Over the past decade, I have noticed two intriguing, seemingly contradictory trends in the data produced by this decidedly unrepresentative sampling method. Building on this growing body of research, virtually every major relevant professional association has participated, issuing a litany of reports and resolutions attesting to the effectiveness of lesbian and gay parents and officially 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 at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA. Gerontology Program, Department of Social 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 prominent topic in either published research or media headlines in recent years, as research interest has shifted to planned parenthood by lesbians and gay men. The post-heterosexual separation of lesbian and gay parenting does not necessarily fit traditional heterosexual models.
Lesbian and Gay Parenting Post-Heterosexual Divorce
In reviewing the published literature in this area, I focused on the position of lesbian and gay parents in parenting after a heterosexual separation or divorce. The field is waiting to hear how the transition of lesbian and gay parenthood after a heterosexual separation or divorce may differ from the parenthood planned by LGBT parents.
Lesbian-Mother Families Formed Through Donor Insemination
One publication, stemming from a Dutch study by Bos et al., compared biological and non-biological mothers in 100 lesbian-mother-planned families in terms of parenting styles and parenting behaviors. Sixty percent of children in families with lesbian mothers reported that their peers made jokes about 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 explores the understudied question of how lesbians and gay men choose to become parents or remain childfree. Although lesbians 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 focused primarily on lesbian and gay families after children have entered those families.
The limited research shows that several factors determine how lesbians and gay men decide to do so.
How Lesbians and Gay Men Decide to Become Parents or Remain Childfree
Because of internalized homophobia, lesbians and gay men may question their own right and ability to become parents. Lesbian and gay parenting networks Support from other lesbian and gay men shapes lesbian and gay men's parenting decision-making processes. Support networks also help lesbian and gay men access and negotiate legal services and systems.
For lesbians and gay men who want to become parents, having a willing and supportive partner makes the process easier. This turned out to be the case even for gay men who were disadvantaged by race and class. How does studying the parenting decisions of lesbian and gay men influence our understanding of families in general?
Research on lesbian and gay men's parenting decisions not only provides insight into what.
In the context of a growing body of scholarship examining LGBT parents and families, surprisingly little research has focused on the specific experiences of bisexually identified parents. In her landmark book on lesbian and gay parenting, Goldberg (2010) notes that bisexual parenting experiences and perspectives are rarely acknowledged and explored, and that the inclusion of "bisexual" in the acronym "LGBT" is in most cases misleading, as when bisexual parents are included, they are simply collapsed with the lesbian and/or gay parents in research samples and must include only bisexual individuals with same-sex partners. In this chapter, we attempt to address this gap in LGBT parenting research by (a) describing our recent literature search of several health and social science databases to establish the current. status of research into bisexual parenting;.
(c) speculating on some of the main issues and concerns facing bisexual parents, based on available data; and (d) identifying key future directions for research in this area. We hope that this chapter serves to encourage the meaningful inclusion of bisexual parents in future research in the field of LGBT family science.
A Call for Research on Bisexual Parenting
There is a vast body of literature examining various outcomes in children of lesbian and gay parents (Tasker, 2005). Unlike all other topics, she came out in the context of a marriage to a person of the opposite sex. Mallon ( 2011) has recently noted the lack of research on the experiences of bisexual people in the adoption system.
Qualitative interviews were also conducted with five bisexual-identified women and eight women who reported sex with men in the past 5 years (these women endorsed a variety of sexual identities; most commonly bisexual, Two-Spirit and queer). Legal regulations may further impact transparent families in the context of separation and child custody disputes (Lev, 2004; Ryan, 2009. Future research is clearly needed that examines how discriminatory legal and social environments affect the viability of relationship dissolution in the context of trans - older families.
Thus, overall family dynamics and family social acceptance may change depending on the parents' specific type of trans identification.
These Are Our Children”
Pretending to be normal and keeping secrets Many poly parents in the available literature (see Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2010a, 2010b; Sheff, 2010) and in our PolyVic research were concerned about the consequences of disclosing their poly relationships to their children because of the overwhelming invisibility of their children. families. Thorson's (2009) work on communications privacy management (CPM) provides some insight and strategies for negotiating these dilemmas. And I'm afraid it was only because of the person who got involved in the case – the case manager – that everything was okay.
Polyparent participants in the most recently 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 United States 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 share of same-sex black households, all 10 were in the South. Same-sex couples where both partners are black reported lower median annual household income ($41,000) than same-sex couples where one partner was black ($58,000) and same-sex couples where both partners were white ($64,000) . Among same-sex interethnic couples where 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 of. We use it here to demonstrate the limitations of the concept of same-sex parenting. Same-sex Hispanic and Latino households in the United States: A report from 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 of the research on LGBT parents and their children speak to issues of gender identity or role. That is, a fairly static view of gender is used that is simply about a role or identity. That is, I ask how to avoid a certain view of gender and the tendency to compare LGBT parents to gender norms and expect them to fulfill gender norms.
In this way, LGBT parents disrupt expected social categories regarding gender and parenting. The notion of gender as somehow shaped by parents and accepted by children remains intact. Sullivan's (1996) research with 34 co-parenting lesbian couples in the San Francisco Bay Area found mixed responses to the notion of gender roles.
That's our kind of constellation: lesbian mothers negotiating institutionalized understandings of gender within the family.
The “Second Generation”: LGBTQ Youth with LGBTQ Parents
Second-generation youth may internalize this narrative, as they may have perceived and experienced discrimination based on their parents' and their own sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Before describing some of these diverse sources, I will provide a brief overview of the literature on gender development and sexual orientation of children of LGBTQ parents in general, as it forms the basis for examining the experiences of 2nd generation youth. 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 this generation gap plays a role in the role model of the first generation and providing 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 has addressed the diverse nature of the grandparent-grandchild relationship (Stelle et al., 2010. Likewise, the gender of the grandchild affects the grandparent-grandchild relationship, with female grandchildren having experiences. 2000) did not examine the effect of the grandmother's sexual orientation on the grandparent-grandchild relationship, and the grandmother's role was explored 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 then 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 have guided the discussion of the relationship between LGBT grandparents and their grandchildren.
