The Rise of the Gay Family
More and more American children are growing up with same-sex parents
While the debate continues, the number of kids with gay parents keeps growing. According to Gary Gates, an Urban Institute demographer, 1 in 3 lesbian couples was raising children in 2000, up from 1 in 5 in 1990, while the number of male couples raising kids jumped from 1 in 20 to 1 in 5 during the same period. The uptick is partly due to changes in the census itself, which in 1990 tabulated most same-sex couples that identified themselves as married on census forms as straight married couples. In the 2000 census, though, those couples were tabulated as gay and lesbian partners. But the leap in such couples with children is large enough to suggest a real spike. And because gay and lesbian couples are sometimes reluctant to identify themselves as such on census forms, actual figures could be much higher.
Moving in. What's perhaps most surprising is that gay- and lesbian-headed families are settling in some of the most culturally conservative parts of the country. According to the Gay and Lesbian Atlas, published earlier this month by the Urban Institute, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, and New Mexico are among the 10 states with the largest number of gay families--along with more historically gay-friendly New York, California, and Vermont. States where gay and lesbian couples are most likely to have children (relative to the state's total number of gay couples) are Mississippi, South Dakota, Alaska, South Carolina, and Louisiana, in that order. "Same-sex couples who live in areas where all couples are more likely to have children" may simply be more likely to have children themselves, according to the atlas. And couples with children--regardless of their sexual orientation--are looking for good schools, safe streets, and outdoor green space. "It's gay couples who don't have kids whose behavior tends to be different: They live in more-distressed areas of cities, with higher crime and more racial diversity," says Gates. "But a large portion of gay people own their homes, live in the suburbs, and are raising two children."
Most of these children are the products of previous heterosexual relationships. Madison, for one, is Caraway's daughter by a former boyfriend. Caraway says the pregnancy forced her to come to terms with her homosexuality; she started dating Ciancia soon after her daughter's birth. "If you stay in a relationship but you're not in love or committed to the person, children sense that," says Caraway, now 31. "What kind of message does that send?"
But as these children enter middle and high school, their peers are more likely to inquire about their parents' sexuality--and not always politely. The Tufts-New England Medical Center's Perrin, who authored the American Academy of Pediatrics' policy on gay parenting, says that children of same-sex parents "get stigmatized because of who their parents are. It's the biggest problem they face by far." Just like many gays and lesbians themselves, children of homosexuals speak of "coming out" as a long and often difficult ordeal. "You are, on a day-to-day basis, choosing if you're out or if you're going to be hiding the whole truth," says Abigail Garner, author of the recently released Families Like Mine, about children of homosexuals." Is she your mom's roommate or your aunt or your mom's friend?"
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