Parents of gay children may go through an adjtment perd when they fd out their child is gay, but there is support for parents of gay children.
Contents:
- FOR GAY MEN, HAVG A BLOGIL CHILD N BE PLITED
- IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
- PARENTS OF GAY CHILDREN AND THE ISSU THEY FACE
- WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?
- STARS WHO HAVE GAY CHILDREN
FOR GAY MEN, HAVG A BLOGIL CHILD N BE PLITED
Stanford physicians have published the first study of gay men's experienc wh g assisted reproductive technology to have children. * boy gay children *
But providg support isn't always easy — pecially if you are the parent of a lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr or qutng (LGBTQ) child. Advote for a gay-straight alliance (GSA), which has been shown to make schools safer and boost amic performance among LGBTQ stunts. Team up wh a pediatrician, a unselor at school, close fay members and even muny anizatns — for example, Parents, Fai and Friends of Lbians and Gays (PFLAG) — if you’re havg trouble gog alone.
Parents, Fai and Friends of Lbian and Gays (PFLAG). But for gay men, this procs is plited and expensive.
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.
IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
* boy gay children *
As a gay person growg up a nservative environment, this was a challenge I thought about. I asked them how I uld start a fay as a gay man. We don't take re of gay men...
Your paper giv historil ntext for how shiftg attus toward LGBTQ fai have changed the climate for gay men who want to bee fathers. There has been a lot of foc the scientific lerature on whether children turn out OK if they have gay parents. A gay uple New York State recently sued, sayg those creria are discrimatory.
Why is important for the experienc of gay men seekg fertily re to be reflected the scientific lerature? 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. Our paper ed data om one of the very few fertily benef pani that do offer fertily verage to gay men.
PARENTS OF GAY CHILDREN AND THE ISSU THEY FACE
That gave a wdow to a natnal group of 119 cisgenr men, cludg five sgle men and 57 gay upl, who uniquely had fertily benefs. 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. I thk that, bee of the medil factors, birth rat for gay upl uld serve as a morn standard for evaluatg the succs of IVF labs. 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.
But we need to ask: Are we puttg gtatnal rriers at unnecsary risk om tw pregnanci, and puttg gay upl at unnecsary risk of havg babi the NICU? Before I was an OB/GYN, I thought, "This is a health accs issue, and if gay men want tws we should rpect their tonomy.
WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?
What do add to have physician-scientists like you, who are gay, answerg rearch qutns about this populatn of prospective parents?
I'm currently a fellow, and I have patients g specifilly to see me, not bee I'm the most amazg doctor but bee I'm gay, and they want a gay doctor. 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. 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.
STARS WHO HAVE GAY CHILDREN
Children who show pronounced sex-atypil behavrs may have more of a geic loadg to their homosexualy.
The behavral patterns are feared, loathed and often spoken of directly as harbgers of adult homosexualy. It is only relatively recently, however, that velopmental scientists have nducted ntrolled studi to intify the earlit and most reliable signs of adult homosexualy.
In lookg refully at the childhoods of gay adults, rearchers are fdg an trigug set of behavral ditors that homosexuals seem to have mon. Curly enough, the age-old homophobic fears of many parents reflect some genue predictive currency.