Why I Started GWK Academy: Supporting LGBTQ+ Family Building Through Adoption and Surrogacy
People often ask me why I started GWK Academy. The answer is rooted in my own journey through LGBTQ+ family building—and in the uncertainty my husband and I felt while navigating our adoption and surrogacy journeys at a time when affirming resources were scarce or nonexistent.
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Our Family Building Story
My husband and I are parents to three incredible kids. We found out about our oldest, Levi, when he was just three days old, and we brought him home from the hospital two days later. Today, Levi is as big as I am, can drive a car, and is learning how to fly a plane—a daily reminder of how fast time moves and how profoundly becoming a parent can change your life.
Levi became a big brother when he was just 17 months old to twin sisters Ella and Sadie, who were born through a surrogacy journey. While the details of our family are personal, we are open about the fact that I’m the biological parent of the girls, which I share because I’m also HIV-positive.
HIV and Parenthood
I’ve been living with HIV since before I met my husband, Ferd, and we’ve been together since June 1993. We built our family during a time when conversations about HIV and parenthood—especially within the LGBTQ+ community—were limited, misunderstood, or avoided entirely.
I share this because visibility matters. Living with HIV does not prevent someone from becoming a parent. LGBTQ+ people living with HIV can build families through adoption, surrogacy, IVF, reciprocal IVF, and other biological or non-biological paths. If you’re navigating HIV or another chronic health condition, parenthood is still possible.
LGBTQ+ Family Building Without Clear Guidance
When we were pursuing adoption and surrogacy nearly two decades ago, there were very few affirming resources for LGBTQ+ people—and even fewer for gay men or people living with HIV. And video calls did not exist. So we would make our way to the offices of one of our family-building partners (a doctor, a surrogacy agency, an adoption agency or attorney), where we would sit and chat for an hour or more. More often than not, we left with more questions than answers. There was no single place to compare paths like gay adoption and gay surrogacy, understand timelines and costs, or learn which professionals truly had experience working with queer families.
In hindsight, I don’t think Ferd and I made a single decision during our adoption or surrogacy journeys feeling fully confident. We moved forward because we wanted to be parents—but the uncertainty stayed with us.
From Personal Experience to Gays With Kids
After we became dads, I kept coming back to one question: what if no one else had to navigate family building feeling as uncertain as we did? What if there were a place where LGBTQ+ people could learn first—before making life-changing decisions?
That question led me to create Gays With Kids, which officially launched in March of 2014. At first, the focus was storytelling. Over the years, we shared well over a thousand stories about gay adoption, gay surrogacy, and everyday life in queer parenthood.
Through those stories, I began to build deep relationships with family-building professionals who consistently showed up for our community, and I developed a broad, practical understanding of every path to parenthood.
The Creation of GWK Academy
Around the time of COVID, we took the next step: education. What began as a series of courses eventually became GWK Academy—a comprehensive educational platform designed to help LGBTQ+ people understand all family-building options before choosing a path.
Our goal is to educate people first on their full range of options, and then to deeply prepare them for their chosen path—covering timelines, costs, legal considerations, emotional realities, and common challenges others have faced.
More Than Education: Support Across the Journey
Today, GWK Academy offers courses on domestic infant adoption, adoption from foster care, surrogacy, IVF, reciprocal IVF, and foster care. We also provide free one-on-one coaching, connections to mentor parents, and access to vetted, affirming family-building partners who share our passionate commitment to ethical LGBTQ+ family building.
Originally part of Gays With Kids, in early 2025 GWK Academy became a standalone nonprofit organization. At the end of the year, we received official approval as a 501(c)(3) public charity.
Why GWK Academy Exists Today
GWK Academy exists to make LGBTQ family building more accessible. We offer trusted education and support through a sliding-scale model designed to ensure that financial circumstances never determine who gets access to guidance—whether you’re exploring adoption, surrogacy, IVF, reciprocal IVF, or early questions about parenthood.
Because building a family is life-changing. And no one should have to navigate that journey alone.
