I’m going to Hong Kong and Beijing: are you coming too?

On 11 and 12 May I will be in Hong Kong, speaking at the first Asia-Pacific Rainbow Families Forum. Amongst other duties, I will be speaking at the showing of the Australian film Gayby Baby at the Australian consulate- and later speaking with surrogacy advocate Richard Westoby, who will be hooked in via the web.

I encourage anyone in the region to attend- and by all means say hello in Hong Kong- or let me know in advance if you are thinking of attending.

Hopefully the event will bring a much needed focus in the region that rainbow families exist, aren’t going away anytime soon, and ought to be recognised.

The simple fact is that many of us want to be parents- and the internet and modern medicine have enabled that to occur. While governments might want to put the genie back in the bottle- that simply won’t happen.

As Sir David Attenborough put it so eloquently: “If you watch animals objectively for any length of time, you’re driven to the conclusion that their main aim in life is to pass on their genes to the next generation. Most do so directly, by breeding. In the few examples that don’t do so by design, they do it indirectly, by helping a relative with whom they share a great number of their genes. And in as much as the legacy that human beings pass on to the next generation is not only genetic but to a unique degree cultural, we do the same. So animals and ourselves, to continue the line, will endure all kinds of hardship, overcome all kinds of difficulties, and eventually the next generation appears.”

Before I get to Hong Kong, I aim to get to Beijing –  and hope, as a good friend and colleague of mine has said to me- to be engaged in Asia!