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Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT)
Parented Families
A Literature Review prepared for The Australian Psychological Society
Elizabeth Short | Damien W. Riggs | Amaryll Perlesz | Rhonda Brown | Graeme Kane
• August 2007
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Acknowledgments
The authors of the literature review on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parented-families
would like to acknowledge the considerable support offered by the Australian Psychological Society
in producing the document. Speciic thanks must go to the following people for reading and
commenting on the document: Heather Gridley and Susie Burke for their work in the Public Interest
domain, members of the APS Board (especially Trang Thomas) and the Public Interest Advisory Group
(especially Alina Morawska and Colleen Turner, and past member Graham Davidson), and Lyn Littleield
and Amanda Gordon in their roles as APS Executive Director and President respectively. The authors
are grateful to early international support for the development of the document, in particular from
Dr. Victoria Clarke and Dr. Peter Hegarty of the Lesbian and Gay Section of the British Psychological
Society, Professor Charlotte J. Patterson of the University of Virginia, and Dr. Stephen Hicks of The
University of Salford, UK, in addition to the other international readers who provided information
and helpful comments. Acknowledgement and thanks is given to Associate Professor Kris Walker for
assistance with legal information and to Greg Fell for proof reading and extensive work on referencing.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Parented Families
A Literature Review prepared for the Australian Psychological Society
2
Table of contents
Overview
4
Background
4
Increased Family Diversity
4
Increasing Family Studies Research
5
Legal, Public Policy, Social and Discursive Contexts of LGBT-Parented Families
6
Psychology and the Public Interest
7
The Family Studies Research
8
LGBT Parenting and Families Literature
10
Comparative Research
10
Mapping and Exploratory Studies
11
Discursive and Theoretical Research
12
Speciic Findings From Research on Parenting by LGBT People
13
Division of Care in Different Types of Parenting Couples
14
Parenting Practices and Quality
15
Parenting Practices: Lesbian Couples Compared to Heterosexual Couples
16
Parenting Practices: Lesbian Mothers Compared to Heterosexual Mothers
17
Parenting Practices: Parenting by Gay Fathers
18
Satisfaction with Shared Responsibility and Patterns of Parenting Practices
18
Research on the Children of Gay Men and Lesbian Women
19
Psychological Well-Being and Behaviour
19
Behaviours and Preferences Commonly Believed to be Gender Related
21
Quality of Peer Relationships of Children in LGBT-Headed Families
22
Negative Peer Experiences Related to Heterosexism and Prejudice
22
Issues Pertaining to Sperm Donors and Children
23
Knowledge of Donor Identity
23
Level of Contact and Relationship with Known Donors
24
Conclusions
25
References
26
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Parented Families
A Literature Review prepared for the Australian Psychological Society
3
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT)
Parented Families
Prepared for the Australian Psychological Society by Elizabeth Short, Damien W. Riggs, Amaryll Perlesz,
Rhonda Brown & Graeme Kane
Overview
This review provides an overview and summary of the main bodies of research about parenting by
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
1
people, as well as relevant information about the wider
family studies ield within which this research is situated, and background information on the Australian
context. This review will assist psychologists to provide effective and appropriate services to people
in such families. The review will also assist psychologists in contributing, where appropriate, to public
debates in relation to legal and public policy reform of the type that has occurred extensively over the
last ive years in Australia (for example, about which family relationships should be recognised in law,
and who should be able to access fertility services or adopt children), and which can be expected to
continue into the future. Given the importance of psychologists promoting accurate understandings of
scientiic research, a primary focus of this review is the role that psychological research can play in such
debates, and the contribution of psychologists to promoting well-being for children, parents, families
and the general community.
As detailed in this review, the family studies literature indicates that it is family
processes
(such as the
quality of parenting and relationships within the family) that contribute to determining children’s well-
being and ‘outcomes’, rather than family
structures
, per se, such as the number, gender, sexuality and
co-habitation status of parents. The research indicates that parenting practices and children’s outcomes
in families parented by lesbian and gay parents are likely to be at least as favourable as those in families
of heterosexual parents, despite the reality that considerable legal discrimination and inequity remain
signiicant challenges for these families. The Australian Psychological Society (APS) is committed to
contributing the knowledge of psychology in the public interest, and to fostering a social environment
in which all children and their families experience support, recognition, and are valued, and in which
discrimination and prejudice have no place.
Background
Over the past forty years, we have witnessed a signiicant diversiication of family forms in Western
societies, and this has been accompanied by a rapidly expanding literature on the diverse forms that
families take.
Increased Family Diversity
Increasingly, we are witnessing the diversiication and recognition of a wider range of family types
than simply the heterosexual-parented nuclear family, including intentionally childless families, families
of separated parents, single-parent families, step-families, blended-families, families of same-sex
parents, and families in which the children are conceived with donated gametes and/or reproductive
technologies (e.g., see de Vaus, 2004; McNair, 2004; Wise, 2003). One aspect of this diversiication
has occurred as a result of what is sometimes referred to as the “lesbian baby boom” or a “gayby
boom”, which has occurred and intensiied since the 1970s. In addition to the many people who have
children within a heterosexual relationship and who subsequently identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual
and/or transgendered, there are increasingly large numbers of children being born into a family with
1
Issues of language play a signiicant role in scientiic discussions on the lives of LGBT people and members of their families. The term
‘LGBT’ itself represents a highly contested category, and its claims to representativeness or inclusivity must be viewed carefully for its
potential to mask signiicant differences amongst lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. Whilst the term is used throughout
this literature review, signiicant effort has been made to clarify gender- and sexuality-speciic issues.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Parented Families
A Literature Review prepared for the Australian Psychological Society
4
one or more same-sex attracted parents. Predominantly, these families are headed by female couples.
One recent Australian estimate suggests that 50-70% of children being raised in lesbian-parented
households are children who were born into that family (Millbank, 2003). In many lesbian-parented
families, each member of the couple gives birth to one or more children. Such families are also
constituted through blended and step-parents, and may involve multiple parents. Gross (2006) makes
an important distinction between what she terms ‘biparental’ and ‘multiparental’ families, the former
being constituted through one or two primary parents, and the latter involving multiple parental
relationships. Such family forms may change over time, and will often develop both in response to the
relationships between adult members, and as a result of the needs of adult and children members (as is
the case with heterosexual-headed families).
Some lesbian women and gay men are also parenting children through fostering and adoption,
although the latter is rare as there remain considerable restrictions on same-sex attracted people
adopting children across most of Australia (see Duffey, 2007, for a summary of adoption laws across
Australia). Some gay men have also more recently become parents through surrogacy arrangements
and through co-parenting arrangements with single women or lesbian couples. As Ruth McNair
summarised, “it seems anecdotally that more gay men are now looking to have a primary parenting
role, however, there are still very few in this position in Australia” (2004, p. 55).
Much like the rest of the population, LGBT-parented families are diverse, and family members come
from a variety of ethnic, racial, cultural, and class groups. The primary difference between LGBT-
parented and heterosexual-parented families is that the former live in a legal, public policy, social, and
discursive context in which discrimination and prejudice on the basis of the parents’ gender or sexuality
are a feature of day-to-day life.
Increasing Family Studies Research
Largely in response to the increased visibility of diverse family forms, family research has burgeoned.
In part, this has been undertaken to explore and document increasing numbers of newly emerged
family forms, and to investigate concerns that have been expressed by some about families other than
those headed by co-habitating married heterosexual couples who are the biological parents of their
children. Research has examined how this particular family type has repeatedly been promoted as the
‘ideal’, and has often been depicted as the only ‘real’ family type, in contrast to other family types that
are constructed as less desirable and less able to meet the needs of children (e.g., see Biblarz & Stacey,
2006; Millbank, 2003; Rickard, 2002). In Australia since the late 1990’s (as in some other countries,
e.g., see Biblarz & Stacey, 2006), the notion that all children ‘need’ or ‘do better’ with both a mother
and a father has repeatedly been used as justiication for retaining or even extending discrimination
in the area of family-related laws and policies, such as who should have access to fertility services
and who should be able to get married (see Flood, 2003; Short, 2007a, 2007b). As noted by Jenni
Millbank (2003), “Much of the recent overt objection to lesbian-mother families, for instance, has
centred on father absence rather than lesbian sexual orientation
per se
” (p. 545) and “there remains a
presumption in much legal and social policy that lesbian and gay parenting is suspect, second-rate or
harmful to children” (p. 541-542).
In this context, a very large body of research has been conducted by psychologists and researchers in
related disciplines comparing different family types on parenting practices and children’s ‘outcomes’.
Substantial and justiied critiques of comparative family research have highlighted how this research has
tended to inadvertently: a) follow the agenda set by those prejudiced against LGBT parents and their
families; b) restate or frame certain research questions as legitimate or reasonable concerns rather than
prejudice; and c) down-play research indings of better levels of functioning by same-sex parents or the
children of same-sex parents (e.g., see Clarke, 2000a; Kitzinger & Wilkinson, 2004; Stacey & Biblarz,
2001). However, one positive result of this comparative research is that the negative assumptions
about families other than those of heterosexual married parents have been extensively empirically
investigated, and researchers have been able to distinguish between family factors that do contribute to
children’s outcomes and well-being, and those that, in and of themselves,
do not
.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Parented Families
A Literature Review prepared for the Australian Psychological Society
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