Children raised by homosexual parents develop a gender identity similar to that of children raised by heterosexual couples.
Do Children Raised By Homosexual Parents Have A Changed Gender Identity? The question has often been raised, sometimes instrumentalized by opponents of marriage for all. Wrong, obviously.
According to a study of 106 couples who have adopted a child and published in the journal Sex Roles, there would be no difference in gender identity between children of same-sex couples and those raised by heterosexual parents.
To reach this conclusion, the authors, at the University of Kentucky, followed same-sex (gay and lesbian) and heterosexual couples and their children for ten years. The children were interviewed and their behavior analyzed by the researchers – whereas previous studies had focused on questioning the parents, not the children themselves.
Dolls and trucks
The authors have reviewed several criteria for assessing children’s adoption of gender social norms. These criteria include the choice of toys, clothes or professional ambitions.
However, the results show that the parents’ sexuality has no influence on the way in which the child constructs his gender identity. For example, the little girls of same-sex couples played mostly dolls and boys played trucks, like children adopted by heterosexual parents. Difficult to say whether to rejoice, this is not the subject of the study.
In any case, the few children who displayed behaviors less conformable to their gender before entering school were also those who aspired, a few years later, to careers less typical of their gender. This shows that the choice of toys is a rather relevant indicator of how children identify with social gender norms, the researchers explain.
A matter of education
“Parents’ sexual orientation and family structure had no significant impact on children’s gender conformity or non-conformity,” write the authors. Our results suggest that the development of gender identity in children adopted by lesbian or gay parents takes place in usual ways, and is similar to that of children adopted by heterosexual couples ”.
Thus, “having a female and male role model in the household does not necessarily facilitate the development of a gender identity in adopted children, nor does it discourage gender non-compliance.”
In addition, the authors explain that the previous works which concluded to a modification of the gender identity in the children having been brought up by homosexual cuts show certain biases. They have in fact focused on “non-traditional” families, while this latest work has been carried out among well-off couples, from the middle class and rather traditional. This implies that gender identity is more a matter of education than of sexual orientation.
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