Welcome to our LGBT Parenting Study!

Click here to take the parents' survey:

Click here for links to the different versions of the children's surveys.

Our research team consists of Beth Haines (who specializes in child development and gender studies), Julie Konik (whose work focuses on personality and LGBT studies), and Siobhan Brooks (who specializes in gender, race, and sexuality). In addition, Katy Fohrman and Kim Vachon are recent psychology graduates from Lawrence University. Erin Henzi and Sarah Bruemmer are current Lawrence students, majoring in psychology and gender studies, respectively.

We all feel strongly about being advocates for the LGBT community, which is why we have chosen to pursue research in this particular area. With this research, we hope to better understand challenges facing LGBT families and promote social policies that support all families.

Beth Haines	Julie Konik	Siobhan Brooks

Erin Henzi & Sarah Bruemmer		Kim Vachon & Katy Fohrman

The current study explores the lives of LGBT parents, their partners (anyone who considers themselves as in a parenting role with the children in the family), and their children.

We hope families from a broad range of communities will participate and share their perceptions and experiences. We want to explore the unique set of challenges that families with LGBT parents may face as a result of social policies and attitudes, and how they may overcome or manage these challenges.

Summer Update on the Study

We are happy to share some of the results from the first group of people who completed our survey. First, our warm thanks to all of you who participated—we truly appreciate your time and the wonderful insights you shared. So far, we’ve had 104 participants from 24 different states who expressed a variety of different experiences in their communities.

The survey results suggested that LGBT parents who perceived more negative attitudes from their community or neighborhood were more likely to use a variety of sources of support, which in turn positively enhanced their family relationships. Specifically, parents who were involved in LGBT parenting groups were also more likely to discuss LGBT issues with their children.

We were happy to hear that some families had experienced very little stigma, especially when they lived in more liberal or more supportive communities. Many parents shared extraordinary stories of resilience and love within their families, even when faced with very real challenges. We are grateful to all of you for sharing your family stories with us. Please accept our sincere thanks to everyone who participated in the survey!!

There are very few studies that explore LGBT families nationally—that is, how LGBT families are doing in a variety of communities.  Therefore, we are continuing our work with the survey. So if you have any friends who would be interested, please send them to our website! We are still looking for more LGBT parents (and their partners regardless of their sexual or gender identity) to take our survey.  It would be ideal if we could include parenting perspectives from a variety of LGBT communities. We are also incorporating suggestions about the survey from the first group of participants in order to make the survey more inclusive and allow everyone to express their unique experiences.

We will post another update of this study on our website (www.lgbtparents.org) in December.

Please remember that you can always email us (hainesb@lawrence.edu or konikj@lawrence.edu) if you have any questions.  Again thank you so much for your help, and we look forward to hearing more about your perspectives and experiences!

Click here to take the parents' survey.

Click here for links to the different versions of the children's surveys.