Over the past decade, I have noticed two intriguing, superficially conflicting trends in the data produced by this decidedly unrepresentative sampling method. Based on this growing body of research, virtually all of the relevant major professional associations have taken a position and issued a list of reports and resolutions affirming the effectiveness of lesbian and gay parents and formally supporting equal legal rights for them and their children.
Applications: Clinical Work, Policy, and Advocacy 16 Clinical Work with LGBTQ Parents
Methodology: Research Strategies 20 Multilevel Modeling Approaches to the Study
Conclusion
Contributors
Department of Human and Community Development, University of Illinois i Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA. Gerontologiprogram, Department of Human Services, College of Health and Human Services, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA.
Research: Overview Chapters
The post-heterosexual separation of lesbian and gay parenthood has not been a major topic in either published research or media headlines in recent years, as research interest has shifted to lesbian and gay planned parenthood. Lesbian and gay parenting after heterosexual divorce does not necessarily fit traditional heterosexual patterns.
Lesbian and Gay Parenting Post-Heterosexual Divorce
In reviewing the published literature in this area, I have focused on the position of lesbian and gay parents in parenting after a heterosexual separation or divorce. The research field awaits the question of how the transition from lesbian and gay parenthood after a heterosexual separation or divorce can differ from the parenthood planned by LGBT parents.
Lesbian-Mother Families Formed Through Donor Insemination
One of the publications resulting from the Dutch study by Bos et al. compared biological and nonbiological mothers in the 100 planned lesbian mother families with respect to parenting styles and parenting behaviors. Sixty percent of the children in the lesbian mother families reported that peers made fun of them because they had lesbian mothers.
Lesbian and Gay Adoptive Parents and Their Children
In this chapter, we review research on lesbian and gay adoptive parents and their children in the context of an interdisciplinary framework. Goldberg and Smith (2011) reported relatively few depressive symptoms overall among lesbian and gay adoptive parents.
Research: Understudied Topics
This chapter examines the understudied question of how lesbian and gay men choose to parent or remain childless. Although lesbian and gay men have openly formed families with and without children over the past several decades (Pollack, 1995), few studies have examined lesbian and gay men's decision-making processes about whether or not to become parents. Instead, scholarly and public discourse to date has primarily focused on lesbian and gay families after children have entered these families.
Limited research suggests that several factors shape how lesbians and gays decide.
How Lesbians and Gay Men Decide to Become Parents or Remain Childfree
Because of the internalized homophobia, lesbians and gay men may doubt their own right and possibilities to become parents. Networking for Lesbian and Gay Parents The support of other lesbians and gay men shapes the decision-making processes about parenting for lesbian and gay men. Support networks also help lesbian and gay men access and negotiate legal services and systems.
For lesbian and gay men who want to become parents, having a willing and supportive partner makes the process easier. This even turned out to be the case for gay men who were disadvantaged by race and class. How does studying the parenting decisions of lesbian and gay men affect our understanding of families in general?
Research into lesbian and gay men's parenting decisions not only provides insight into what.
In the context of a growing body of scholarship studying LGBT parenting and families, surprisingly little research focuses on the specific experiences of bisexual parents. Goldberg (2010), in his important book on lesbian and gay parenting, notes that the experiences and perspectives of bisexual parenting are rarely acknowledged and explored, and that in most cases the inclusion of "bisexual" in the acronym "LGBT" is misleading because when bisexual parents are included , are simply lumped together with lesbian and/or gay parents in research samples and may only include bisexuals with same-sex partners. In this chapter, we attempt to fill this gap in LGBT parenting research by (a) describing our recent literature search of a number of health and social science databases to identify current. state of research on bisexual parenting;.
(c) speculate on some of the key issues and concerns faced by bisexual parents, based on the available data; and (d) identifying important future directions for research in this area. We hope that this chapter will serve to encourage meaningful inclusion of bisexual parents in future LGBT family science research.
A Call for Research on Bisexual Parenting
There is an enormous amount of literature examining different outcomes in children of lesbian and gay parents (Tasker, 2005). Unlike all other subjects, she came out in the context of marriage to a person of the opposite sex. Mallon (2011) has recently noted the lack of research into the experiences of bisexual people in the adoption system.
Qualitative interviews were also conducted with five bisexually identified women and eight women who reported sex with men within the past 5 years (these women endorsed a range of sexual identities; most commonly bisexual, Two-Spirit, and queer). Legal provisions may further affect transparent families in the context of separation and custody disputes (Lev, 2004; Ryan, 2009. There is a clear need for future research that examines how discriminatory legal and social environments affect the viability of relationship dissolution in connection with trans parent families.
Thus, overall family dynamics, as well as family social acceptance, may vary depending on the particular type of trans identification of the parents.
These Are Our Children”
Passing as normal and keeping secrets Many polyparents in the available literature (see Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2010a, 2010b; Sheff, 2010) and in our PolyVic research worry about the effects of disclosing their police relationships to their children due to invisibility. their greatest. families. Thorson's (2009) work on communication privacy management (CPM) provides some insights and strategies in negotiating these dilemmas. And my fear is that everything was okay only because of the person who got involved in this case – the case manager.
Polyparent participants in the most recent published research (Sheff, 2010) highlight five benefits of their family structures: (a) emotional intimacy with children due to the promotion of honesty and a sex-positive environment; (b) the greater amount of shared resources (such as financial) and resource persons;. Cultures of intimacy and care beyond 'the family': Personal life and social change in the early 21st century. Adult children's experiences with their parent's in marriage: Communicative protection and access rules in the absence of divorce.
The great diversity of sexual minority communities 1 in the US and other parts of the world has received limited attention in the academic literature on same-sex parenting.
Race and Ethnicity in the Lives of Sexual Minority Parents
Of the top 10 metropolitan areas with the highest proportions of black same-sex households, all 10 were in the South. Same-sex couples in which both partners are Black reported lower median annual household income ($41,000) than same-sex couples in which one partner was Black ($58,000) and same-sex couples in which both partners were White ($64,000) ). Among same-sex interethnic couples in which one partner is Hispanic, 6% of women and 8% of.
In the literature on same-sex parents and their children, many researchers have focused exclusively on those pathways to and experiences from. We use it here to demonstrate the limitations of the concept of same-sex parenting. Hispanic and Latino Same-Sex Households in the United States: A Report of the 2000 Census.
Asians and Pacific Islanders in same-sex couples in the United States: Data from the 2000 census.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Parents
After all, doesn't much research on LGBT parents and their children speak to issues of gender identity or role. This means that a rather static view of gender is used, which is only related to role or identity. That is, I wonder how to avoid the established view of gender and the tendency to compare LGBT parents to gendered norms and expect them to live up to those norms.
In this way, LGBT parents disrupt expected social categories in terms of gender and parenting. The idea of gender as somehow modeled by parents and absorbed by children remains intact. Sullivan's (1996) research with 34 lesbian co-parenting couples in the San Francisco Bay Area found a mix of responses to the idea of gender roles.
This is our kind of constellation': Lesbian mothers negotiate institutionalized understandings of gender within the family.
The “Second Generation”: LGBTQ Youth with LGBTQ Parents
Young people of the second generation may adopt this narrative, as they may have perceived and experienced discrimination based on their sexual orientation and/or the gender identity of their parents and. Before describing some of these various sources, I will provide a brief overview of the literature on the gender development and sexual orientation of children of LGBTQ parents in general, as it provides a foundation for researching the experiences of millennial youth. second. The term "second generation" was coined in the early 1990s by Dan Cherubin, a gay man with a lesbian mother (Kirby, 1998.
A description of the study sample elaborates on what has previously been documented regarding who second-generation individuals are. Examining the experiences of second-generation individuals can provide greater insight into familial factors that influence the gender and sexual socialization of all young people. A life course perspective (Bengtson & Allen, 1993) may also be useful for future study of the second generation.
How does this generation gap play a role in the role modeling of the first generation and the provision of support to the second generation.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
More recent and contemporary research on the grandparent–grandchild relationship has moved away from previous foci and addressed the diverse nature of the grandparent–grandchild relationship (Stelle et al., 2010. Similarly, grandchild gender influences grandparent–grandchild relationships). 2000) did not investigate the influence of the grandmother's sexual orientation on the grandparent-grandchild relationship, but the grandmother's role was investigated in a socially isolated manner.
Therefore, adult children mediated the development of the relationship between LB grandmothers and their grandchildren. The LB grandmothers were aware of the impact their sexual orientation had on their relationships with their adult children and subsequently with their grandchildren. The available research on LGB grandparents and the LGB grandparent-grandchild relationship consistently illustrates the importance of the mediating role of adult children.
The principles of the life course perspective guided the discussion on relationships between LGBT grandparents and their grandchildren.
