A new policy brief gives us a great summary of the state of social science research about lesbian and gay parents and our children.
The brief, “Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children,” by Charlotte J. Patterson, Ph.D. and Abbie E. Goldberg, Ph.D. (both of whose work I’ve written of before), comes from the National Council on Family Relations, “the premier professional association for the multidisciplinary understanding of families.” The authors offer four succinct pages recapping decades of research, and come to the following conclusions, probably no surprise to readers here:
First, LG individuals have been found to do well in parenting roles. Second, children reared by LG parents are well adjusted and seem to develop in positive ways. Third, when they live in supportive environments, LG parents and their children are more likely to thrive.
They also note that LG-headed families are not homogeneous, but “vary on and are influenced by many characteristics, including race, ethnicity, education, and income.” Our families are also formed in different ways and in different contexts. (For example, some of us have children during relationships with different-sex partners, others with same-sex partners, and some may be raising children as single or divorced parents.)
While plenty of previous studies have shown children of same-sex parents are as well-adjusted as any others, Patterson and Goldberg make an important observation about the state of the research today, namely, that while earlier studies “often involved smaller, relatively homogeneous groups of families,” newer ones “have been based on larger, more diverse samples.” All of their key findings, they say, have been confirmed in these larger studies.
Other conclusions focus on the political and socioeconomic contexts. Families living in countries with more favorable environments “seem to have fewer worries and to be more open.” More locally, other studies have shown that supportive neighborhoods and families of origin mean LG parents are less likely to show signs of depression. Similarly, youth with LG parents who felt their neighborhoods and school environments were supportive said they had “greater feelings of overall well-being.”
Still, the rosy findings above are marred by a few clouds. Goldberg and Patterson remind us that “Discrimination against sexual minorities in employment, housing, and other areas is still legal in most parts of the country.” More than half the states—28—do not forbid employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. And even in those that do, religious exemptions may allow for discrimination in some cases.
Possibly linked to this, too, is the fact that children of LG parents are about twice as likely as those of straight parents to live in poverty.
The authors thus call for the passage of a federal bill, similar to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, “to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing, and other areas,” and for closing religious exemptions. (They don’t mention gender identity here; I’m not sure if that’s because this report focuses on sexual orientation or because they feel existing federal protections related to gender already cover transgender people, as several courts and federal departments have stated.)
I wouldn’t put a lot of money on any such bill passing during the Trump Administration, but that’s no reason not to try and get things ready for a push afterwards—and a short but thorough policy brief like this sounds like a good way to get some conversations started.
H/t to the always-informative Williams Institute at UCLA. Patterson is a Williams Institute Faculty Advisory Committee Member and former Visiting Scholar and Goldberg is a current Williams Institute Visiting Scholar.
