I love to celebrate Pride with my kids. I love to tell them why Pride matters, and why it’s a special time for our family to celebrate. I especially love talking to LGBTQ+ people who have recently become parents and are rediscovering pride in their queer community.
When their daughter was born via surrogacy in 2021, Carlos and Pat began to ask themselves: How can we help our community?
But they kept coming back to another question.
“How do we make more gay parents?”
“We never planned to become active members of pushing LGBTQ+ parenting forward,” Carlos explained. But once they had their daughter, everything changed. Carlos—who runs BUM with Pat and also has a full-time career—working part-time for the surrogacy agency they used. He loved to be part of the process that had made them parents, and he wanted to help others understand the sometimes rocky road of surrogacy. Pat and Carlos felt compelled to share their own story so that others might see what’s possible. Pat says, “We wanted to show people that we’re just living our lives.”
So, how could they support the gay community and also help make parenting more accessible? Turns out, the answer was lube! That and body scrub and a mixed berry cleanse. Pat and Carlos decided to get a little uncomfortable. They didn’t set out wanting to get into the lube business. “We did not go into this as people who want to talk about sex openly,” Pat explains, but they quickly realized that this was a product the queer community could get behind, pun intended. “Lets overcome the stigma of gay sex,” they told themselves. “We can bring awareness and break down stereotypes.”
BUM products are officially available on Pink Robin, and Pat and Carlos have gotten pretty comfortable talking about taboo subjects, but what they really want to talk about is LGBTQ+ parenting, and how more individuals and couples can have access to options like surrogacy, adoption, and fertility treatments.
BUM has partnered with organizations like Men Having Babies, and eventually hope to start their own non-profit. They firmly believe that financial constraints shouldn’t be what stops potential parents from starting a family.
As we chatted we laughed about the astronomical costs of surrogacy, fertility treatments, and adoption for same-sex or single parents. Even those of us privileged enough to make it happen had to dip into savings or go into debt to achieve our dream of becoming parents. But we can all agree that it was worth it.
When the couple recently moved to New England with their daughter this year, Carlos says he embraced the opportunity to show people what’s possible. “We might be the first gay family someone is meeting,” Carlos explains. “She (their daughter) is changing people’s minds without even knowing that she’s doing it, just by being herself and enjoying life with her parents.”
Carlos gushes that “two year olds live openly,” and he’s embraced this philosophy when it comes to sharing his own experiences, and when it comes to giving back to the queer community.
Learn more about the Bottoms Up Movement and shop for their products now on Pink Robin.
Hey there. Laura Leigh here. I’m a wife, writer, mama, small business owner, podcast host, and the Head of Content here at Pink Robin.
I love supporting the queer community and bringing shared experiences to life.
If you have a story to tell, I’m here for it.
lauraleigh@pinkrobinshop.com
I remember when my wife and I first became moms, I knew that our ability to “pass” was behind us. I was never going to pretend that my wife and family were something other than exactly who they were. It was freeing to know that I had to live my queer life out loud, that I would forever be myself in every space, all the time.
In a 2023 CNN article Daniel Korschun, associate professor of marketing at Drexel University explained that when it comes to supporting the LGBTQ+ community, executives “are becoming much more skittish about taking these stands and making strong statements.
According to a 2022 Pew Research Poll, roughly eight-in-ten U.S. adults say there is at least some discrimination against transgender people in our society. Because trans rights have become such a contentious issue across the country, companies that used to view supporting pride as “low stakes” have become less likely to support the LGBTQ+ community as a whole. “The pendulum is swinging a bit back … toward a more conservative approach, where they’ll be less vocal,” says Korschun. According to a recent NBC News article, Target stores will only sell pride merchandise in select locations this year. The retailer will not have Pride collections in about half of their locations. Additionally, they will only sell pride merchandise for adults.
An argument that Target has made in the past and is now using again is that this decision protects their LGBTQ+ employees, but let’s be clear: Conditional allyship is not support. Pulling queer merchandise from their shelves and essentially pretending that we don’t exist–and ignoring those of us who have children that want to celebrate pride with us–is detrimental to our community. Erasure threatens our safety. This weekend my mom told me that she’s done with Target. Like her, I can’t say I feel good about spending my money in a place that doesn’t value my family. As of today, the ACLU is currently tracking 515 anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S. We exist, and abandoning us only endangers us.
