The majority of lesbian moms who conceived through donor insemination are satisfied with their choice of a known, unknown, or open-identity (child may contact when 18) donor, according to new research based on the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS), the longest-running and largest study of U.S. lesbian families.
The glorious spate of rulings in favor of marriage equality last week is also leading to an expansion of adoption and second-parent adoption rights.
As a mother who used a sperm bank to start my family, and as someone who works in my day job for a program that addresses racial inequities, among others, I feel compelled to write about a disconcerting lawsuit that has been making headlines: That of a lesbian mother suing a sperm bank for sending her the wrong sperm — something she discovered only after she was pregnant. The added complication is that much of the lawsuit revolves around the fact that the donor is Black, while she and her partner are White, and had chosen a White donor.
A new study has found that one in five foster youth in Los Angeles are LGBTQ — which means they are over-represented compared to LGBTQ youth in the general population. They’re also twice as likely to report being treated poorly and twice as likely to live in a group facility compared to non-LGBTQ youth. But a bold project is working on a new model of caring for LGBTQ foster youth, in L.A. and across the country — and it needs your help.
Two Virginia women who want to be moms are practicing by being awesome aunts. Why aren’t they taking steps to become parents? They’re waiting until both can be legal mothers to their child in their state. The U.S. Supreme Court is (so far) not helping.
Republican lawmakers, with the urging of anti-LGBT groups the Family Research Council and the Heritage Foundation, have introduced a bill last week that would allow adoption providers and other child welfare service agencies to refuse to provide services that conflict with their “sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions.” Think it’s a thinly veiled attempt to stop LGBT people from adopting or fostering? You’re right. But an opposing bill that would withhold federal funds from adoption providers that discriminate against LGBT people now has record support — although it is far from passage.
One of the social scientists I (and many others) cite often when it comes to LGBQ parents and our kids is Dr. Abbie Goldberg of Clark University. She’s conducting a new study on postpartum well-being in sexual minority women, and is looking for pregnant women partnered with other women. Know any (including yourself)? Read on.
Three recent stories about same-sex parents trying to obtain accurate birth certificates for their children underscore the obstacles and confusion we often face in trying to protect our families.
Jerry Mahoney’s “Mommy Man: How I Went from Mild-Mannered Geek to Gay Superdad,” is a wonderful addition to the growing genre of LGBT parenting memoirs, not only because of its sharp writing and smart humor, but because it shows us an aspect of LGBT parenting we haven’t seen in a book-length memoir before—two men pursuing parenthood through gestational surrogacy.
May is National Foster Care Month, and I’ve been enjoying many of the recent stories of foster families at RaiseAChild.US. Read on for links to their tales and to other information resources for LGBTQ foster families.
