What We Know | What do the scholarly rearch say about the well-beg of children wh gay or lbian parents? | What We Know

Contents:

• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• WHAT DO THE SCHOLARLY REARCH SAY ABOUT THE WELL-BEG OF CHILDREN WH GAY OR LBIAN PARENTS?
• NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY
• LBIAN AND GAY PARENTG

THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS

This study is the first to tly bridge the gap our knowledge left by prev studi that have shown the benefs of beg raised by a married mother and father (but which did not clu direct parisons wh homosexual parents), and prev studi on homosexual parents (which, however, did not e large, reprentative sampl). Sce most of the media attentn has foced on the parison between children of homosexual parents and children of "tact blogil fai" (that is, children raised by their own blogil mother and father who are married to one another), crics argue that the children of homosexuals did worse only bee most of them this study had experienced stabily their fay stcture (e.

5) Public policy should ntue to enurage the raisg of children by a married mother and father, while disuragg, attemptg to rce, and/or refg to affirm or subsidize alternativ such as out-of-wedlock births, sgle parenthood, habatn, divorce, or "homosexual parentg.

It is important to note that the same-sex soc-sexual behavr observed the study is distct om homosexual behavr bee s motivatn and purpose are social, said Jean-Baptiste Le, who studi primate behavr at the Universy of Lethbridge Canada and was not volved the new rearch.

WHAT DO THE SCHOLARLY REARCH SAY ABOUT THE WELL-BEG OF CHILDREN WH GAY OR LBIAN PARENTS?

The past several s have seen a proliferatn of studi on lbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) parentg, wh creased attentn to (a) fay buildg by LGB people; (b) the transn to parenthood for LGB parents; and (c) functng and experienc of LGB parents and their children. Rearchers have found few differenc between children raised by lbian and heterosexual parents terms of self-teem, qualy of life, psychologil adjtment, or social functng (rearch on the psychosocial out of children wh gay male parents is limed). Although adolcents and young adults reared by LGB parents are no more likely to self-intify as exclively lbian/gay than those reared by heterosexual parents, havg a lbian mother was associated wh a greater likelihood of nsirg or havg a same-sex relatnship, and more expansive, ls tegoril notns of sexualy.

“As a teenager tryg to unrstand myself and unrstand my sexualy, I looked at the ter for “the gay gene” and obvly me across Xq28, ” said Fah Sathirapongsasuti, a study -thor and senr scientist at 23andMe, which he joked once led him to believe he hered his gayns om his mother. At most a handful of the children who were studied were actually raised by same-sex parents; the rt me om fai which oppose-sex parents raised their children for a perd of time, but which, often, one or more parent(s) subsequently me out as gay or lbian and left the fay or had a same-sex relatnship. Includg such children among those labeled as havg been “raised by same-sex parents” is so misleadg as to be accurate, sce the children were generally raised by oppose-sex fai and only later, after a fay disptn, did they live hoeholds wh one or more gay parent(s), and only rarely did two parents of the same sex, a stable, long-term relatnship, actually raise the children together.

Yet same-sex attractn is wispread humans, and rearch suggts that is partly a study of data om hundreds of thoands of people, rearchers have now intified geic patterns that uld be associated wh homosexual behavur, and showed how the might also help people to fd different-sex mat, and reproduce. Most of the participants were born durg a time when homosexualy was eher illegal or culturally taboo their untri, so many people who were attracted to others of the same sex might never have actually acted on their attractn, and uld therefore have end up the wrong group the Monk, an elogist and evolutnary blogist at Yale Universy New Haven, Connecticut, thks that the veats are so important that the paper n’t draw any real nclns about geics and sexual orientatn.

NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY

Those who nsir beg gay a disadvantage life (which still is, certa societi), might regard gay people differently if they knew that beg gay was an hered tra, rather than a nsequence of life events, such as a particular type of upbrgg, or mixg wh certa sorts of iends or even a liberate cisn. Children wh gay, lbian, transgenr or other sexual mory parents fare as well as, or better than, children wh parents of the oppose sex, acrdg to rearch published Monday BMJ Global Health, further unrmg a mon but unsupported argument agast equal marriage and adoptn as a growg number of stat enact laws curtailg LGBT+ rights. “There is no ‘gay gene’, ” says lead study thor Andrea Ganna, a geicist at the Broad Instute of MIT and Harvard Cambridge, and his lleagu also ed the analysis to timate that up to 25% of sexual behavur n be explaed by geics, wh the rt fluenced by environmental and cultural factors — a figure siar to the fdgs of smaller studi.

“There is no discrimatn agast children, ” Fay Mister Eugenia Roccella told parliament when she troduced the bill June, explag that the children of gay upl would have accs to school and medil servic jt like those who only have one livg parent. 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). 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.

LBIAN AND GAY PARENTG

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.

Some nonscientific anizatns have attempted to nvce urts that there is an actual scientific dispute this area by cg rearch performed by Pl Cameron as supportg the existence of fics gay and lbian parents or their children pared to heterosexual parents or their children. Three ncerns have historilly been associated wh judicial cisn makg ctody ligatn and public polici erng foster re and adoptn: the belief that lbians and gay men are mentally ill, that lbians are ls maternal than heterosexual women, and that lbians' and gay men's relatnships wh sexual partners leave ltle time for ongog parent-child teractns (ACLU Lbian and Gay Rights Project, 2002; Falk, 1989, 1994; Patterson et al., 2002; Patterson & Reddg, 1996).