Library Catalog
On the Shelf from CCBC Libraries
Adoption by Lesbians and Gay Men by
The practice of adoption has changed dramatically over the past half century, with profound implications for children and families. Perhaps the most remarkable and controversial transformation during this time has been the growing willingness of adoption professionals to place children withsexual-minority individuals and couples. Yet, despite considerable research showing that lesbians and gay men can make good parents, they continue to experience difficulties and barriers in many parts of the country in their efforts to adopt and raise children. Indeed, while progress in this areahas been significant, it has been impeded by the homophobia and heterosexist attitudes of adoption professionals and the judiciary; by numerous stereotypes and misconceptions about parenting by lesbians and gay men, and by a lack of adequate guidelines and training for establishing best practicestandards in working with this rapidly growing group of adoptive parents.Adoption by Lesbians and Gay Men explores the gamut of historical, legal, sociological, psychological, social casework, and personal issues related to adoption by sexual-minority individuals and couples. Leading experts in a variety of fields address - and often shatter - the controversies, myths,and misconceptions hindering efforts by these individuals to adopt and raise children. What makes this book all the more valuable is that it provides insights and specific recommendations for establishing empirically validated best practices for working with an important sector of our society, fortreating all prospective and current parents fairly and equally, and, perhaps most importantly, for increasing a still largely untapped resource for providing families for children who need them.
Call Number: HV875.72.U6 A36 2012
Courting Change by
Winner of the 2010 Pacific Sociological Association Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award A lesbian couple rears a child together and, after the biological mother dies, the surviving partner loses custody to the child's estranged biological father. Four days later, in a different court, judges rule on the side of the partner, because they feel the child relied on the woman as a "psychological parent." What accounts for this inconsistency regarding gay and lesbian adoption and custody cases, and why has family law failed to address them in a comprehensive manner? In Courting Change, Kimberly D. Richman zeros in on the nebulous realm of family law, one of the most indeterminate and discretionary areas of American law. She focuses on judicial decisions--both the outcomes and the rationales--and what they say about family, rights, sexual orientation, and who qualifies as a parent. Richman challenges prevailing notions that gay and lesbian parents and families are hurt by laws' indeterminacy, arguing that, because family law is so loosely defined, it allows for the flexibility needed to respond to--and even facilitate -- changes in how we conceive of family, parenting, and the role of sexual orientation in family law. Drawing on every recorded judicial decision in gay and lesbian adoption and custody cases over the last fifty years, and on interviews with parents, lawyers, and judges, Richman demonstrates how parental and sexual identities are formed and interpreted in law, and how gay and lesbian parents can harness indeterminacy to transform family law.
Call Number: KF540 .R53 2009
Gay and Lesbian Families by
There is a lot of love to go around, none so truer than for any family unit that works to be good for one another. This happens regardless of a parent's sexual preference, and yet, many traditionalists want to define the family as solely a heterosexual unit, without recognizing anything else. This collection of essays exposes readers to both sides of the debate. Topics include whether gay parenting puts children at risk, whether gay adoption should be accepted, and how society needs to support gay families through acceptance for the betterment of itself.
Call Number: HQ76.35.U6 G39 2009
Professional Organizations on LGBTQ Parenting
- Professional Organizations on LGBTQ Parenting
from Human Rights Campaign
Streaming Videos
- Two Dads, Two Moms: Gay Couples and Their FamiliesProfiling families in the U.S., France, and Spain, this program focuses on the children of gay couples and how their experiences resemble or differ from more conventional upbringings. Most of the film’s participants are in their late teens or early adulthood and have acquired a broad-minded, philosophical perspective on what they and their parents have gone through—although childhood was hardly challenge-free for any of them. In Paris, Bastien reflects on his father’s belated coming-out process, the divorce it caused, and how it shaped their current family. In Valencia, Sushila and Gauri—both born in developing countries—discuss what it means to be adopted into a new culture by a lesbian couple. And in a Boston suburb, brothers Zachary and Kyle behave like “typical” teenagers—flirting with Goth culture, indulging a favorite pet, playfully punching Dad in the arm during breakfast—even though a second Dad is also present, and even though both boys were born through surrogate motherhood. Fathers Cliff and John were the first same-sex couple in America to produce a family that way. (52 minutes)
Databases
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Articles on any subject. This is a good place to start.
- ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
Articles on any subject. This is a good place to start.
- SIRS Issues Researcher This link opens in a new window
Viewpoint essays, topic essays, and news and magazine articles on controversial issues. Browse for topics or search.
- Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
Viewpoint essays, topic essays, and news and magazine articles on controversial issues. Browse for topics or search.
- Social Science Database
Articles on social science topics like communication, criminology, economics, education, political science, psychology, social work, and sociology.
- SocINDEX This link opens in a new window
Articles on sociology topics including criminal justice, gender studies, racial studies, social services, and social work.
- U.S. History This link opens in a new window
Articles, essays, and primary sources on the history of the United States.
Online from CCBC Libraries
Radical Relations by
In Radical Relations, Daniel Winunwe Rivers offers a previously untold story of the American family: the first history of lesbian and gay parents and their children in the United States. Beginning in the postwar era, a period marked by both intense repression and dynamic change for lesbians and gay men, Rivers argues that by forging new kinds of family and childrearing relations, gay and lesbian parents have successfully challenged legal and cultural definitions of family as heterosexual. These efforts have paved the way for the contemporary focus on family and domestic rights in lesbian and gay political movements. Based on extensive archival research and 130 interviews conducted nationwide, Radical Relations includes the stories of lesbian mothers and gay fathers in the 1950s, lesbian and gay parental activist networks and custody battles, families struggling with the AIDS epidemic, and children growing up in lesbian feminist communities. Rivers also addresses changes in gay and lesbian parenthood in the 1980s and 1990s brought about by increased awareness of insemination technologies and changes in custody and adoption law.
Publication Date: 2013-09-03
Gay Dads by
When gay couples become parents, they face a host of questions and issues that their straight counterparts may never have to consider. How important is it for each partner to have a biological tie to their child? How will they become parents: will they pursue surrogacy, or will they adopt? Will both partners legally be able to adopt their child? Will they have to hide their relationship to speed up the adoption process? Will one partner be the primary breadwinner? And how will their lives change, now that the presence of a child has made their relationship visible to the rest of the world? In Gay Dads: Transitions to Adoptive Fatherhood, Abbie E. Goldberg examines the ways in which gay fathers approach and negotiate parenthood when they adopt. Drawing on empirical data from her in-depth interviews with 70 gay men, Goldberg analyzes how gay dads interact with competing ideals of fatherhood and masculinity, alternately pioneering and accommodating heteronormative "parenthood culture." The first study of gay men's transitions to fatherhood, this work will appeal to a wide range of readers, from those in the social sciences to social work to legal studies, as well as to gay-adoptive parent families themselves.
Publication Date: 2012-07-23
The Right to Be Parents by
The Right to be Parents is the first book to provide a detailed history of how LGBT parents have turned to the courts to protect and defend their relationships with their children. Carlos A. Ball chronicles the stories of LGBT parents who, in seeking to gain legal recognition of and protection for their relationships with their children, have fundamentally changed how American law defines and regulates parenthood. To this day, some courts are still not able to look beyond sexual orientation and gender identity in cases involving LGBT parents and their children. Yet on the whole, Ball's stories are of progress and transformation: as a result of these pioneering LGBT parent litigants, the law is increasingly recognizing the wide diversity in American familial structures.
Publication Date: 2012-05-14
