BC's IVF Program Is Leaving Gay Men Behind BC's IVF Program Is Leaving Gay Men Behind Inclusive in theory, not practice Most can't benefit Searching for a surrogate One embryo A tighter clock A new focus At a disadvantage Beyond BC

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Gender + Sexuality
The province's funded fertility program has fine print that makes access harder for single men and same-sex male couples.
Gemma Boothroyd
25 Jun 2026
25 Jun 2026The Tyee
Gemma Boothroyd is a Vancouver-based freelance journalist and researcher whose commentary has appeared in the Guardian, the BBC and the Financial Times.
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The province's funded fertility program has fine print that makes access harder for single men and same-sex male couples. … Article written by Gemma Boothroyd.
Johnny Phung wants to have a biological child.
As a gay man, he will need an egg donor and surrogate. The process could cost Phung over $100,000 and require years of planning.
So when Phung learned he'd qualified for $19,000 from B.C.'s publicly funded in vitro fertilization program, he was excited.
But his initial elation quickly gave way to disappointment, because many costs associated with donors and surrogates aren't covered. And for the limited coverage to apply, Phung would have to find a donor or surrogate based in B.C. That severely limits his options and the likelihood of finding a match in time to actually use the funding. On top of that, Phung found out the $30,000 he had already spent on a B.C. egg donation couldn't be retroactively covered.
Since securing the funding, Phung has been scouring Reddit and Facebook to find eligible donors and surrogates with whom he can partner. If he can't, he'll struggle to use the funding, and whatever isn't spent by the end of October will vanish.
In vitro fertilization, or IVF, includes four steps: ovarian stimulation to produce eggs, retrieving those eggs, fertilizing the eggs with sperm in a lab, and transferring a resulting embryo into a uterus for a possible pregnancy.
So for Phung to have a biological child through IVF, he needs both an egg donor and a gestational surrogate who will carry the pregnancy and isn't genetically related to the child.
B.C. launched its long-awaited IVF funding program in 2025. Publicly funded fertility programs have cropped up across the country since 2010, when Quebec began funding up to three IVF cycles. Ontario followed in 2015 with one funded IVF cycle. Nearly all provinces now offer some form of tax credit, reimbursement program or alternative funding.
B.C.'s program is income-tested, meaning applicants must fall within a specific income threshold in order to qualify.
Penny Blesch, who runs an infertility non-profit and helped lobby the B.C. government for funding, described the program as "technically inclusive." The program website states that sex, gender, sexual orientation and family status are not factors in determining eligibility. But the fine print tells a different story.
"Technically inclusive and practically accessible are two very different things," Blesch says.
For aspiring parents — especially single men or same-sex male partners — Blesch says the gap between the two is significant.
"Most gay males that I see needing egg donation and surrogacy are not able to benefit from the funding," says Dr. Beth Taylor, Phung's fertility doctor at Olive Fertility Center.
The majority of egg donors and surrogates are from outside the province, so the province's decision to exclusively fund B.C.-based donors and surrogates can be problematic, Taylor says.
Laura Spencer, an IVF advocate and fertility coach who provides mentorship and fertility support, says only funding B.C. surrogates makes a small pool even smaller.
"It cuts down on a lot of possibilities," she says. "It can be the difference between being able to have a baby and not."
Even if an intended parent does find a B.C. donor or surrogate, only part of their costs can be funded by the program. Health screening, genetic testing, legal fees and counselling — that is usually deemed mandatory by fertility clinics — are not cover...