Gay fathers face stigma as parents | Rters

Contents:

• GAY FATHERS FACE STIGMA AS PARENTS
• PROCR FOR GAY COUPL LOOKG TO ADOPT
• THE RISE OF THE GAY DAD
• WHY GAY PARENTS MAY BE THE BT PARENTS
• ADOPTIVE GAY FATHER FAI: PARENT–CHILD RELATNSHIPS AND CHILDREN'S PSYCHOLOGIL ADJTMENT
• ADOPTED CHILDREN REMOVED FROM GAY DADS IN RSIA
• GAY DAD ADOPTN
• GAY ADOPTN

GAY FATHERS FACE STIGMA AS PARENTS

BACKGROUND:Gay men have bee fathers the ntext of a heterosexual relatnship, by adoptn, by donatg sperm to 1 or 2 lbian women and subsequently sharg parentg rponsibili, and/or by engagg the servic of a surrogate pregnancy rrier. The 2013 US Supreme Court’s legalizatn of full rights to marriage for same-genr partners provid full legimacy to fai created by lbian and gay upl and regnized that their children would be beneficiari of the sanctned legal stat of their parents. Social science rearch has documented the well-beg of children raised by same-genr parents, 1, 2 and many profsnal associatns that addrs parentg have endorsed nfince and optimism about gay or lbian parents raisg children, cludg the Amerin Amy of Pediatrics, Amic Pediatric Associatn, Amerin Medil Associatn, and Amerin Amy of Child and Adolcent Psychiatry.

15 A recent study revealed that although gay fathers did not differ om heterosexual fathers the strength and qualy of their relatnships, feelgs of rejectn and havg to jtify themselv as parents affected fathers’ feelgs of petence as parents.

PROCR FOR GAY COUPL LOOKG TO ADOPT

mographic rmatn about the rponnt and his children;the method(s) by which the child(ren) joed the fay;whether the rponnt had faced barriers accsg pathways to parenthood; andwhether rponnts had been “ma to feel unfortable, exclud, shamed, hurt, or unwele” specific social ntexts bee of beg/havg a gay father (active stigma), or had “avoid var suatns bee of worry about people’s judgments” (anticipated stigma). We distributed a lk to the survey through targeted Facebook advertisg, an advertisement Gay Parent Magaze, Twter, Meetup groups, and direct ntacts wh lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr (LGBT) parentg groups, advocy anizatns, LGBT muny and cultural centers, surrogacy and adoptn agenci, and church groups throughout the Uned Stat. To unrstand the fluence of the social environment on gay fathers and their children, we ed the “equaly ratgs” created by the Movement Advancement Project () based on each state’s laws for protectn of LGBT fai (eg, laws regardg adoptn and foster re by lbians and gay men, the availabily of legal domtic partnerships, civil unns, and civil marriage, regulatns about bullyg schools, etc).

The amount of muny support provid to members of sexual mori has been shown to be related to the well-beg of lbian and gay adolcents, 25, 26 adults, 24, 27 and children wh lbian or gay parents, 28 cludg rat of suicidaly and psychiatric disorrs. Given their important role as lears the muny’s support for all fai, pediatricians rg for children and their gay fathers should regnize the likelihood that stigma may be a part of the fay’s experience and help both fai and muni to unteract .

THE RISE OF THE GAY DAD

Supreme Court legalized gay marriage natnwi 2015, advancg legal parentg rights for same-sex upl wh almost two-thirds of gay fathers experience stigma based on their stat as homosexual dads, and half of them avoid suatns out of fear of mistreatment or discrimatn, the current study children experience stigma, too. “Legal protectns today are much more expansive than they were a ago, which turn means that the stigma faced by gay fathers - and, by extensn, lbian mothers - should be ls than the past, ” said Brian Powell, a soclogy rearcher at Indiana Universy Bloomgton who wasn’t volved the study. Rearchers ranked stat based on how many legal protectns they offered to gay parents that vered thgs like marriage, civil unns, domtic partnerships, adoptn, child ctody and anti-bullyg surprisgly, gay fathers were more likely to report stigma affectg their liv stat wh fewer legal protectns.

Fai stat wh more legal protectns for gay parents were more likely to be formed by surrogacy, while men stat wh few legal protectns were more likely to bee fathers through heterosexual relatnships, the study fathers reported barriers to beg parents. About 41 percent had difficulti wh adoptn and one-third enuntered problems arrangg ctody of children born heterosexual study n’t prove whether parentg stat or sexual orientatn directly impacts discrimatn, and wasn’t natnally participants were whe, and ’s also possible that gay fathers om other racial or ethnic groups might report different experienc, Dr.

Even at the recment stage, you might hear agenci sayg they've already got a gay or lbian uple on their books and they're not lookg for any more, or bee you're whe you n't go on their books, or bee you're gay you'll not get children unr five. But maybe that will change when social workers have more experience of kids dog jt as well gay- or lbian-head statistics om the Natnal Adoptn Register suggt gay and lbian adopters are more open to olr kids and siblg groups, and also we're more ethnilly mixed as upl than heterosexuals. And beg gay or lbian should help you relate to the experienc of the children, bee they've experienced difficult starts life, they feel different and exclud and aware that other children haven't had siar are a lot of very supportive, well-meang social workers.

WHY GAY PARENTS MAY BE THE BT PARENTS

But sometim they n impose a hierarchy of adopters which married heterosexual adopters wh money are at the top and a sgle, gay, whe man would be at the bottom – a sgle, gay, black man would be higher, sce they are keen to match ethnilly (most gay and lbian adopters thk they were never gog to have children who were gog to look like them anyway, so what do matter? It me naturally that he lled me Dad bee, as I like to put , I had my materny leave, so I was off work for ne months and wh him all the time; Jam was there evengs and 's always gog to be a gree of prejudice about gay adoptn. In fact, some ways, gay parents may brg talents to the table that straight parents don' parents "tend to be more motivated, more mted than heterosexual parents on average, bee they chose to be parents, " said Abbie Goldberg, a psychologist at Clark Universy Massachetts who rearch gay and lbian parentg.

ADOPTIVE GAY FATHER FAI: PARENT–CHILD RELATNSHIPS AND CHILDREN'S PSYCHOLOGIL ADJTMENT

"And while rearch dit that kids of gay parents show few differenc achievement, mental health, social functng and other measur, the kids may have the advantage of open-mdns, tolerance and role mols for equable relatnships, acrdg to some rearch.

ADOPTED CHILDREN REMOVED FROM GAY DADS IN RSIA

) [5 Myths About Gay People Debunked]Adoptg the needitGay adoptn recently ed ntroversy Illois, where Catholic Chari adoptn servic cid November to cease offerg servic bee the state refed fundg unls the groups agreed not to discrimate agast gays and lbians.

More than half of the kids adopted by gays and lbians had special report didn't pare the adoptn preferenc of gay upl directly wh those of heterosexual upl, said thor David Brodzsky, rearch director at the Instute and -edor of "Adoptn By Lbians and Gay Men: A New Dimensn of Fay Diversy" (Oxford Universy Prs, 2011). Part of that uld be their own preferenc, and part uld be bee of discrimatn by adoptn agenci that puts more difficult children wh what seworkers see as "ls sirable" matter how you slice , Brodzsky told LiveScience, gays and lbians are highly terted adoptn as a group. "When you thk about the 114, 000 children who are eed for adoptn who ntue to live foster re and who are not beg readily adopted, the goal is to crease the pool of available, terted and well-traed dividuals to parent the children, " Brodzsky addn, Brodzsky said, there's evince to suggt that gays and lbians are pecially acceptg of open adoptns, where the child retas some ntact wh his or her birth parents.

"Intertgly, we fd that a small percentage, but enough to be noteworthy, [of birth mothers] make a nsc cisn to place wh gay men, so they n be the only mother their child's life, " Brodzsky parentgRearch has shown that the kids of same-sex upl — both adopted and blogil kids — fare no worse than the kids of straight upl on mental health, social functng, school performance and a variety of other life-succs a 2010 review of virtually every study on gay parentg, New York Universy soclogist Judh Stacey and Universy of Southern California soclogist Tim Biblarz found no differenc between children raised hom wh two heterosexual parents and children raised wh lbian parents. "There's no doubt whatsoever om the rearch that children wh two lbian parents are growg up to be jt as well-adjted and succsful" as children wh a male and a female parent, " Stacey told is very ltle rearch on the children of gay men, so Stacey and Biblarz uldn't draw nclns on those fai. "The dividuals feel like their perspectiv on fay, on genr, on sexualy have largely been enhanced by growg up wh gay parents, " Goldberg 33-year-old man wh a lbian mother told Goldberg, "I feel I'm a more open, well-round person for havg been raised a nontradnal fay, and I thk those that know me would agree.

GAY DAD ADOPTN

Although has nsistently been shown that children wh lbian mothers do not differ om children tradnal fai wh rpect to psychologil adjtment or sex-typed behavr (Goldberg, 2010; Patterson, 2006, 2009), the circumstanc of children wh gay fathers are somewhat different. Moreover, the wir social environment n have a marked impact on children's psychologil well-beg, and children wh gay fathers may be exposed to greater prejudice and discrimatn than children wh lbian mothers bee gay father fai posss the addnal nontradnal feature of beg head by men (Golombok & Tasker, 2010). Neverthels, has been suggted that the genr velopment of children wh gay fathers may differ om that of children wh lbian mothers or heterosexual parents due to the prence of two male parents and the absence of a female parent om the home.

Goldberg, Kashy, and Smh (2012) have postulated that children wh gay fathers may show ls sex-typed behavr than children wh heterosexual parents rultg om a ls sex-typed fay environment, and girls gay father fai may show ls sex-typed behavr than girls lbian mother fai due to the absence of a female role mol om the recent years, a growg number of gay father fai have been created through adoptn (Brodzsky & Pertman, 2011). Inial vtigatns of adoptive gay father fai have reported posive fay functng wh rpect to qualy of parentg and children's psychologil well-beg (Averett, Nalavany, & Ryan, 2009; Erich, Kanenberg, Case, Allen, & Bogdanos, 2009; Erich, Lng, & Kdle, 2005; Lng, Erich, & Kanenberg, 2005; Ryan, 2007).

Usg parent and teacher qutnnair, prchool children adopted fancy by gay fathers the Uned Stat were found to be as well adjted as those adopted by lbian or heterosexual parents, wh no differenc parentg strs, parental disciple, or parental relatnship satisfactn acrdg to fay type. This study ntribut to this emergg body of rearch by vtigatg larger sampl of gay, lbian, and heterosexual adoptive fai the Uned Kgdom g standardized terview and observatnal and qutnnaire measur of parental well-beg, qualy of parent–child relatnships, child adjtment, and child sex-typed behavr, admistered to parents, children, and a theoretil perspective, the study is found upon a velopmental systems approach (Lerner, Lew-Bizan, & Warren, 2011), whereby bidirectnal relatns between dividuals, the fay, and the wir social world, cludg historil time and place, are viewed as fluential velopment.

GAY ADOPTN

Dpe the monly held assumptn that gay fathers may be ls nurturg than lbian or heterosexual mothers, and the possibily that they may be exposed to greater prejudice, existg rearch suggts that gay father fai would not differ om lbian or heterosexual fai wh rpect to parentg procs such as warmth and sensivy that are associated wh children's psychologil adjtment.