Lesbian Adoption

Current Research

Narratives from qualitative research about lesbian adoptive parents describe their experiences and charts the particular ways they navigate the challenges faced, including negotiating the tensions between “begin out” in the adoption process and their legal and social realities. Research demonstrates that negative beliefs based on stereotypes and fallacies are still demonstrated by the public at large toward lesbian parents, but more damaging are those negative beliefs held by professionals who either hold lesbian parents to higher standards due to their orientation or dismiss them as potential candidates. Research reveals that some of the negative myths still present include the belief that gay parents are more prone to abuse their children, less likely to remain committed in their relationships, that the children will be purposefully isolated from opposite sex gender roles, and that gay parents will be poor role models.

Current research is also tracking the positive experiences of lesbian parents, who find support in either specific agencies or with certain professionals; these findings are being utilized for training and developing best practices, and reflect shifting attitudes toward lesbian adoption as potential resources to meet the needs of children. While more research is needed in this area, current research suggests that lesbian parents contribute positively to the lives of children they adopt, despite a heteronormative milieu, discriminatory practices, and oppressive structures.

Family can be broadly defined as any two people who choose to call themselves “family.” While the term family is imbued with heteronormative cultural ideology and is often used politically to promote a conservative, moral order in the public sphere, lesbians who adopt offer a widened potential for understanding family and present an untapped potential resource for children in need of families. While it is sometimes viewed as negative that lesbian and gay parents are often encouraged to adopt those children that are more challenging to place, this reverse privileging does ensure that children with diverse needs, such as mobility or behavioral issues, children of color and older children have a greater opportunity to achieve “forever families” in a wider pool of choice. Lesbians who adopt may reduce foster care drift through providing additional resources in the permanency planning for children, and contribute to diversifying family structure to meet particular needs.

Tensions and Barriers

Some well-meaning professionals may believe that they are saving children from presumed social isolation and hesitate to place children with lesbian families for more benevolent, though misguided intentions. An argument made to oppose same-sex adoption focuses on the importance of opposite sex role models in a child's home in order to grow up to live a functional and adequately gendered life. Socialization theory upholds and argues for traditional ideas about gender and family, any difference is perceived as deviant. Feminists have critiqued socialization theory, suggesting that the organization of gender roles in patriarchal societies is highly restrictive.

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