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Making Babies - Being Parents

Dateline: 10/03/97

If you've been following the news I put up here at G/L Issues, then you're aware that Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche have decided that they want a baby, following in the very public footsteps of Melissa Etheridge and Julie Cypher.

Because I know that the radical right is going to have a problem with this (oh, would I love to be proven wrong), I thought it would be a good time to gather together some facts on gay and lesbian parenting to use in response to the tirades to come.

A study in 1992 showed that children raised by lesbian parents were psychologically healthy.

COLAGE (Children of Gays and Lesbians Everywhere) has a short fact sheet that's also very useful.

Another excellent research project included the following conclusions:

• Beliefs that gay and lesbian adults are not fit parents likewise have no empirical foundation;
• There was no evidence in any of the studies of gender identity difficulties among children of lesbian mothers. No data have been reported in this area for children of gay fathers;
• No differences between children of lesbian versus heterosexual mothers in toy preferences, activities, interests, or occupational choices;
• Children of lesbian and heterosexual mothers did not differ on masculinity or on androgyny
• Children of lesbian mothers develop patterns of gender-role behavior that are much like those of other children;
• Adult sons of gay fathers were studied and it was found that more than 90% of the sons to be heterosexual;
• Reports by both parents and children suggest normal development of peer relationships;
• The quality of children's peer relations was described, on average, in positive terms by researchers;
• Children of divorced lesbian mothers were more likely to have had recent contact with their fathers than were children of divorced heterosexual mothers;
• Overwhelming majority of child sexual abuse cases involve an adult male abusing a young female;
• Available evidence reveals that gay men are no more likely than heterosexual men to perpetrate child sexual abuse.

As noted throughout, there is much less information and statistics on gay male parenting, than lesbians. I suspect that as more men/male couples decide to have children the information will increase, however, I will leave you with this wonderful story by the son of a gay man.

In Pride,
Deborah

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