Same-sex parenting: State of the art and search for normalization

Abstract

Parenting skills of lesbian women and gay men have been challenged based on a number of arguments that are based on the assumption that sexual orientation is an indicator of lesser parental capacity. Nevertheless, this legal, political, and social argument, does not seem to echo in the scientific community. The amount of studies dedicated to homosexual parenting have grown exponentially and consistently revealed that parents’ sexual orientation does not negatively influence child development. Through a theoretical review of studies, it is intended to place the state of research on parenting by homosexuals taking a critical view of the main research paradigms and how these influence the conclusions drawn from the studies. It is concluded that the inexistence of differences between homosexual and heterosexual families is misleading, and that efforts of normalization and minimization of differences undermines the scientific knowledge about these families.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v26i1.262