Gay Parents Fight To Leave Thailand With Surrogate Baby Daughter

Gordon Lake, left, and his husband, Manuel, with Carmen. Photograph: Gordon Lake/Facebook

A same-sex couple is embroiled in a legal battle in Thailand after the surrogate mother who gave birth to their child has refused to allow them to leave the country claiming she was unaware they were gay.


The surrogate – who is biologically unrelated to the baby – handed over baby Carmen to Gordon Lake, an American, and his Spanish husband, Manuel, in January but later refused to sign documents to allow the infant to get a passport.

“I was flabbergasted, in a complete state of shock. It’s your worst nightmare in a process like this. I didn’t believe it,” Lake, 41, told the Guardian.

“We sent messages back. Hoping there was some sort of miscommunication. We were terrified.”

Six months later, the family of four, including his 23-month-old son Álvaro, also a surrogate baby born in India, are living in a secret location in Bangkok, afraid that Carmen will be taken away.

They chose Thailand for its top rate medical facilities and established surrogacy industry for gay couples.


But while Carmen – biologically his and an anonymous egg donor’s – was in the womb, the military overthrew the government. The coup was shortly followed by a series of high-profile surrogacy scandals that led to a ban on the industry.

The first involved a 24-year-old Japanese businessman who had fathered 16 children, mostly through Thai surrogates, shocking the nation.

The other was the case of baby Gammy, who has Down’s syndrome and was left with the Thai surrogate mother even as his parents took his twin sister back to Australia. Adding to the hysteria, it later emerged that the father was a convicted sex offender, court documents revealed.

So Lake was relieved when the surrogate happily signed the release documents to allow them to take Carmen from the hospital. “I took her flowers,” Lake said of the surrogate. “We have a really cute picture of her and my son.”

Gordon Lake, left, with Manuel and their son Álvaro and daughter Carmen in Bangkok. Photograph: Gordon Lake/Facebook