Gay Parents Raisg Kids: How Will They Fare? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• FOR GAY MEN, HAVG A BLOGIL CHILD N BE PLITED
• MY HBAND IS GAY BUT WE’RE MARRIED WH TWO KIDS AND HAVE GREAT SEX
• KIDS OF GAY PARENTS FARE WORSE, STUDY FDS, BUT REARCH DRAWS FIRE OM EXPERTS
• IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
• PARENTS’ FLUENCE ON LBIAN, GAY, OR BISEXUAL TEENS
• GAY PARENTS RAISG KIDS: HOW WILL THEY FARE?

FOR GAY MEN, HAVG A BLOGIL CHILD N BE PLITED

“For gay male sgl/upl, we have particularly easier the matchg procs, as there is no other mom 'replacg' the child’s birth mother and often get chosen quicker.

The procs tak about two years and sts around $200, 000 per child - and prospective gay fathers don't meet eligibily creria for most health surance plans' fertily benefs, although this is begng to change. Brent Monsr, MD, recently helped lead a study to document tails of how gay men e assisted reproductive technology to build their fai, cludg qutns such as how many children they wish to have and how often their efforts succeed. Cisgenr gay men are almost never clud this rearch, so as physicians we don't know anythg about their characteristics as reproductive health patients, even basic rmatn such as their mographics, clil cisn-makg patterns or out.

MY HBAND IS GAY BUT WE’RE MARRIED WH TWO KIDS AND HAVE GREAT SEX

It's important to keep md that our data reflect the experienc of dividuals who n afford reproductive medil re bee their employer-sponsored fertily benefs ver , and that is still an unual suatn for gay men.

This data served as the foundatn for a grant applitn we've jt had approved to nduct a much larger populatn study that will give accs to rmatn on about 2, 000 embryo transfers annually gay men. A lot of people see a fertily doctor bee they have an unrlyg medil issue, whereas gay male upl ually have two possible sperm sourc, a young egg donor and a gtatnal rrier who has already had succsful pregnanci. We regnize that this may be bee a lot of gay men requt tws or may ultimately want two children, and fertily doctors may be transferrg two embryos to try to save their patients money so they only have to go through the fertily treatment procs once.

(CBS News) A new study that fds children of a gay or lbian parent may be more likely to have social and emotnal problems has sparked ntroversy on both sis of the same-sex marriage bate.

KIDS OF GAY PARENTS FARE WORSE, STUDY FDS, BUT REARCH DRAWS FIRE OM EXPERTS

In a jot statement om the Fay Equaly Council, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Freedom to Marry, and the Gay and Lbian Alliance agast Defamatn (GLAAD), advot lled the study a "flawed, misleadg, and scientifilly unsound paper that seeks to disparage lbian and gay parents.

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

In a mentary Slate, William Saletan wr, "What the study shows, then, is that kids om broken hom head by gay people velop the same problems as kids om broken hom head by straight people.

Though the numbers of gay men, bi people, and (more so) lbians raisg children has climbed recent years, ntu to lag well behd the rat for straight upl.

The son of Haian immigrants, Charl was lucky enough to be raised by parents who sensed their son’s gay inty when he was young, and they’ve been supportive of him om the start—perhaps bee of that, no possible route seems to him out of the qutn. Both lbians and gay men often have a history of cross-sex-typed behavrs: ltle boys beg fatuated wh their mother's makp k; ltle girls enamored of field hockey or profsnal wrtlg.

PARENTS’ FLUENCE ON LBIAN, GAY, OR BISEXUAL TEENS

Prehomosexual boys tend to be more attracted to solary sports such as swimmg, cyclg and tennis than they are to rougher ntact sports such as football and soccer. It is only relatively recently, however, that velopmental scientists have nducted ntrolled studi to intify the earlit and most reliable signs of adult homosexualy.

So on the basis of some earlier, shakier rearch, along wh a good dose of mon sense, Bailey and Zucker hypothized that homosexuals would show an verted pattern of sex-typed childhood behavrs—ltle boys preferrg girls as playmat and beg fatuated wh their mother's makp k; ltle girls strangely enamored of field hockey or profsnal wrtlg—that sort of thg. Although only 12 percent of the women grew up to be genr dysphoric (the unfortable sense that your blogil sex do not match your genr), the odds of the women reportg a bisexual or homosexual orientatn were up to 23 tim higher than would occur a general sample of young women.

GAY PARENTS RAISG KIDS: HOW WILL THEY FARE?

Bailey and Zucker, who nducted a retrospective study which adults answered qutns about their past, revealed that 89 percent of randomly sampled gay men relled cross-sex-typed childhood behavrs exceedg the heterosexual median. There is also evince of a “dosage effect”: the more genr-nonnformg characteristics there are childhood, the more likely is that a homosexual or bisexual orientatn will be prent adulthood.

Cross-cultural data show that prehomosexual boys are more attracted to solary sports such as swimmg, cyclg and tennis than they are to rougher ntact sports such as football and soccer; they are also ls likely to be childhood bulli. Bee the data often reveal very early emergg tras prehomosexuals, children who show pronounced sex-atypil behavrs may have more of a geic loadg to their homosexualy, whereas gay adults who were sex-typil as children might trace their homosexualy more directly to particular childhood experienc.