WEBVTT - The App That’s Helping Gay Couples Have Kids in China 0:00:02.600 --> 0:00:04.600 A few weeks ago, I took a trip to the 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:08.880 eastern side of Beijing to an area called Choya. This 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:12.000 part of the city is full of skate shops, fashion boutiques, 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:15.960 and buildings under construction. Of course, there's always construction in Beijing. 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.000 I was there to visit the office of Blue Wood, 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:22.680 a hugely popular social network for gay men, and to 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:26.720 meet the foundered Gungli in person. He's a bit surprising. 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:30.440 He's forty one. He's got a close crop haircut, wearing 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:33.480 a Nike branded Just Do a T shirt and dark 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:37.120 navy blue sweatpants. He really does not look like a 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:40.800 tech bro or an LGBT icon. If anything, he reminds 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:44.080 me a bit of my suburban uncle. Gungla is probably 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:46.960 the most famous gay man in China now, but not 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:49.640 that long ago. He wasn't openly gay. He was a 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.800 police officer married to a woman. So yes, Gangla is 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:56.520 definitely surprising. In China, gay rights are non existent, and 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:59.440 under President Shi jing Ping there's been a crackdown on 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:02.680 civil so sciety, public expression, and human rights in general. 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:05.800 Even so, Blood has been able to thrive by tapping 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:09.559 the LGBT community as a market in just a few years, 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:13.600 Blood has attracted forty million users that rivals Grinder, one 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.800 of the earliest gay dating apps, and Blood is preparing 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:24.039 to I p O. When I sat down with gung Lea, 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.120 he told me that the biggest difference between Blood and 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:31.000 other companies is its ideals and beliefs. He wants to 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:36.280 showcase of Chinese company diligently serving the LGBT community, showing 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:40.160 that they can do things with value and philanthropy. Gungla's 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.240 latest venture puts this philosophy to the test. It's called 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.760 Blue Baby, a service to help gay men who want 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:50.000 to have babies by surrogate overseas. Surrogacy is technically illegal 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.200 in China, but there's growing demand for it anyway. You 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:55.880 can see that in places where it is legal, like California, 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:59.720 where more and more straight Chinese couples have gone for surrogacy. 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.400 Blood now wants to help its clients do the same thing. 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:08.840 Running almost any business in China requires navigating a lot 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:12.480 of uncertainty. For Blood, the risk is even more acute. 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:14.960 If it wants to grow, it's got to push the 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:18.880 frontiers of what's possible and acceptable for the LGBT community 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:22.320 in China. Which still faces a lot of stigma and prejudice. 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.280 China is a country where there's no gay marriage and 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.200 a gay couple can't adopt a child. So Blood is 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:33.160 testing the government's tolerance for something quite new, gay families. 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:37.480 I'm Pa Gadkari, I'm David Ramley, and I'm done Lawrence. 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:44.320 You're listening to Decrypted. For most of his life, gang 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:46.880 La was known as Ma Bauli. He was a veteran 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:50.200 police officer in Herbe Province, which is outside Beijing, and 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.000 he was married to a woman, but online he was 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:57.160 someone else. He used the alias Gangler to live a 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:00.560 parallel life as a gay man and an internet entrepreneur. 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.520 He started a website called dan Land, which became an 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:07.120 important hub for the LGBT community in China, and he 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.240 juggled these two careers for more than a decade, rising 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:13.080 through the ranks of the police as Mar Bauli whilst 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:17.360 expanding the website as dun Low, and then in his 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:21.400 police superiors discovered what he'd been doing here, making a 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:28.240 bottle the whole Kant. He talked to me about what 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:31.440 a difficult period that was. He said that when local 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.320 media outed him as the developer of the service. He 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.720 was forced to choose between shutting it down or leaving 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.280 the force. He chose the ladder, horrifying his parents in 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:45.880 a country where stable government jobs are highly prized. Things 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:48.760 got even worse when they checked out his business and 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:51.520 they realized he was gay. He said. The shock made 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.080 his mother so ill he had to return home and 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.640 look after her. Of course, this was also the end 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:01.320 of his marriage. Despite all that, Gungla doubled down on 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:05.000 his online venture and threw himself into launching Blued, an 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:07.520 app for the Chinese gay community. It was late two 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.840 thousand twelve. Like other dating apps, Blue used Geel location 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.120 to help man find dates and connect with friends. Gunglas 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:17.040 timing was good. After all, this was the smartphone boom, 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.080 when mobile use and access to the Internet was exploding 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.000 and investors were eager to find the next ten cent 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.440 or by do. One of those investors was David Chow 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:30.520 at the firm d c M. He'd spotted Blued. D 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.880 c M had already backed other Chinese social media companies, 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:38.200 and David thought the LGBT community was a huge potential market. 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:41.800 In the United States, about one out of ten people, 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:47.719 or ten percent or lgbteam members um and of course 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:50.839 in China, that would imply if it gets through the 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.480 US levels in the future, that would imply a hundred 0:04:54.560 --> 0:05:00.440 and four million people. So you know, the LGBT market 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:04.080 in China in the future could be larger than the 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:09.320 entire population of Japan nowhere near that. Many people identify 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:13.160 themselves openly as gay in China now, and it's obviously 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.600 hard to know or measure what percentage of any population 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:20.000 is gay, or is openly gay or might be gay. 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:23.040 But investors like David also see extra potential in gay 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.800 consumers in China, at least because they tend to have 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.840 more spending power than the average in part because they 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:31.600 don't have children. That's the promise of the so called 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:37.920 pink economy. We expect it to grow into high single 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:42.560 digits over the next five to ten years, and and 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.640 hence you know, you have a large enough community to 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:51.400 UM support an entire economy of its own. That potential 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:54.359 is starting to become a reality, and BLUED has played 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:57.920 a big role. It's most popular function is video broadcasts, 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:00.800 where uses live stream to their followers, who can send 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:03.960 virtual gifts and money. Blood gets a cut of these 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.880 virtual payments, and it also runs regular ads in the 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.440 app with millions of people signing up. The gay community 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.040 has become more visible in China. There is a growing 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:15.800 movement and there are more and more spaces where people 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.839 can can be out in China. That's Darius long Aino, 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.279 a senior fellow at the Paul Thai China Center, part 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:27.200 of the Law School. Darius studies LGBT issues and legal 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:29.680 reform in China, and I wanted to talk to him 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:33.080 about how Blood fits into the broader context of gay rights, 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.200 even if they're from remote places, places on the countryside, 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:41.000 third tier cities where you know, ten fifteen years ago 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:43.720 really hard to find your community, but through Blood it's 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:48.320 much easier now. So there's a growing connected community that 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:53.760 has higher visibility in society and even advocacy organizations that 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:56.880 are starting to advocate for the community and the movement. 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:00.680 As optimistic as that sounds, that us still a lot 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:04.640 of risks involved for anyone and any business associated with 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.200 the LGBT community. Blued is carving out a market that 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.000 hasn't existed in the past, at least partly because of 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:14.840 intense stigma around being gay in China. There are no 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:19.800 explicit legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation, and 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:23.320 there's also no gay marriage and no civil partnership for 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.640 same sex couples, and the government has become less tolerant 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.560 of demands for civil rights of any kind in recent years. 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:32.480 I don't think in many advocates in China do not 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:37.640 think the government is targeting LGBT issues per se, but 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:42.920 they're wary of any form of organization where people are 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:47.800 finding each other and trying to create movements. Someone who 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:51.480 has experienced this personally is Ryan Law. He lives in 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.880 Guangjo in southern China and works for an NGO focused 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.920 on LGBT health. I met him recently in New York. 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:01.960 He described what the spheres like right now. At the 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:06.400 beginning of twenties seventeen, the whole uh, you know, services 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:10.840 not only old, but the whole cervice society situation got 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.640 you know, a whole lot of worse in China. So 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:18.720 the kind of director you know, impact of that is 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:22.200 a you know a lot of events like openly gathering 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:24.840 events we cannot do like we A lot of our 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.520 events can shut down. But why why would your events 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:31.720 get shut down? Because any kind of group event gets 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:35.120 shut down. You know, they just don't want you to 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:37.840 kind of get together and you know, try to come 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:41.360 up with something and you know, to advocate or you know, 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:45.560 do things together, I think, but especially LGBT things right now, 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:47.880 I think Ryan says he still sees room to move 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:50.720 things forward, but he and his colleagues have been getting 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.200 more visits from the police and are more careful now 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:55.560 about how they communicate and what they do in public, 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.440 like very very seriously careful. Even you know, we stopped 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.640 the talking things on way chair. We all moved to 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:06.199 a signal, even if only a little bit sensitivele we 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:09.160 go to Gmail. Yeah, just think this kind of thing. 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.280 And also, you know, like our events, our poster, we 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:14.880 don't put our logo anymore. Because we put our logo, 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:17.400 then you know it will go shut down. It's not 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:19.880 always easy to predict where the line is that you 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:23.480 shouldn't cross. For example, a dating app for lesbians called 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:28.440 La got shut down in seventeen over an event in Shanghai. First, 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:31.040 you have to know that Shanghai has a weekly wedding 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:34.160 market in a park where parents come to mingle and 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:37.520 find husbands and wives for their single adult children. RelA 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.400 helped organize a group of parents whose children are gay, 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:42.880 but a few days after they went to the wedding market, 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:45.840 the app got shut down. It disappeared from app stores 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.280 and from social media, although it has since relaunched. Darius, 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.160 the Yale researcher, says that initially the government was just 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:55.040 as weary of Blood, but Dana was a former civil 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.640 servant and he knows how official dome works in China. 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:00.280 He's been very smart about smoothing the way pool ctically 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:05.040 for his business. Blood had successfully sold itself as like 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:08.240 a up and coming tech darling to to the government 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:13.000 example of indigenous Chinese innovation. It's an example of success 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:17.199 for Chinese enterprise. Blood isn't exceptional in this respect. All 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:19.760 large companies in China need to stay on the government's 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.120 good side, so it's normal for companies to foster relationships 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:28.960 with officials. But Blood has been especially assiduous according the government, 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:33.520 in part by stepping lightly and avoiding public scrums. For example, 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.760 in two thousand sixteen, the government issued rules that banned 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:40.880 depictions of so called abnormal sexual behavior on Chinese television, 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:45.520 which included homosexuality. The next year, a government affiliated group 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:49.640 issued similar rules for online content. Some major platforms reacted 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:53.080 by banning gay themed content altogether, causing uproar in the 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:57.640 LGBT community. Instead of commenting publicly, gun La got in 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:01.079 touch privately with one of the officials responsible That officials 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:03.040 said he had just taken old rules for TV and 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:06.480 applied them online. Gungla framed it as a business issue. 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.520 He suggested that next time there should be more opportunity 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.760 for public input. In January this year, the same group 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:15.840 issued another list of banned subjects, this time for short 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:20.480 video platforms. The list includes foot fetishes and criticism of 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:24.439 the Chinese Communist Party, but it doesn't include explicit mention 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:29.040 of homosexuality. Gungla thanked the official privately and counts it 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.160 as a win for dialogue over confrontation and Uiva Take 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:39.960 Will So Take. Gongla said that he really believes dialogue 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:43.080 can solve problems and that the government is supportive of 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:46.240 his company because it knows Blueood is doing things well. 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.360 He said that even though there are some officials who 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:53.120 aren't very tolerant of the gay community overrule, he said 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:56.280 the government is well intentioned that right there is a 0:11:56.280 --> 0:12:00.280 good example of Gungla's business savvy. Bloods market made pend 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:04.160 on pushing social boundaries, but Gungla's focus is definitely on business, 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:07.720 not on advocacy, and not on challenging the government. In fact, 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:10.079 Blue has become an essential partner for the government and 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:14.360 its public health outreach, particularly for HIV and AIDS programs, 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.240 and this strategy has worked at least for now. Blood 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:21.199 has been growing rapidly since twelve and today it's got 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:25.360 forty million total users. About six of those are in 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:29.040 China and the rest are outside China, mainly in countries 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:36.120 where there's a big Chinese speaking population. The Blued investor, 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.320 David Chow, says the company is planning to diversify into 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:43.200 new services that cater to LGBT consumers, and Blue Baby 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.080 is the first. The idea came from Gungla's own life, 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:49.160 because about four years ago he started looking seriously at 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.560 becoming a father. He says he always liked kids and 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:54.960 thought they were cute, but then he hit thirty five 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:57.079 and he started to envy other people when he saw 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:59.920 them with their children. He wanted one of his own. 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:02.600 There was a lot to figure out, like where it's 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:05.200 even legal to have a child by stirring it. He 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:07.679 also thought about what life might be like for his child, 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:13.960 the child of a gay man in China. He said 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.760 he thought about how the child might feel a lot 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:21.880 of pressure, or experienced prejudice, or feel insecure unsafe. He 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:24.760 said the child might feel that other people have mothers 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:27.600 but that he didn't. In fact, he told me a 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.600 story about how, not long ago, while they were all 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.640 at home together, his son called out for a mother 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:38.000 that he just didn't know. Eventually, Gangla decided to go 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:41.360 to California for surrogacy. He was hoping for twins, but 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:49.160 only one baby came to term. Spent a month in 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:52.760 l A, two weeks before the birth and two afterwards. 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:55.839 He said the feeling of fatherhood never really hit him 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.560 until he held his son in his arms. It was 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.920 then on that he really felt the rising combination of 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:08.199 love and responsibility. Gungla's son now lives outside the city 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:12.240 with his grandparents and his other dad, Gunglo's boyfriend, mostly 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:14.440 because the air quality in the environment is better there. 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:17.640 Gungla face times with his son and of course gets 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.680 lots of photos and updates about what he's doing. Like 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.200 lots of parents, he thinks his son is extremely smart 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:25.480 and says maybe he'll go to school in the US 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:30.560 one day. Gungla says surrogacy is something really positive that's 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:34.400 transformed his life, enlightened some of the pressures of being 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.640 gay in China. It's also part of the reason he 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:52.800 decided to start Blue Baby. Yeah. In December, I went 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.040 to l A to visit HRC Fertility. It's one of 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:59.320 the clinics that Blued partners with in California. It has 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.040 a refined, a beige reception area, and they get a 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.600 lot of Chinese clients, which you can tell because there's 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:08.240 so much Chinese being spoken, maybe more Chinese in English. 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:10.720 I was there to meet a man named Russell who'd 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.440 flown in from China to deposit seamen, which is the 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:16.400 first step in having a baby by surrogate. I come 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:23.280 from Shahaiu, I have a partner. I'm out to everyone 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:26.880 except that Perry Russell isn't one of Blue Babies clients, 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:29.160 but he's just the sort of person gung La is 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.320 hoping to serve. He's thirty seven and works in marketing 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.440 for an international company. He also has his own marketing 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.400 business on the side. Russell's parents still live in the 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.360 small rural town where he grew up, and he says 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.160 it's becoming an issue that they don't know he's gay. 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:46.760 They don't understand why he's not settling down and starting 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.080 a family. Remember the marriage market in Shanghai we talked about. 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:52.680 Because I'm getting older and older than the pressure is 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:58.240 stronger and stronger from the family than just since recently, 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:01.040 I think maybe it's a good idea, yeah, to have 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.160 that baby. And also I personally I like babies too, 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:08.520 so why not. So Also the reason I wanted to 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:13.400 have a baby, well then because they have given me 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.480 a lot of pressure. They want me to get married. 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.840 So I'm thinking maybe I can just escape the step, 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:25.600 like escape marriage, just two babies. That's much easier for me. 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:30.120 The path's becoming a gay parent is full of hurdles. 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:35.160 For starters, it's incredibly expensive. Russell is budgeting two thousand 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:37.640 dollars for the process, and that's about how much gun 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:41.080 Las spent as well. Russell first looked into adoption but 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:43.160 found it would be impossible for him as a single 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:45.680 gay man in China. He has friends who've had babies 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:49.000 by surrogate in Thailand, which would be cheaper, but it's 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:52.320 illegal there. So after doing some research, Russell found an 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:56.360 agency called Los Angeles Surrogacy. For Russell, the next steps 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:58.680 to find an egg donor and a sarrogate, but it 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.400 will probably take another year before he becomes a father. 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:03.520 You know, in terms of an egg dollar and in 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:06.320 transma sorga, do you know what you're looking for? Do 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:10.919 you know what you want? Um? I'm more I'm putting 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.879 more attention to the paying more attention to the egg donor. 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:18.439 At the moment, I haven't thought about the next step, 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:23.080 so I want to have a mixed baby since it's 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.359 already a sarrogate baby, so I won't have a mixed 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:32.960 and I would go forward dark hair because if the 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.280 egg donor is a blonde girl, I'm sure that it's 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:38.840 very likely that my baby is going to be like blonde. 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:41.760 Then you know, in the future, I have this blond 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:46.720 kid on the streets, there was where's your mother? And 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:51.000 it's still obvious that he does. He's it's not my baby. 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.800 Blue Baby wants to make surrogacy easier and safer for 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:58.359 the LGBT community, steering clients to places where surrogacy is 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:02.879 legal and long established like California, employees connect clients with 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.080 trusted providers and shepherd them through each step, choosing an 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:10.280 egg donor choosing a surrogate, drawing up legal contracts. There 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:12.879 are three employees in Los Angeles who pick up clients 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:16.000 at the airport, book hotels and help get them around 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:19.440 the city. Blue Baby was launched less than two years ago, 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:23.080 so it can't count any actual births yet, although some 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:26.400 of its clients are pregnant, or rather the surrogates are pregnant. 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.320 Blue Baby is also a test of how Blued can 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:33.800 diversify its business into products and services that aren't necessarily online. 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.320 For a mobile app and an online company, surrogacy is 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:44.040 a very high touch business. See said that in comparison 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:47.840 to the Internet side of his company, surrogacy is actually 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:51.520 a slow business. It's a service industry, but he wanted 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:53.440 to do it anyway because he thinks he can help 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.520 people and because it's a happy thing, even in saying 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.440 that though it will turn a profit eventually. When David 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:01.439 sat down with geng La, it was around the Chinese 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:04.160 New Year, and he talked a lot about what's spurring 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:10.359 gay men from China to turn to surrogacy. H to 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:15.160 my the Chinese New Year means heading home to visit family, 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.720 and Gungla says it brings out all the pressures of 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:22.399 being gay, pressures that parents and relatives feel as well. 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:26.800 When an adult child comes home unmarried with no kids, 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:30.000 it's hard for parents to face their friends too. He says. 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:34.520 Bringing home his son the next generation of the family 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:38.440 has repaired the heartache and the difficulties that his being 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:44.040 gay and coming out has meant for them. A lot 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:47.080 of people I spoke to, including academics and doctors, as 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:51.080 well as intended parents themselves, said the same thing. Having 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:54.040 a child makes it easier for these men to come 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.879 out to their families. I asked Russell whether this was 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.560 part of his plan too. Do you think once you 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:02.200 have baby, you'll tell your parents who come out to 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:05.720 your hands. Well, that's a very good question. I'm not 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:10.320 going to tell them. Maybe my kid would tell them 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:17.199 when he or she grow up. Russell is hoping for 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.360 a girl after this long process, and he anticipates lots 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:23.240 of challenges to raising his child. He thinks he might 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:26.440 have to send her to an expensive international school because 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:30.000 she'll be a US citizen and technically a foreigner in China, 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:32.240 Russell isn't sure if he'll be able to get her 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.200 the documents and permits needed to attend a regular Chinese school. 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:38.639 He wonders how future classmates may react to her, and 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:41.080 if she'll resent him for not being a normal dad 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:44.400 in a traditional family. How wuld how would your child 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:50.040 be up? Said, they won't really, They'll just know what 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.399 your family is like, and that's their family. They'll just 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:57.679 accept it. Because the kid is going to face a 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:02.400 lot of difficulties in school, and because it's not a 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:06.520 normal family, he's not going to be treated equally as 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:09.760 other kids. I know it's not going to be easy 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:14.480 because our society is not ready for this kind of baby, 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:18.520 especially if we are gay couples. The plan eventually is 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:20.720 for Blue to address this kind of worry with things 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:23.679 like social kids groups on the app, where children of 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:26.760 LGBT parents can bond free from the stigma they might 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:29.920 face for having a non traditional family. Russell is also 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:33.000 concerned that at any moment, the Chinese government could decide 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.439 it's not going to look the other way anymore. And 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:37.600 you know our government is very communist. You don't know 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:39.439 what they're going to do in the future. Maybe one 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:42.199 day they were just to say, Okay, we have to 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:45.720 stop this. You cannot do set babies in China, you 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:49.560 cannot promote it. When we asked Don La and David 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:52.280 Chow about that kind of risk, whether it's a crackdown 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:55.360 on surrogacy or the gay community more broadly, they both 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:58.520 said they aren't worried, and Blue certainly seems to be thriving. 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:01.080 It's domestic business has turned to profit for the last 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:03.639 two years, and Gun was now planning an I p 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:09.080 O so June. On the point about Bloods plans to 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:12.280 to go public, did you get the sense that any 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:14.920 part of those plans was related to putting the company 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:17.280 on a sure of footing and insulate it from risk 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:20.680 coming from the government. Not necessarily. I mean, if the 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:23.879 government wants to crack down in China, they will um 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:27.640 but one reason they may not is demographics. China's population 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:30.840 is aging really rapidly, and having spent a long time 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:33.119 trying to limit the population, I think the government is 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:36.880 now interested in boosting the birth rate. And even if 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:39.080 these babies are born by surrogate, they're still babies. They're 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:43.119 still boosting the birth rate. Given how expensive this procedure is, 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:46.919 I wonder how many babies this you know, this avenue 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:50.040 would actually yield. That's true. I mean it does seem 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:54.080 incredibly expensive and complicated, you know, with the currency controls 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:56.840 in China and stuff like that. But some of the 0:22:56.880 --> 0:22:59.320 fertility experts that I talked to who have been to 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:02.800 China on the kind of educational tours that Blood has 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:05.960 put on to talk to gay men who are considering 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:11.160 surrogacy said that often their parents are with them and 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:14.080 this is such a strong it's so it's such a 0:23:14.080 --> 0:23:18.359 strong imperative to have children in China that these parents 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:20.879 are just totally committed they're going to chip in and 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:24.399 help make it happen for their sons. Well, that was 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:27.159 one of the big revelations for me working with you 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:29.639 on this story. I had no idea that, um, it 0:23:29.680 --> 0:23:33.000 would help parents deal with their children's sexuality if they 0:23:33.000 --> 0:23:35.679 had a grandchild in the picture. Yeah, I mean I 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:39.199 think it sort of just allows them to ignore it. 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:43.159 I mean, who cares about their children's sexuality when they 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:47.399 have a grandchilds Yeah, so did you meet any of 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:51.680 Blue Babies clients, They wouldn't make any of their clients available. 0:23:51.720 --> 0:23:55.440 I mean they said basically, they were all really worried 0:23:55.680 --> 0:24:00.119