworks, societal norms and cultural values at the macro level, profoundly influence the (normalising) practices of couples at the micro level. Empirically, this study compares Germany and Israel, where gay couples face starkly different challenges. Germany universally prohibits surrogacy, while Israel permits it, although not for gay men during my interviews. Drawing on interviews with couples from both countries who engaged surrogates abroad, this study analyses their struggles for legal recognition and social visibility as ‘gay father families’. In both countries, couples navigate legal, political and sociocultural contexts differently, encapsulated in a process termed ‘becoming a gay father family’, involving concealing surrogacy and appropriating heteronormative family narratives. The data indicate that the couples’ social interactions reflect and reinforce a discernible normative shift from heteronormativity to repronormativity in the context of assisted reproduction.

中文翻译：

---

令人不安的“常态”？或者，如何通过代孕成为一个可识别的、可见的同性恋父母：以色列和德国同性恋夫妇的比较分析

在过去的二十年里，随着生殖技术的普及，对同性关系和非规范家庭的认可也有所增加。尽管取得了这些进展，但代孕作​​为同性恋夫妇成为父母的潜在途径，在许多国家仍然被禁止。研究表明，面临法律限制的同性恋夫妇经常在国外寻求生殖服务，在本国和目的地国应对复杂的法律、政治和社会文化背景。然而，现有研究缺乏跨国比较来探索不同背景如何影响同性恋伴侣的生育行为。这项研究增强了我们对社会结构和社会互动之间错综复杂的相互作用的理论理解。它探讨了宏观层面根深蒂固的法律框架、社会规范和文化价值观中的规范家庭观念如何深刻影响微观层面的夫妻行为（规范化）。根据经验，这项研究对德国和以色列进行了比较，这两个国家的同性恋伴侣面临着截然不同的挑战。德国普遍禁止代孕，而以色列则允许代孕，尽管在我的采访中不允许男同性恋者代孕。这项研究根据对两国在国外聘请代孕妈妈的夫妇的采访，分析了他们作为“同性恋父亲家庭”争取法律承认和社会知名度的斗争。在这两个国家，夫妇以不同的方式应对法律、政治和社会文化背景，概括为“成为同性恋父亲家庭”的过程，其中包括隐瞒代孕和挪用异性恋家庭叙事。数据表明，夫妻的社会互动反映并强化了辅助生殖背景下从异性恋向生殖性的明显规范转变。