Lesbian and Gay Parenting

    
         The APA Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns Office has worked since 1975 to eliminate the stigma of mental illness which has been mistakenly associated with same-sex sexual orientation and to reduce prejudice, discrimination, and violence against lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. Major functions of the office include support to APA's Committee on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns; liaison with the Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Issues (APA Division 44) and with other APA groups that have an interest in lesbian, gay, and bisexual concerns; policy analysis, development, and advocacy for APA policy; technical assistance, information, and referral to APA members, other professionals, policymakers, the media, and the public; and development and dissemination of publications and other information on lesbian, gay and bisexual concerns in psychology.

The Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns Office is housed within the Public Interest Directorate, which works to advance psychology as a means of promoting human welfare. Other programs within the Public Interest Directorate work on issues related to AIDS; adolescent health; aging; children, youth and families; disability; ethnic minorities; urban issues; violence; women; and workplace health.

Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children: Summary of Research Findings 

Like families headed by heterosexual parents, lesbian and gay parents and their children area diverse group.  Unlike heterosexual parents and  their children, however, lesbian and gay parents and their children are often subject to prejudice because of their sexual orientation that can turn judges, legislators, professionals, and the public against them,sometimes resulting in negative outcomes, such as loss of physical custody, restrictions on visitation, and prohibitions against adoption.  

Negative attitudes about lesbian and gay parenting may be held in the population at large .As with beliefs about other socially stigmatized groups, the beliefs held generally in society about lesbians and gay men are often not based in personal experience, but are frequently culturally transmitted . The purpose of this summary of research findings on lesbian and gay parents and their children is to evaluate widespread beliefs in the light of empirical data and in this way ameliorate negative effects of unwarranted prejudice.
Because many beliefs about lesbian and gay parents and their children are open to empirical testing, psychological research can evaluate their accuracy.

Systematic research comparing lesbian and gay adults to heterosexual adults began in the late 1950s,
and research comparing children of lesbian and gay parents with those of heterosexual parents is of a
more recent vintage. Research on lesbian and gay adults began with Evelyn Hooker's landmark study
(1957), resulted in the declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973. Case reports on children of lesbian and gay parents began to appear in the psychiatric literature in the early

1970s  and have continued to appear  . Starting with the pioneering work of Martin and Lyon (1972), first person and fictionalized descriptions of life in lesbian mother families and gay father families  have also become available. Systematic research on the children of lesbian and gay parents began to appear in major professional journals in the late 1970s and has grown into a considerable body of research only in recent years. As this summary will show, the results of existing  research comparing lesbian and gay parents to heterosexual parents and children of lesbian and gay parents to children of heterosexual parents are quite clear: Common stereotypes are not supported by the data. Without denying the clarity of results to date, it is important also for psychologists and other professionals to be aware that research in this area has presented a variety of methodological challenges. As is true in any area of research, questions have been raised with regard to sampling issues, statistical power, and other technical matters. Some areas of research, such as gender development, and some periods of life, such as adolescence, have been described by reviewers as understudied and deserving of greater attention . In what follows, efforts will be made to highlight the extent to which the research literature has responded to such criticisms.

Sources :

http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/parenting-full.pdf
http://www.narth.com/docs/does.html
http://adoption.about.com/od/gaylesbian/f/gayparents.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_parenting
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/11/09/children-of-gay-parents/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08fob-wwln-t.html

Related articles

• The Remarkable Resilience of the Two Parent Model (julieshapiro.wordpress.com)
• Thinking about the Children - Lesbian/Gay Families More Common in the South (julieshapiro.wordpress.com)
• Gay Parents: Socially Unacceptable? (psychologytoday.com)
• Questions Students May Ask and Possible Reponses About Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People (bobbysuave.wordpress.com)
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Questioning Adolescents: Victimization, Belonging, Safety and the ... (education.com)

5 YouTube Projects That Are Making a Difference

                “The power of YouTube  lies in its capacity to create connections,” explains Shawn Ahmed, the activist behind The Uncultured Project. It forms “connections between people and connections between communities [that are stronger] than pen pals, and [stronger] than just exchanging e-mails or Facebook pokes. It’s a way of kind of seeing and connecting visually, auditorily, everything.”
Ahmed’s project is included in our list of YouTube channels that have successfully harnessed the eye-opening power of YouTube and web video for social good.(Source: @Mashable)
1. Invisible People 
2. Streetside Stories
3. I Talk Because…
4. It Gets Better
5. The Uncultured Project


1. Invisible People

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Even after being homeless for a period, Mark Horvath was disturbed by how quickly he became ambivalent toward other people he saw living on the street.
“I find myself looking away, ignoring the faces, avoiding their eyes,” he writes on his project’s website, “— and I’m ashamed when I realize I’m doing it.”
He started InvisiblePeople.tv to give a voice to the more than 1 million homeless people living in the U.S. who are so often ignored. By asking people to share their stories, their wishes for the future, and just a moment of conversation, the project has helped video viewers understand the problem and give homelessness a name.
“It’s affected real change,” notes Horvath in the video above. “Because you guys, the YouTube community, started sharing these videos, there’s been housing programs started and feeding programs started. Literally, people who were sleeping outside slept inside last night because of you guys.

2. Streetside Stories

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Streetside Stories has been bringing literacy initiatives and arts education into under-served San Francisco classrooms and after-school programs for more than 18 years. The organization’s 7th grade program, Tech Tales, teaches students how to turn stories about their lives into short movies. During the month-long production process, the students learn crucial literacy, creative, and technology skills.
The final results — which include stories about changing schools, changing countries, new siblings, best friends and feelings — are proudly published to the YouTube channel.
“One of the intangible things that students get out of this program is that they feel valued,” says retired middle school teacher Audrey Adams in this video. “Streetside makes students feel valued for their lives, for their voices. And that doesn’t always happen every day in every classroom.”

3. I Talk Because…

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On World AIDS Day last year, the New York City Council and a handful of HIV/AIDS organizations launched this YouTube campaign to re-start the conversation about AIDS.
“The conversation about HIV/AIDS must be revived, and we need to take this message to the places that people now occupy: Facebook, Twitter (), YouTube,” said New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, who announced the project. “HIV/AIDS has personally affected me and thousands of New Yorkers and we must get this conversation back to where it used to be.”
About 145 people have uploaded videos that explain why they believe talking about AIDS is important. Most videos start with the phrase “I talk about AIDS because…” but each take a unique approach. Bravo’s Andy Cohen talks about AIDS because “it’s life and death.” Barbara Corcoran talks about AIDS because she has relatives who live with it, colleagues who have died from it, and a teenage son who doesn’t really think about it much. Judy Gold, Al Sharpton, Alan Cumming and numerous other contributors also weigh in.

4. It Gets Better

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Sex () columnist and gay rights activist Dan Savage launched this project in response to the suicide of a teenager who was bullied about being gay. Members of the LGBT community upload videos that explain how their lives got better after high school. The idea is to reassure teens who are being bullied because of their sexual orientation that the harassment won’t last forever.
“Your life can be amazing,” Savage tells teens in the project’s inaugural video. “But you have to tough this period of it out and you have to live your life so that you’re around for it to get amazing. And it can, and it will.”


5. The Uncultured Project

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When Shawn Ahmed started The Uncultured Project project in 2007, his goal was to raise awareness about Global Poverty. “In much the same way that you can video blog about Britney Spears and get a million views, maybe I can video blog in a personal way about global poverty and get people to understand the complexity and engage a lot more people than a conventional charity,” Ahmed says.
He started posting videos about poverty issues as he traveled in Bangladesh, where his parents are from. With each problem, he tried to also focus on a solution. When he made a video about child labor, for instance, he also made a video about a school that helps educate child laborers.
Although Ahmed never intended for the project to be a charity, people saw his videos and wanted to send donations. He often sends Twitpics to the donor so they can see exactly who and how their donations helped. For example, an American woman donated money so a boy in Bangladesh could have clean water.
When Cyclone Aila hit Bangladesh, The Uncultured Project teamed with Save the Children. Ahmed wrote every donor’s name on a relief kit funded by his YouTube audience and sent pictures to the donors.
“I’m able to act like kind of a cultural bridge where one community in Bangladesh can connect to another community in the developed world,” he says. “And they’re helping each other, basically…And that’s something that I think gives this project power.”