by David K. Seitz © 2007
The past twenty years have seen an explosion in visibility for same-sex parenting. Gone are the days when it was remarkable to see a stroller in a pride parade.
Among other family formations, transracial adoptions by LGBT people have exploded, leading to a rise in the formation and visibility of multicultural LGBT-headed families.
“One only has to look down Commercial Street [in Provincetown, Massachusetts],” laughs Mark Gianino, a clinical professor of social work at Boston University. “It’s beautiful. It’s going to be much, much more a part of the discourse on family.”
Gianino, in collaboration with Abbie Goldberg, an assistant professor of psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, is currently seeking participants for a pioneering study of transracially adopted youth who have gay and lesbian parents. The project on Multicultural Youth Living in Gay/Lesbian-Headed Homes Today (MyLight), Gianino says, creates a safe space for youth ages 14-21 to talk about “their experiences of living in multiple universes, of having gay or lesbian parents, and parents who are racially or ethnically different from them.”
MyLight differs from past research on children with LGBT parents, Goldberg says, in its particular attention to adopted, and in particular, transracially adopted youth.
“New issues are produced—strengths, challenges, etc.—when kids are adopted, and when they are adopted transracially, LGBT parent families become, even more so, multicultural families,” Goldberg says.
To engage the specific experiences of multicultural, adoptive LGBT families, Gianino says interviews with participants address racial and ethnic identities with openness.
“We ask participants how they experience themselves as embodied by a particular race or ethnic background,” Gianino says. “So far, we’ve seen participants have tremendous insight and enthusiasm to talk about something that’s so often regarded as taboo.
“It’s often difficult to talk about the experience of being racially or ethnically different. When marginalized families are under attack, sometimes the thoughts and feelings about experiences of racial and ethnic difference may go underground.
“The opportunity to surface those feelings and perceptions was regarded by participants as helpful. Talking about race is a good thing.”
Youth empowerment is a key feature of MyLight.
“It’s an inclusive study,” Gianino explains. “We’re going to invite participants to comment on the findings, and their comments and interpretations will be built back into the study.”
The philosophy and model are drawn in part from the organization Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE), which is partnering with Gianino and Goldberg on MyLight. COLAGE promotes youth empowerment in its programs by providing safe, “COLAGEr-only” spaces.
“COLAGE has a great model, an empowerment model,” Gianino says. “It’s the most incredibly fun and rewarding experience one could have as a researcher.”
For Gianino, the inspiration to conduct MyLight and other research on LGBT parenting and transracial adoption comes from his own experience as a gay parent in a multicultural family.
“My partner and I are an interracial couple who’ve been together for twenty-six years,” Gianino says. “We adopted our daughter, who is African and is now age nine, when she was an infant.
“During that time, I was starting my doctorate on the phenomenon of gay men parenting. In both my research experience and my personal experience it became very clear that there were a number of issues that were important to the parenting experience.
“There was sexual orientation, there was gender, and then there were ethnic differences between kids and parents. My own experience at different public places—restaurants, playgrounds—was that my daughter got questions from children: ‘Are you her dad?’ ‘You look different.’
“It wasn’t so much an issue that I was gay, but that we looked different.”
While this study is ongoing, so far Gianino says the youth-empowering methodology has led to some interesting initial findings about parent-youth relationships and racial difference.
“It’s too early to say anything definitive, but some youth did experience a struggle to identify with their parents who are gay or lesbian, and did indicate a desire to learn more [about their] ethnic or racial backgrounds,” Gianino says.
Both Goldberg and Gianino are careful not to draw or say too much from their findings, however.
“Because this work is so exploratory, it’s important that we as researchers don’t go into this project with too many preconceived notions,” Goldberg says.
Moreover, Gianino says, the study will likely remain “ongoing” for some time in order to ensure the best results.
“There’s no rush,” Gianino agrees. “We’d rather gain a sense of trust, that this study is being conducted respectfully, with our participants. Recruiting is something that takes time.”
Ultimately, though, the authors of the study say they hope publication results in enhanced visibility and agency of their subjects.
“Our intent is to provide a vehicle for youth voice,” Gianino says. “We see it as a flexible vehicle for getting the word out.”
He comments, “We want this to be something that enters the public discourse about family. We hope to provide a forum for policymakers, clinicians, people in the adoption world, and LGBTQ folks who are questioning and wondering about parenting [and] transracial adoption. We want to make sure these stories are published and disseminated.”
© 2007 by David K. Seitz, and published by Rainbow Rumpus. All rights reserved.
