Lbian and gay parentg: Theoretil and nceptual examatns

Contents:

• LBIAN AND GAY PARENTG
• MAJOR EVANGELIL ADOPTN AGENCY WILL NOW SERVE GAY PARENTS NATNWI

LBIAN AND GAY PARENTG

As a queer-intified person a mted same-sex relatnship, I’ve had to navigate the often nfg pathways toward beg an LGBTQ+ (Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenr and Queer) years, whenever people asked how my partner Mark and I beme dads, I ed to joke that we were set up on a bld date graduate school, we had a few drks and 12 1/2 years later, we accintally adopted our son. Beg prepared for the long hl will help alleviate fears and adoptn rourc for LGBTQ+ faiThe followg rourc offer rmatn and support for LGBTQ+ dividuals and upl terted adoptn:Adopt US KidsCenterLk LGBT Communy Center Member DirectoryChild Welfare Informatn Gateway: Adoptn by Fay Type: Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenr and Qutng (LGBTQ) Fai Child Welfare Informatn Gateway: Planng for Adoptn: Knowg the Costs and RourcFay Equaly Natnal Network of LGBTQ Fay GroupsNorth Amerin Council on Adoptable Children: State Adoptn Assistance ProgramsU. While the benefs of adoptn are clear, gay adoptive parents will likely also face many of the same challeng that heterosexual adoptive parents experience: addrsg their children’s racial or cultural inty, managg birth parent relatnships an open adoptn, talkg to their child about adoptn and simply adjtg to parenthood.

In addn, there are no signifint differenc the velopment of genr inty and sexual orientatn between children of gay and lbian parents and children of heterosexual parents, acrdg to rearch prentg gay adoptn facts and same-sex adoptn statistics.

The prev edn, which was tled Lbian and Gay Parentg: A Rource for Psychologists (1995) was the succsor to a publitn tled Lbian Parents and Their Children: A Rource Paper for Psychologists that was jotly produced by CLGBC and CWP 1991. Unlike heterosexual parents and their children, however, lbian and gay parents and their children are often subject to prejudice bee of their sexual orientatn that n turn judg, legislators, profsnals, and the public agast them, sometim rultg negative out, such as loss of physil ctody, rtrictns on visatn, and prohibns agast adoptn (ACLU Lbian and Gay Rights Project, 2002; Appell, 2003; Patterson, Fulcher, & Waright, 2002).

MAJOR EVANGELIL ADOPTN AGENCY WILL NOW SERVE GAY PARENTS NATNWI

As wh beliefs about other socially stigmatized groups, the beliefs held generally society about lbians and gay men are often not based personal experience, but are equently culturally transmted (Herek, 1995; Gillis, 1998).

Systematic rearch on the children of lbian and gay parents began to appear major profsnal journals the late 1970s and has grown to a nsirable body of rearch only recent years (Allen & Demo, 1995; Patterson, 1992, 2000). As this summary will show, the rults of existg rearch parg lbian and gay parents to heterosexual parents and children of lbian and gay parents to children of heterosexual parents are que clear: Common stereotyp are not supported by the data. The relevance of this cricism has been greatly rced as rearch has expand to explore life a wir array of lbian mother and gay father fai (many of which have never lived through the divorce of a heterosexual uple), and as newer studi beg to clu a wir array of ntrol groups.

Other cricisms have been that most studi have been based on relatively small sampl, that there have been difficulti wh asssment procr employed some studi, and that the classifitn of parents as lbian, gay, or heterosexual has been problematic. An expert readg of the Sarantakos article reveals that certa characteristics of s methodology and sample are highly likely to have skewed the rults and renred them an valid ditor of the well-beg of children raised by gay and lbian parents at least three rpects:.

The children raised by gay and lbian parents experienced unually high levels of extreme social ostracism and overt hostily om other children and parents, which probably acunted for the former's lower levels of teractn and social tegratn wh peers (see pp.