The impact of a parent’s sexual orientation on a child’s development has been a prominent question in the minds of society and psychological researchers since the removal of homosexuality as a mental disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1973. Since then, the numerous studies conducted to answer this question have overwhelmingly demonstrated no significant differences between the psychological adjustment, social functioning, or sexual identity of children of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) parents and children of heterosexual parents. The results of these studies have been instrumental in changing laws that limited or prevented LGBTQ individuals from becoming parents through adoption and have assisted LGBTQ individuals in retaining custodial rights over biological children from prior heterosexual relationships. This entry examines ...

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