Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Adoption Law

Farr, Rachel H.; Goldberg, Abbie E.

doi:10.1111/fcre.12354

Cited by 33 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Future research with new families should also consider the intersection of developmental psychology and law (Farr & Goldberg 2018, Jadva et al 2019, given that legislation pertaining to new families affects the family-building options available to parents and the families' experiences within a particular legal framework. While researchers have explored the effect on families of a lack of legal recognition of same-sex relationships (Kazyak et al 2018), neither has this been examined beyond the same-sex parent literature nor has its effect on child adjustment been quantified.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of New Family Forms on Parenting and Child Development

Imrie

Golombok

2020

Annu. Rev. Dev. Psychol.

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The structure of families has changed significantly over the last 40 years due to changes in legislation, technology, and societal attitudes. This article examines parenting and child development in new family forms, i.e., family forms that did not exist or were not visible until the latter part of the twentieth century. First, we give an overview of the historical and current context of new family forms. Then, we discuss parenting and child development in six new family types: families with lesbian mothers, families with gay fathers, intentional single-mother families, donor conception families, surrogacy families, and families with trans parents. Next, we discuss how research on the impact of new family forms on parenting and child development can inform our understanding of the relative influence of family processes and family structure on child development and parenting. We conclude with directions for future research. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, Volume 2 is December 15, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of New Family Forms on Parenting and Child Development

Imrie

Golombok

2020

Annu. Rev. Dev. Psychol.

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“…Feelings of perceived and internalized adoption stigma have also been demonstrated among LG couple samples across their transition to adoptive parenthood and have been linked to greater depressive symptoms . Some LG couples report experiencing discrimination (Goldberg et al, 2007;Mallon, 2011;Goldberg, 2012) and additional legal complexities (e.g., living in an area without anti-discriminatory policies protecting LG adoptive parent candidates; Farr and Goldberg, 2018) when trying to adopt due to their sexual identity. Thus, the transition to parenthood is often a vulnerable time for newly formed LG adoptive parent families to face additional experiences of stigma because of the already heightened levels of stress and depressive symptoms that adoptive parents may feel when becoming parents (McKay et al, 2010;Goldberg and Smith, 2011).…”

Section: Adoption Stigmamentioning

confidence: 99%

Stigma Experiences, Mental Health, Perceived Parenting Competence, and Parent–Child Relationships Among Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Adoptive Parents in the United States

Farr

Vázquez

2020

Front. Psychol.

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Adoptive parents often face stigma related to "non-traditional" family structures. Lesbian and gay (LG) adoptive parents often face additional stigmatization based on sexual identity, which in turn may negatively affect parents' mental health. Despite controversy about LG parenting, research demonstrates that family processes are more strongly associated with individual outcomes than family structure. Thus, family systems and minority stress theories provided our conceptual foundation in examining how adoptive LG parents' stigma experiences were associated with mental health, parenting competence, and parent-child relationships. Participating families (N = 106; n = 56 LG parent families) were originally recruited from five US domestic private infant adoption agencies and completed two waves of data collection (W1, W2; 91% retention) when children were preschool-age (M age = 3.01 years) and school-age (M age = 8.36 years), respectively. Data for the current study are largely drawn from W2. Via Qualtrics, parents completed assessments of mental health symptoms, adoption stigma, and perceived childcare competence. LG parents also reported on their experiences of homonegative microaggressions, and children responded to a measure about their relationships with parents. No significant differences emerged as a function of parental sexual orientation and gender except that lesbian mothers, heterosexual mothers, and gay fathers all reported higher parenting competence than heterosexual fathers. Although parents' mental health did not significantly predict parent-child relationship quality, parents' perceived competence and LG parents' current homonegative microaggression experiences did (e.g., greater competence, greater closeness; more microaggressions, lower closeness). Consistent with our conceptual framework, our results-derived from parent and child reports-demonstrate that although adoptive and LG parent families experience stigma, family processes (rather than structure) are most associated with individual outcomes. Researchers, policy makers, and practitioners should work together to employ identity-affirming practices to reduce stigma and support adoptive family functioning and well-being.

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“…Transgender people who formed families after coming out or transitioning have faced challenges to their legal status as parents, with associated attacks on the validity of their marriages (Cooper, 2013). Likewise, trans-gender people seeking to conceive, adopt, or foster children have often been turned away by fertility clinics, adoption agencies, and foster care services (Farr & Goldberg, 2018;Pfeffer & Jones, 2020).…”

Section: Policy and Clinical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demographics and health outcomes in a U.S. probability sample of transgender parents.

Carone¹,

Rothblum²,

Bos³

et al. 2021

Journal of Family Psychology

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Nonrepresentative estimates indicate that 25%-50% of transgender people are parents. Yet very little is known about their demographic characteristics and health outcomes. The present study compared the quality of life and several mental health (i.e., psychological distress, life satisfaction, happiness, social well-being) and health (i.e., physical health, alcohol and drug use) dimensions by gender identity and parenthood status in a probability sample of 1,436 transgender and cisgender respondents to the U.S. Transgender Population Health Survey (TransPop study). An estimated 18.8% of transgender respondents were parents, with the majority (52.5%) being transgender women. After controlling for age, education, and relationship status, there were no significant differences between trans-and cisgender parents and their nonparent counterparts on any mental health or health dimensions. These findings are important to family practitioners and policymakers so that they do not mistakenly assume that any problems transgender parents may report reveal their unsuitability to parent. Rather, because differences in health outcomes were seen only across gender identities, such problems are more likely related to stigma and discrimination experiences in a cisgenderist/heterosexist society.

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Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Adoption Law

Cited by 33 publications

References 27 publications

Impact of New Family Forms on Parenting and Child Development

Impact of New Family Forms on Parenting and Child Development

Stigma Experiences, Mental Health, Perceived Parenting Competence, and Parent–Child Relationships Among Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Adoptive Parents in the United States

Demographics and health outcomes in a U.S. probability sample of transgender parents.

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