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Gay and Lesbian Adoptive Parents: Resources for Professionals and Parents

Author(s):  Child Welfare Information Gateway

Year Published:  2000

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You are in section: Table of Contents 1 - Working with Gay and Lesbian… 2 - The Status of Homosexual… 3 - Issues and Concerns 4 - What the Law Says 5 - Types of Adoption 6 - The Social Worker's Dilemma 7 - Coping with the Agency Preference… 8 - Life After Adoption 9 - Sources of Support and Information 10 - Bibliography

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1. Gay and Lesbian Adoptive Parents

Gay men and lesbians have always adopted, though in the past they usually hid their sexual orientation. Today, just as they are becoming visible in all other aspects of U. S. society, they are being considered more seriously as potential adoptive parents. This change has been aided by the increase in the number of gay and lesbian biological parents in the United States.

In 1976, there were an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 gay and lesbian biological parents; as of 1990, an estimated 6 to 14 million children have a gay or lesbian parent.¹ And, between 8 and 10 million children are being raised in gay and lesbian households.² The US Department of Health and Human Services, Adoption and Foster Care Analysis Reporting System (AFCARS), estimated in 1999 there were approximately 547,000 children in foster care in the United States, of which 117,000 are legally free and therefore eligible for adoption. But, in 1997, there were qualified adoptive families (including single parents) available for only twenty percent of these children. It is also estimated that approximately ten percent of the U.S. population - or 25 million individuals - are homosexual.³

Based on these increasing numbers, can gay and lesbian individuals be realistically and automatically excluded from consideration as potential adoptive parents?

Despite this increase in gay and lesbian parenting, social workers may have reservations when considering gay adoptive parents for a child. They might wonder how the children will be raised and how they will feel about themselves and their parents. Will they be embarrassed because they have two mothers or two fathers, or because their single mother dates women or their unmarried father has a boyfriend? Will their friends tease them? Will they be more likely to be homosexual than will children raised by heterosexual parents? And most important, how will having been raised by gay or lesbian parents affect them as they grow into adulthood?

This factsheet addresses the issues faced both by social workers evaluating prospective gay or lesbian adoptive parents and by gays and lesbians considering adoption. It includes an extensive list of sources of support and information that may be helpful to gay and lesbian adoptive parents as well as the adoption professionals who work with them.

Factsheet revised April 2000.

Endnotes

¹ Sullivan, A., (1995). Issues In Gay and Lesbian Adoption: Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Peirce-Warwick Adoption Symposium, Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America. back

² Editors of the Harvard Law Review. (1990). Sexual Orientation and the Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. back

³ Sullivan, A. back

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You are in section: Table of Contents 1 - Working with Gay and Lesbian… 2 - The Status of Homosexual… 3 - Issues and Concerns 4 - What the Law Says 5 - Types of Adoption 6 - The Social Worker's Dilemma 7 - Coping with the Agency Preference… 8 - Life After Adoption 9 - Sources of Support and Information 10 - Bibliography

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Updated on September 18, 2008