LGB+ parented families in recent years are becoming more visible, but limited information exists about how professionals interact with people in these family forms. This study used the framework of ...intergroup contact theory to investigate whether contact with lesbians and gay men, same‐sex couples, and same‐sex parents respectively increase inclusive practices towards same‐sex families, and whether this association is mediated by professionals' prejudice and endorsement of same‐sex families' rights. A questionnaire with scales on: (a) intergroup contact, (b) professionals' orientation towards same‐sex families' inclusive practices, (c) professionals' prejudices, and (d) support of same‐sex couples' rights was administered to 460 professionals (9.8% males) working in social (N = 103), education (N = 156), and healthcare (N = 201) services in Italy. Path analysis was used to test the prediction that contact increases professionals' intention to embrace inclusive practices towards same‐sex families through the mediation of both prejudice and support to same‐sex couples' rights to have and raise children. Results showed that contact reduced prejudices towards same‐sex families and increased the endorsement of same‐sex families' rights, which in turn favoured professionals' willingness to modify their practices to include these family forms. Implications for the training and development of inclusive models are discussed. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.
Educational settings are increasingly encountering new family configurations, including same-sex families, which are becoming more and more common in the last decades. The widespread homonegativity ...that still characterizes attitudes towards LGBT+ individuals in Italy, coupled with the absence of specific laws safeguarding and recognizing the role of the non-biological parent, leaves pedagogists, teachers, and educators to grapple with new demands and new responsibilities. This article provides an overview of same-sex families in Italy and offers operational tools and best practices to promote inclusivity of offspring from same-sex families within the educational system. The aim is to overcome discrimination that this segment of the population still faces.
Unequal divisions of paid work and care among new parents contribute to increasing inequalities. One explanation for this is joint utility maximization and the benefits of partners (temporarily) ...specializing in paid work and care. This paper examines the (dis)advantages of specializing compared to dividing tasks more equally by studying whether differences in specialization between same-sex and different-sex couples lead to differences in household earnings after entering parenthood. Using register data from Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Sweden and examining first-time parents, we show that female couples have a more equal within-couple income development during the transition to parenthood than different-sex couples do. However, we find no differences in household income (including or excluding social transfers) between the two types of couples. Although a more equal task division may be preferred from an individual perspective, our results show no evidence of a “best strategy” when it comes to maximizing household income.
Globally, parents and children in same-sex parent families are impacted by many laws related to the parental sexual orientation. These laws vary considerably from one country to another, ranging from ...full legal recognition to criminalization. The psychological consequences of living in an ambiguous or hostile legal climate likely interfere with parental health, family functioning, and child development. However, a systematic evidence synthesis of the pertinent literature and its placement within a broader psychological model are currently lacking. The aims of this review were thus (1) to systematically review qualitative and quantitative evidence on the impact of sexual orientation laws on same-sex parent families in key domains and (2) to place these findings within a broader model informed by minority stress and family theories. Our review was preregistered and conducted in line with PRISMA guidelines. We searched for qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies on the impact of sexual orientation laws on target outcomes (parental health, family functioning, child outcomes) via systematic database search (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science) and forward-backward searches. Fifty-five studies published between 1999 and 2020 were eligible for inclusion and were synthesized using a data-based convergent synthesis design. Thirteen descriptive and three overarching analytical themes were identified through thematic synthesis. Linking our findings with minority stress and family theories, we propose a novel legal vulnerability model for same-sex parent families. The model posits that legal vulnerability constitutes an increased risk for parental and child health as well as family functioning through individual and shared pathways between family members. Additionally, the model introduces counteractions that families engage in on the personal, familial, and systemic level to mitigate the impact of legal vulnerability, as well as moderators on the contextual, familial, couple, and individual level that modulate this impact. Implications for research and clinical practice are discussed.
Picture books are a central part of early childhood and contribute to the picture children form of the world. While most picture books are oriented toward the concept of heteronormativity, more ...picture books featuring same-sex parents have been published in recent years. This article addresses the question of how same-sex parents are portrayed with regard to gender roles. Data stems from 23 German-language picture books, 17 with two mothers, six with two fathers. A quantitative coding approach was used to capture the portrayal of gender roles. The analyses showed that parents (especially fathers) are depicted as engaging in emotional or caring activities. Although in a large number of picture books both parents provide care and household-related activities, there is a statistically significant difference in terms of one parent performing these activities more frequently. In this respect, it can be seen that the portrayal of same-sex parents is partially oriented toward homonormativity, as these activities are usually depicted as female.
Objective
To explore the ways in which same‐sex adoptive parents navigate the process of determining what terms their children will use to address them (i.e., parent names).
Background
Parent names ...are markers of familial relationships and identity. Different‐sex parents are linguistically privileged in that their parent names are widely recognizable, easily distinguishable between each parent, and usually assigned by default as opposed to chosen, whereas parents in same‐sex couples must go through a deliberate process of choosing parent names. Little is known about the naming process for same‐sex parents.
Method
This qualitative analysis was designed to explore 40 same‐sex adoptive parent couples' approaches to parent naming (20 gay couples, 20 lesbian couples).
Results
Most couples collaboratively selected parallel names (e.g., “Daddy” and “Papa”). Participants drew on traditional mother and father derivatives, as well as their cultural backgrounds and naming trends within queer family communities. Families who adopted older children navigated unique issues.
Conclusion
This study adds to the literatures on same‐sex parenting, adoptive parenting, and naming. Families highlighted the perceived importance of parallel names and collaborative naming processes; the consideration of cultural backgrounds and other same‐sex parent families in naming; and naming challenges related to child age, the gender binary, and stigma.
Implications
Results shed light on various sources and considerations that may shape parent naming, which can inform the work of therapists and other providers who work with same‐sex parent families, particularly during the transition to parenthood.
Gay neighborhoods, like the legendary Castro District in San Francisco and New York's Greenwich Village, have long provided sexual minorities with safe havens in an often unsafe world. But as our ...society increasingly accepts gays and lesbians into the mainstream, are "gayborhoods" destined to disappear? Amin Ghaziani provides an incisive look at the origins of these unique cultural enclaves, the reasons why they are changing today, and their prospects for the future.
Drawing on a wealth of evidence--including census data, opinion polls, hundreds of newspaper reports from across the United States, and more than one hundred original interviews with residents in Chicago, one of the most paradigmatic cities in America--There Goes the Gayborhood?argues that political gains and societal acceptance are allowing gays and lesbians to imagine expansive possibilities for a life beyond the gayborhood. The dawn of a new post-gay era is altering the character and composition of existing enclaves across the country, but the spirit of integration can coexist alongside the celebration of differences in subtle and sometimes surprising ways.
Exploring the intimate relationship between sexuality and the city, this cutting-edge book reveals how gayborhoods, like the cities that surround them, are organic and continually evolving places. Gayborhoods have nurtured sexual minorities throughout the twentieth century and, despite the unstoppable forces of flux, will remain resonant and revelatory features of urban life.
Abstract
This article deals with the role of the European Union (EU) in enhancing rights of same-sex couples and their children (‘rainbow families’). It describes EU actions in this area and examines ...what influence they can have within the Member States, using the Czech Republic as a case study. The article argues that, despite the EU’s general lack of competence in family law matters, the relationship between the EU and rainbow families’ rights, in theory, no longer appears incompatible, but rather promising, as the EU bodies have found ways to address these issues. In practical terms. However, the question raised in this article’s title cannot be definitively answered without data from the Member States. Here, the findings from the Czech Republic demonstrate that the EU law’s potential has not been fulfilled in practice yet. Therefore, it would be too soon to celebrate the EU as a significant player in the rainbow families’ rights arena. As the Czech example suggests, if the EU wants to truly enhance rainbow families’ rights, it will probably need to be more explicit about that because the Member States, particularly their national courts, may not find or pave the way to utilize EU law themselves.
The legal status and social acceptance of same-sex partners’ families vary to an astonishing degree, even within the European Union (EU). These differences are sharply reflected in the lives of ...lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) migrants from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) residing in countries such as Belgium or the Netherlands, where same-sex partners can marry, access adoption and assisted reproductive technologies (ART) services, and acquire legal co-parenting rights. For this group, every visit to a CEE country of origin with a constitutional definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, with limited or no access to adoption services, nor to ART or co-parenting rights, highlights the societal and institutional vulnerability of their families. Based on biographical narrative interviews (BNIM) with six LGB migrants from selected CEE countries of origin, raising children with a same-sex partner in Belgium or the Netherlands, this study analyses how differences in wider socio-institutional frameworks shape experiences of LGB parents relating to the formation, display, recognition and acceptance of their families. The findings highlight how the restrictive legal and institutional frameworks not only exclude LGB individuals from full citizenship, but also provide support for the individual-level discrimination of non-heterosexual families. In contrast, inclusive frameworks allow LGB individuals to realize life and family trajectories already accessible to others in society, while also discouraging the expression of individual prejudice. Therefore, the study concludes that the only way to ensure full equality and to protect LGB individuals and their children from stigmatization is to create a fully inclusive socio-institutional framework for non-heterosexual families in which individual prejudice is no longer supported.
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