Gay Parents Research Articles

“This is Our Family”: LGBTQ Family Narratives in Online NCAA D-I Coaching Biographies

ABSTRACT Intercollegiate sport in the US is known to be heteronormative, heterosexist, and often an unwelcoming space for LGBTQ individuals, including coaches. A decade ago, scholars documented the scarcity of LGBTQ family narratives in online coaching biographies on athletics Web sites. In the years following, a socio-cultural and legal shift occurred pertaining to LGBTQ rights and visibility in the US. This study extends and replicates Calhoun et al.’s research by examining family narratives of a sample of all NCAA Division-I head coaches of women’s teams (N = 3601). Data collected in 2018 as part of the annual Women in College Coaching Report Card™ illustrated despite socio-cultural changes, very few (n = 18, .05%) online biographies included a same-sex family narratives—all were women. Eleven of the 18 head coaches were interviewed, and Erving Goffman’s work was employed to theoretically ascertain why and how these women managed identities, stigma, enacted power, and performed character, namely courage. Implications and future research are offered.

COVID-19 and Color-Blind Racism

Same-sex parents, how police harassment affects adolescent mental health, and unequal distribution of household labor. New research from the journals.

Children Are Human

There are great benefits to be had should the United States, one of the global leaders in economic strength and political power, ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (“CRC”). The mystery of the United States’s ultimate reluctance to ratify the CRC, despite the nation’s central role in the drafting process, has been interrogated for years. Scholars and policy- makers have developed compelling narratives regarding obstacles to the United States’s ratification and implementation of the CRC. However well- reasoned the arguments for ratification are, there has been little progress in persuading the United States to ratify the CRC. While the work toward ratification should continue on every level, informal implementation before ratification would be advantageous and in line with historical methods of reform in the United States. One area that has been over- looked to the advantage of minority and vulnerable populations is domestic relations courts in the United States. In the United States, children’s rights advocacy work should be conducted like cause advocacy for historically disfavored groups to achieve legal recognition and protection of their rights. For example, parenting equality efforts were primarily focused on creating change in individual courts over time, allowing advocates to teach judicial officers and other legal decision-makers about positive outcomes for children of lesbian and gay parents while dispelling myths, misperceptions, and negative stereotypes about sexual minorities. Similarly, other disfavored parents, like working mothers, religious, and racial minorities, have used individual court cases to advocate and educate until new, progressive norms are adopted as national standards. Advocates for children’s rights should adopt institutional change theory and tailor cause advocacy efforts to implement the CRC principles in local domestic relations courts. Focusing on change from within institutions may shift legal norms more quickly, so children are recognized as fully human and thus rights holders in the United States, rather than relying on external legislative changes.

Experiences of gay fathers with implementing their parental rights and child care

Experiences of gay fathers with implementing their parental rights and child care

RAZVOJ DJECE U ISTOSPOLNIM OBITELJIMA – ČINJENICE, PREDRASUDE I ULOGA DRUŠTVA

DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN IN SAME-SEX FAMILIES – FACTS, PREJUDICES AND THE ROLE OF SOCIETY Changes in the family structure which have been present in recent decades generated new forms of families, among which are same-sex families. These changes are mainly not accompanied by the same speed of changes in society through a change of the system of values, public perceptions and policies. Many same-sex couples raise children who were born in previous heterosexual relationships, realise parenthood through different reproduction techniques, and in some societies, which are more modern and mature than ours and which are pro-European and western oriented, adoption of children by same-sex couples was already legitimized a long time ago. A series of research studies connected to same-sex families and parenthood was conducted to date. The results of most scientific studies have shown that there are no significant changes between children who grow up in heterosexual unions and those who grow up in same-sex unions related to their mental and physical well-being, social competencies, behavioural adjustment, gender identity and role, sexual orientation, social relations and academic achievement. It seems that family processes, quality of parenthood and quality of the parent-child relationship influence the developmental outcomes far more than the family structure does. The influence of stigmatization seems to be controversial as the results are contradictory. The influence of stigmatization is negatively connected to mental health and quality of life of same-sex couples. In spite of that, their children develop into healthy persons in the homophobic society they grow up in. Nevertheless, society burdened by stereotypes and prejudice represents a certain social risk for same-sex families. Opposing scientific research which shows very few noticeable differences between the children of same-sex and heterosexual couples to social beliefs that are not based on scientific facts is important for the social survival of these different families. Scientific literature should be the only relevant factor in designing policies that position same-sex families within a wider social context. It is precisely due to this that this paper provides an overview of scientific research studies that are focused on the potential influences of same-sex unions on the children’s growing up,with an emphasis on the sexual and psychosocial development of the children. The presented results should form a basis for all discussions about the influence of same-sex parenthood on children and only they are relevant for policy-making based on scientific facts.

The Attribution of Parental Competence to Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Couples: Experimental and Correlational Results

ABSTRACT This research examined the impact of sexual orientation on heterosexuals’ judgment of parental competence. Using a vignette approach, Study 1 presented participants with a lesbian, gay, or heterosexual couple who desired to have a child, either as adoptive parents or, in an additional heterosexual target condition, as biological parents. Study 2 presented a lesbian, gay, or heterosexual parent couple; heterosexual targets were either adoptive parents, reflecting the LG target conditions, or biological parents. Contradicting Hypothesis 1, neither target sexual orientation nor way to parenthood (with the latter varied in the heterosexual target condition only) had an impact on parental competence attributions. Confirming Hypothesis 2, participants with personal contact with lesbian and gay (LG) people provided higher ratings of LG target parental competence, mediated by positive attitudes toward homosexuality. Importantly, this mediation did not occur in the heterosexual target condition, corroborating the specificity of the intergroup contact effect.

Factors associated with behavioral adjustment among school-age children of gay and heterosexual single fathers through surrogacy.

Thirty-one children of gay single fathers and 28 children of heterosexual single fathers, all born through surrogacy, were compared with 31 children of gay partnered fathers through surrogacy and 30 children of heterosexual partnered fathers through in-vitro fertilization on their perceptions of self-worth and their father- and caregiver-reported internalizing and externalizing behaviors. For children of single fathers, the study also examined associations between aspects related to their surrogacy conception, feelings about their family arrangement, and behavioral adjustment. All children (47.5% girls) were aged 6-12 years (Mmonths = 97.84, SD = 20.50) and living in Italy; all fathers (Myears = 43.79; SD = 6.42) identified as cisgender, reported a medium-to-high socioeconomic status, and were White (with the exception of one gay partnered father). No differences were found across the four family groups in any behavioral outcome, with children demonstrating, on average, high levels of self-worth and low levels of internalizing and externalizing problems. In single-father families, regardless of the father's sexual orientation, children with a weaker understanding of surrogacy, lower satisfaction with their contact with the gestational carrier, and lower comfort with their family arrangement were associated with more externalizing problems. Furthermore, children's female gender and lower satisfaction with their contact with the gestational carrier were associated with more internalizing problems, whereas children's male gender and greater understanding of surrogacy were associated with higher self-worth. Taken together, these findings do not support the commonly held assumption that the combination of surrogacy conception and single fatherhood is detrimental for children's behavioral adjustment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Academic Achievement of Children in Same- and Different-Sex-Parented Families: A Population-Level Analysis of Linked Administrative Data From the Netherlands.

Although numerous studies have examined how children raised in same-sex-parented families fare relative to children in different-sex-parented families, this body of work suffers from major methodological shortcomings. By leveraging linked administrative data from several population registers from the Netherlands covering the 2006-2018 period (n = 1,454,577), we overcome most methodological limitations affecting earlier research. The unique features of the data include complete population coverage, reliable identification of same-sex-parented families, a large number of children in same-sex-parented families (n = 3,006), multiple objective and verifiable educational outcomes, and detailed measures of family dynamics over children's entire life courses. The results indicate that children in same-sex-parented families outperform children in different-sex-parented families on multiple indicators of academic performance, including standardized tests scores, high school graduation rates, and college enrollment. Such advantages extend to both male and female children, and are more pronounced among children in female than male same-sex-parented families. These findings challenge deficit models of same-sex parenting.

Can Social Desirability Be Detected Statistically at the Macro-Sociological Level?

While a few have argued that social science has been subject to progressive biases, others have discounted such ideas. However, no one has yet performed empirical tests over a large range of studies for such possible bias, which we label macro-level social desirability (MLSD). Combining the results from fifty-nine empirical studies that assessed rates of nonheterosexuality among children of same-sex parents, we found that the higher the maximum rates reported, the less likely those reports were to have been cited in Google Scholar by counts or by annual rate, which may reflect MLSD. However, after several statistical controls, the association for counts became non-significant, while the association for rates became stronger, although the effect sizes were in a moderate (d = .28 or higher) to large range (d, up to .68) by either analysis. Generally, research quality acted as a suppressor variable for MLSD but was significantly related to both counts and rates of citations, indicating that higher quality articles were more likely to have been cited, even controlling for the number of years since first publication. Higher quality articles were slightly more likely to report higher rates of nonheterosexuality among children of same-sex parents. We discuss implications of our findings and suggest future directions of research.

The Motherhood Experiences of Non-Birth Mothers in Same-Sex Parent Families

In this qualitative study, we explored the experiences of non-birth mothers whose child(ren) were planned and conceived within their same-sex relationship. We conducted semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with 14 participants in Ireland. We transcribed the interviews verbatim and analyzed the data using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Our findings comprised three superordinate themes: A Question of Recognition, An Insecure Connection, and Carving Your Own Way and related subordinate themes. Motherhood experiences were characterized by resilience and vulnerability in parenting their children without legal parental rights and within a heteronormative society that privileged biological motherhood. The dynamic relationship between seeking connection and seeking legitimacy that is at the heart of the participants’ experiences of motherhood is highlighted. Participants encountered challenges to their maternal legitimacy within their families and communities and in their interactions with legal and social institutions. Participants described using various strategies to reinforce their parental identity. Despite the challenges, participants were engaged in constructing satisfying parenting roles. The findings highlight the importance of legitimizing the parental identity of non-birth mothers. Therapists should be sensitive to the additional marginalization of non-birth mothers in same-sex parent families. Validating their vulnerability and their resilience in the face of obstacles may enhance their coping resources. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ’s website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/03616843211003072

Spirituality and Religious Engagement, Community Involvement, Outness, and Family Support: Influence on LGBT+ Muslim Well-Being

ABSTRACT The current study utilized data from the Social Justice Sexuality Project to investigate influences on psychological well-being of LGBT+ Muslims (N = 75) in the United States. Specifically, path analyses were used to examine the association between spiritual and religious engagement, LGBT community involvement, outness, and family support with psychological well-being. Control variables included lifespan Islam involvement, age, income, and the age at which the participant came out to themselves. Findings illustrate spiritual and religious engagement, outness, and income were all positively related to psychological well-being. Moreover, individuals who had converted to Islam but were not raised in the faith had significantly lower psychological well-being than those who had a consistent experience with Islam from their childhood until the time of the study. The present investigation provides critical contributions to the study of gender and sexual minorities in the United States and the experiences of currently practicing LGBT+ Muslims and those who were raised Muslim. Clinical implications and future research suggestions are discussed.

Change and Stability in Public Beliefs About Same-Sex Family Rights in Norway in 2008, 2013, and 2017

IntroductionIn Norway, legal measures securing equal marriage and parenting rights for same- and different-sex couples took effect on January 1, 2009. The aim of this study was to assess Norwegian public beliefs about lesbian and gay family rights in the period of 2008–2017.MethodsThree nationwide surveys representing the adult Norwegian population were conducted with a time series design (data collected in 2008, 2013, and 2017, n = 1246, 1250, and 1250, respectively) utilizing Web-based questionnaires.ResultsOver the 9-year period, there was a decline in negative beliefs about lesbian and gay parenting and marriage rights and gradually less concern about children growing up with same-sex parents, more so for men than for women. Beliefs about equal parenting rights remained more negative than beliefs about equal marriage rights. At all points in time, concern for children’s welfare was the strongest predictor of beliefs about equal parenting rights for same- and different-sex couples, and for all points in time, being older contributed to the explained variance.ConclusionsWe discuss how the findings may relate to policy developments concerning LGBTI rights in Norway. LGBTI rights have gained increasingly significant symbolic value in the public domain, and we suggest that it is productive to reflect on findings in relation to new landscapes of political and public discourse in Norway and Europe.Social Policy ImplicationsThe results reveal contemporary supportive public opinion regarding LGBTI family rights, which currently gives lawmakers a foundation for further institutionalizing LGBTI rights in domains such as in schools at every level and in institutions offering family support and counseling. However, there is also a need for political awareness of emerging discourses linking questions on same-sex family rights to broader divisive sociopolitical processes.

Title: Intimate Partner Violence: The Moderating Role of Personality Trait and Religion.

Objective: Intimate partner violence which is an aspect of family violence has most often than not affected peaceful family growth across the world, while it is largely portrayed that men are the sole perpetrators of IPV and women its victims. Statistics across countries in America, Asia, Europe and Africa have shown men to be victims as well, both in heterosexual and homosexual family, thus IPV can be perpetrated by both sexes just as they can also be victims. This study therefore assessed the moderating role of personality trait and religion on intimate partner violence in heterosexual relationship.
 Methods: Using a mixed method, 384 residents of Uyo metropolis were surveyed and 10 in-depth interviews was conducted among Psychology and Sociology lecturers from the University of Uyo Akwa Ibom state. The big five factor model served as its theoretical orientation. The big five personality inventory, religious orientation test and intimate partner violence propensity scale were used in generating data. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20 software. Chi square test was used to test relationships while their long-run influence was ascertained using multiple and binary logistics linear regression analysis.
 Result: Findings show that majority of the respondents have abused their partners physically or psychologically. Findings show personality traits and religion as independent and joint predictors of intimate partner violence.
 Conclusion: It is recommended that clinicians, psychiatrists among other related professionals should always consider personality traits and religion when dealing with issues on IPV.

Unpaid Work and Care During COVID-19: Subjective Experiences of Same-Sex Couples and Single Mothers in Australia

This paper draws on data from Work and Care During COVID-19, an online survey of Australians during pandemic lockdown in May 2020 (n = 2,722). It focuses on how subsamples of lesbian, gay, and bisexual mothers and fathers in couples (n = 280) and single mothers (n = 480) subjectively experienced unpaid work and care during lockdown compared with heterosexual mothers and fathers in couples, and with partnered mothers, respectively. During the pandemic, nonheterosexual fathers’ subjective reports were less negative than those of their heterosexual counterparts, but differences between heterosexual and lesbian/bisexual mothers were more mixed. Unlike their partnered counterparts, more single mothers reported feeling satisfied than before with their balance of paid and unpaid work and how they spent their time overall during the pandemic, perhaps because they avoided partnership conflicts and particularly benefited from relaxed commuting and child care deadlines.

Homosexuality in Literature for Young People

This paper reports on an ongoing project, Out of the Closet and Into the Classroom: Homosexuality in Literature for Young People, which commenced in 1989. The project is to record the books that are available for young people in which there are gay, lebian, or bisexual characters, or in which issues related to homosexuality are discussed. A secondary aim is to investigate the access that young people actually have to these books through their school or public libraries. The majority of the books are novels for teens or sub-teens, but there are also picture books for young children, the latter aimed particularly (though not exclusively) at chidlren growing up in gay or lesbian families. In general it seems that, for a variety of reasons, young people may not have ready access to many of these books.

Coming Home to One’s Self: Butch Muslim Masculinities and Negotiations of Piety, Sex, and Parenthood in Singapore

ABSTRACT In Singapore, discrimination toward LGBT citizens has been reinforced through a monolithic notion of the traditional Asian family. This ethnography focuses on the lived experiences of 7 ethnic minority Malay Muslim “butch” individuals and their journey to parenthood. Drawing upon frameworks of intersectionality and piety, I explore how butches negotiate and reconcile their queer practices and desires as Muslim daughters around “coming out,” foster children with same-sex partners, being a biological parent and their perceptions of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART). Reproductive futures, enacted by Malay Muslim butches, disrupt yet reinforce the durability of “natural” life trajectories scripted through conventions of marriage, family and fatherhood that have, insofar, excluded them. Further, their experiences also offer alternatives to existing literature on same-sex families that tend to render other nonwhite and/or non-Western queer family practices invisible.

“I Was Just Fed up of Not Being Myself”: Coming out Experiences of White British Divorced and Separated Gay Fathers

Before the so-called “gayby boom” in the 1990s the most common pathway to parenthood for gay men was heterosexual marriage. Since the 1990s most research on gay parenting has focused on intentional gay fathers – those parenting after coming out as gay – and the experiences of post-heterosexual divorce gay fathers (PHGF) have largely been overlooked, even though they remain the largest group of gay fathers. Furthermore, most research on this group, and on gay fathers more broadly, has been conducted in the US, with only a small handful of studies examining the experiences of gay fathers elsewhere. The current study aims to begin to address this omission by exploring the experiences of heterosexually divorced and separated UK gay fathers, focusing on their experiential journey from married, ostensibly heterosexual, men to living openly (more or less) as gay fathers. Transcripts of interviews with six white British men were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Five themes are reported: (1) The impossibility of being openly gay; (2) “Drowning in normality”; (3) “The point of no return”; (4) The kids are alright; and (5) “It just doesn’t seem to compute for people.” The findings suggest that for some PHGF little has changed since the earliest research on this group of gay fathers was published in the 1970s. The men in this study had mostly experienced a tumultuous (and sometimes incomplete) journey to gay fatherhood and continued to struggle with feelings of shame and stigma.

Parenthood Desire in Italian Homosexual Couples

Many Italian gay and lesbian individuals have the desire to become parents, despite the fact that they still face barriers due to the low acceptance of same-sex parenthood. This study investigates the desire and motivation of same-sex couples to have children. The sample consists of 31 same-sex couples (17 lesbian couples and 14 gay male couples) and 31 heterosexual couples. All the participants were childless at the time of the study and had been involved in their current relationship for at least two years. We used the Parenthood Motivation List (PML) to assess motivations underlying the desire to have children. The results showed that both groups wanted to have children and considered the same motivations to be important for parenthood. We discovered that happiness, well-being, and parenthood were important for same-sex parenthood, while social control was considered less important. In addition, gay men and lesbians had lower scores for well-being and identity.

Potential differences between the political attitudes of people with same-sex parents and people with different-sex parents: An exploratory assessment of first-year college students.

Children were often near the center of public debates about legal marriage recognition for same-sex couples. Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the case that resulted in legal same-sex marriage recognition, stressed the importance of these children as one of many factors compelling the opinion. Estimates indicated same-sex couples were raising 200,000 children in the United States. Children raised by same-sex couples may be politically socialized in distinct ways compared to children of different-sex couples because lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals tend to hold distinct and progressive political viewpoints on a wide variety of issues. What are the political attitudes of people with same-sex parents? In this exploratory study, we analyze a large, representative survey of first-year college students across the United States; we find few differences between people with same-sex and different-sex parents, and some of those differences may be attributable to households and respondent characteristics. When on the rare occasion a difference exists, we find that people with same-sex female parents are more progressive, but people with same-sex male parents are more conservative. Gender differences also emerged, with some distinctive patterns between males with same-sex parents and females with same-sex parents.

Queer parents, gendered embodiment and the de-essentialisation of motherhood

Feminist theorists have long looked to motherhood and mothering behaviour as an important site at which to examine women’s lives, gender inequality and the social construction of gendered institutions. One important line of theorisation has concerned itself with the de-essentialisation of motherhood, a project that I argue remains incomplete, as feminist theorisation of motherhood naturalises biological sex and therefore essentialises mothering as behaviour performed by ‘female bodies’ and fathering behaviour as performed by ‘male bodies’. Using two cases from a larger qualitative interview project with LGBTQ parents, I show that current theories of motherhood fail to have explanatory power in cases – such as gay and transgender parents – when gendered embodiment and mothering (and/or fathering) fail to align as expected. I suggest that research related to queer parenting – particularly research on gay male co-parenting, on the experiences of transgender parents and their children, on non-white LGBTQ parents and on mothering from outside the nuclear family – will be especially fruitful in moving the de-essentialisation of mothering in new directions that will further contest heteronormative, cisnormative and nuclear assumptions about the family.