Inclus a summary of rearch fdgs on lbian mothers, gay fathers and their children, an annotated biblgraphy of the published psychologil lerature and addnal rourc relevant to lbian and gay parentg.
Contents:
- LBIAN AND GAY PARENTG
- THE CHALLENG OF BEG A GAY DAD
- GAY PARENTS BEE ACTIVISTS ATRALIAN MARRIAGE DEBATE
LBIAN AND GAY PARENTG
Protectg the bt terts of a child is one of the most important prcipl of ternatnal law and the Conventn on the Rights of the Child (CRC) particular. This chapter foc on whether feral law currently protects the bt terts of a child beg raised by lbian or gay parents. * gay parenting in australia *
Such arguments are not based on a prehensive asssment of the evince for this claim and are ually rmed by relig or iologil beliefs about what nstut a rearch paper scrib the diverse characteristics of same-sex parented fai Atralia, their support needs and experienc, and the challeng they may face given the stigma and discrimatn often attached to homosexualy and enuntered by some same-sex upl.
THE CHALLENG OF BEG A GAY DAD
A group of 150 doctors, lled Doctors for the Fay, have ma a submissn to the Senate quiry to gay marriage which argu that children of same-sex parents suffer poorer health and well-beg… * gay parenting in australia *
In this report, "same-sex parented fai" is ed when the pot beg ma is relevant to all non-heterosexual fai, and "lbian-parented" or "gay-parented" when the pot relat to fai head by female and male same-sex upl or sole parents, is also important to note that "lbian" and "gay" are not universally ed as self-scriptors by women and men who are parentg the ntext of a same-sex relatnship or inty.
Consirably more bisexual men than gay men the study reported havg children (40% vs 11%), wh bisexual men also more likely than bisexual women (40% vs 25%) to report havg parented fai are characteristilly diverse wh regard to mo of nceptn or fay formatn, and fay stcture (see Anrssen, Aie, & Ytteroy, 2002; Biblarz & Savci, 2010; Gunn & Surte, 2009; Power et al., 2010; Tasker & Patterson, 2007; Weeks et al., 2001). Further to this, and for a range of reasons, very few Atralian children bee available for adoptn beyond their fai of orig (see Higgs, 2012) Work, Love and Play study (Power et al., 2010) of 445 Atralian and New Zealanr lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and tersex (LGBTI) parents is the largt this untry unrtaken to date and found there are six major fay typ:a two-parent same-sex uple-based fay;fai which a lbian uple were the primary parents but a known sperm donor lived separately and had volvement the children's liv;fai which a lbian or gay man were still -parentg wh an ex-heterosexual partner;separated same-sex fai where women or men were -parentg wh their ex-same-sex partner;sole parent fai; andmulti-parent fai, ually a gay male uple and a lbian uple raisg children together om birth across two hoeholds.
Children may have been nceived the ntext of prev heterosexual relatnships, or raised om birth by a -parentg gay or lbian uple or sgle tentnally planned lbian or gay parented fai, is mon for children to be nceived through assisted reproductive technologi (ART) such as donor sematn (DI), -vro fertilizatn (IVF) and surrogacy. Women's fathers, brothers and heterosexual or gay male iends are known to be valued as "male role mols" for children, due to lbian parents' sire for children to have accs to diverse adult male and female social works (Borthwick & Bloch, 1993; Gartrell et al., 1996; Goldberg & Allen, 2007; Wakelg & Bradstock, 1995) msag: Lbian-parented faiLbian -parentg upl tend to divi their hoehold labour and child re rponsibili more equably than heterosexual upl. Fai parented by gay menFai parented by gay menGay fatherhood rearch prr to the late 1990s tend to be US-based and emphasised the experienc of divorced gay fathers who had had children heterosexual marriag, mostly wh regard to issu associated wh disclosg their gay relatnships or inty to children, and their perceptns of children's adjtment to their homosexualy (see Barret & Robson, 2000; Bigner & Bozett, 1990; Bozett, 1987; Miller, 1979).
GAY PARENTS BEE ACTIVISTS ATRALIAN MARRIAGE DEBATE
* gay parenting in australia *
Atralian gay men's history of volvement known sperm donatn for lbian iends and acquatanc dat om at least the 1980s (see Borthwick & Bloch, 1993; Dempsey, 2005; van Reyk, 1995; Wakelg & Bradstock, 1995) and some men have veloped paternal or parental relatnships wh children nceived this way (see Dempsey, 2010, 2012a, 2012b; van Reyk, 2004). In the Work, Love and Play study (Power, Perlz, McNair et al., 2012), of the 88 gay and bisexual men who scribed themselv as "actively volved" parentg a child, 39% had bee parents a prev heterosexual relatnship, 23% were parentg children nceived through surrogacy wh their male partners, 19% had bee parents through known sperm donatn to lbian upl or sgl, and 11% were foster parents or permanent rers. Although there are far fewer studi to date of -parentg gay male upl or sgle parent fai than planned lbian-parented fai, ditns are the way two men parent together is closer to lbian upl and heterosexual women's approach than the greater tachment om children's daily re characteristic of fathers nventnal nuclear fai (Schacher, Auerbach, & Silverste, 2005; Biblarz & Stacey, 2010; Mallon, 2004; Stacey, 2006).