Same-sex parenting

Same-sex parenting is parenting of children by same-sex couples generally consisting of homosexual or bisexual people who are often in civil partnerships, domestic partnerships, civil unions, or same-sex marriages.

Opponents of same-sex parenting argue that it has an adverse impact on children. However, scientific research consistently shows that homosexual parents are as capable and fit as heterosexual parents and that children reared by homosexual parents are as psychologically healthy and well-adjusted as those reared by heterosexual parents. Major professional associations of physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, pediatricians, therapists, and social workers have not identified credible empirical research that suggests otherwise.

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LGBT people can become parents through various means including current or former relationships, coparenting, adoption, foster care, donor insemination, reciprocal IVF, and surrogacy. A gay man, a lesbian, or a transgender person who transitions later in life may have children within an opposite-sex relationship, such as a mixed-orientation marriage, for various reasons.

Some children do not know they have an LGBT parent; coming out issues vary and some parents may never disclose to their children that they identify as LGBT. Accordingly, how children respond to their LGBT parent(s) coming out has little to do with their sexual orientation or gender identification, but rather with how either parent responds to acts of coming out; i.e. whether there is dissolution of parental partnerships or rather if parents maintain a healthy, open, and communicative relationship after coming out or during transition in the case of trans parents.

Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are parents. In the 2000 U.S. census, for example, 33 percent of female same-sex couple households and 22 percent of male same-sex couple households reported at least one child under the age of 18 living in the home.