Insulting slurs against IVF children and same-sex parents

Speaking to the Italian magazine Panorama, alongside his business partner, Stefano Gabbana, Domenico Dolce said children should be born to a mother and a father.

Dolce told Italian magazine Panorama that:

“The only family is a traditional one. I’m not convinced by those I call chemical children, synthetic babies… They are wombs for hire, semen chosen from a catalogue… psychiatrists are not ready to confront the effects of this experimentation.”

A lot of activists at the forefront of this protest are from Uganda.

Stefano Gabbana said: “The family is not a fad. . . I am opposed to the idea of a child growing up with two gay parents.”

Please join us in sending a clear message to Dolce and Gabbana that same-sex families are loving, happy families. This issue is not about same-sex families alone but also about the many straight families who have benefited from fertility treatment. Dolce and Gabbana’s statements add to the stigma, shame, prejudice, rejection and intolerance often suffered by the same-sex parents and their children.

It is hypocritical for Stefano Gabbana to oppose gay parents, given that in 2006 he expressed desire to have a child via artificial insemination and surrogacy. He’s guilty of double standards. Gabbana wanted for himself what he now condemns other gay men for wanting.

Dolce and Gabbana are echoing ill-informed, outdated and homophobic prejudices about gay parents. Research spanning 40 years shows that children brought up by gay mums and dads are just as happy and well-adjusted as those from traditional heterosexual families. The key to a child’s welfare is the love of their parents, not the parent’s sexual orientation.

Out and Proud Diamond Group

Peter Tatchell Foundation