Before his son started school last year, Su Ge spent weeks researching kindergarten options in the eastern city of Nanjing. After much deliberation, he selected the most expensive one. He believed it was perfect for his son — a surrogate child raised by two gay men. Compared with the other choices, Su says teachers in this private kindergarten are relatively younger, mostly in their 20s, and even include two gay teachers who’d give his son extra care and ensure he wouldn’t face discrimination. “We were still a bit worried at first,” Su tells Sixth Tone. “We didn’t participate in parent-child activities together, and we invited teachers to eat at my restaurant to establish a good relationship with them.” With the new semester for schools beginning Sept. 1 across China, Sixth Tone found same-sex couples and their children having to grapple with additional challenges that emerge as early as kindergarten admissions: from a 41-year-old gay man who plans to identify himself at school only as a single parent, to a lesbian mother who moved to Hong Kong for her son, and a 22-year-old who, when younger, said he has a biological father and a “godfather.”