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Race and Ethnicity in the Lives of Sexual Minority Parents and Their Children

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LGBT-Parent Families

Abstract

In this chapter we review the body of research on racial and sexual minority parenting in the USA and internationally. Findings in this literature point us toward broader conceptualizations of sexual minority parenthood that include stepparenting, kin care, and parenting in the context of heterosexual unions while maintaining a lesbian or gay identity. In addition, these findings challenge scholars to think more inclusively about what issues are relevant to sexual minority parents and children. Issues ranked as important by sexual minority parents themselves, such as welfare and immigration policies, are often neglected in scholarship that focuses disproportionately on parents’ gender and sexuality; this scholarship does not account for race, nationality, or other variance among these families. As much as this review provides important variation in the experiences of sexual minority families, it also challenges the academic community to substantially broaden its scope when studying same-sex parenting. The chapter concludes with directions for future research.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We use “sexual minority” to refer to individuals whose sexual relationships and identities are minoritized politically within their societies, families headed by such individuals, and communities formed around this shared minority status. We use more specific terms such as “lesbian,” “gay,” and “Two-Spirit” when citing research about people who use these terms to describe themselves. It should be noted that these are not mutually exclusive categories; for example, in research studies that refer to “LGBT parents,” “T” (transgender and transsexual) parents may also identify themselves as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (or as some other sexual identity). For demographic information, we rely heavily on U.S. Census data, which classifies partnered households as “same sex” or “heterosexual” based on the gender of the adults living in the home (some caveats about this classification system are offered in our section on International Contexts). While “same-sex households” are often read as lesbian and gay households, it is important to recognize that household members may identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or none of these, and that sexual minorities and gender variant people are found in both same- and different-sex households.

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Acknowledgment

The first author received support for this work from the University of California, Los Angeles, Center for Health Improvement of Minority Elderly/Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research, under NIH/NIA Grant P30-AG02-1684.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of California Los Angeles, 951551, 264 Haines Hall, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1551, USA

    Mignon R. Moore Ph.D.

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Illinois-Chicago, Harrison Street, Chicago, IL, 60607-7140, USA

    Amy Brainer M.A.

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  1. Mignon R. Moore Ph.D.
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  2. Amy Brainer M.A.
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Correspondence to Mignon R. Moore Ph.D. .

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  1. , Department of Psychology, Clark University, 950 Main Street, Worcester, 01610, Massachusetts, USA

    Abbie E. Goldberg

  2. , Department of Human Development, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State, 401C Wallace Hall (0416), Blacksburg, 24061, Virginia, USA

    Katherine R. Allen

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Moore, M.R., Brainer, A. (2013). Race and Ethnicity in the Lives of Sexual Minority Parents and Their Children. In: Goldberg, A., Allen, K. (eds) LGBT-Parent Families. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4556-2_9

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