In February 2022, together with my partner Adam and our lifetime friend and surrogate Shelly, we were the first same-sex couple in Israel to get the state permission for a local surrogacy process to become parents. With her partner and kids, Shelly and us went through the most intimate journey until our son Irmi (Jeremy) was born on May 1st, 2023 at an Israeli hospital. On that evening, the families of all four of us came to the hospital to greet the newborn. Three years after the Israeli supreme court ruled in favor of the LGBTQ community in the matter, we were among the first to have our child born here surrounded by our friends and families.

LGBTQ parenthood is simultanously similar and extremely different from Heterosexual parenthood. It’s the most intimate thing you can ever do with your partner (or on your own), yet it’s always a political statement and a legal headache. In this talk Nimrod combines his legal knowledge on all types of LGBTQ parenthood (adoption, joint parenthood, surrogacy and more), being a longtime legal activist for LGBTQ equality, together with his personal insights from his own story, from the point of deciding on being a parent (and how) to nowadays, as he tries to be the best father to his son, just like any other dad in the world.