Policy, Practice and Personal Narratives: Experiences of LGBTQ People with Adoption in Ontario

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Policy, Practice, and Personal Narratives: Experiences of LGBTQ Peoplewith Adoption in Ontario, CanadaLori E. Ross a; Rachel Epstein b; Scott Anderson a; Allison Eady a

a Centre for Addiction & Mental Health, Toronto, Canada b Sherbourne Health Centre, Toronto,Canada

Online publication date: 20 November 2009

To cite this Article Ross, Lori E., Epstein, Rachel, Anderson, Scott and Eady, Allison(2009) 'Policy, Practice, and PersonalNarratives: Experiences of LGBTQ People with Adoption in Ontario, Canada', Adoption Quarterly, 12: 3, 272 — 293To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/10926750903313302URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10926750903313302

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Adoption Quarterly, 12:272–293, 2009Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1092-6755 print / 1544-452X onlineDOI: 10.1080/10926750903313302

Policy, Practice, and Personal Narratives:Experiences of LGBTQ People with Adoption

in Ontario, Canada

LORI E. ROSSCentre for Addiction & Mental Health, Toronto, Canada

RACHEL EPSTEINSherbourne Health Centre, Toronto, Canada

SCOTT ANDERSON and ALLISON EADYCentre for Addiction & Mental Health, Toronto, Canada

In 2000, the Ontario Child and Family Services Act was amendedto permit same-sex adoption. The goal of our research was toexamine whether this legislative change has translated into in-creased access to adoption for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, andqueer (LGBTQ) people. Forty-three LGBTQ individuals/couples whohad either adopted successfully or were approved for adoptionsince 2000 completed a narrative interview. In this paper, we willdraw from participants’ stories of adoption to illustrate the cur-rent strengths and limitations of the adoption system in Ontario,Canada, and to offer recommendations for further improvementsto facilitate access for LGBTQ people.

KEYWORDS adoption, sexual orientation, gender identity, qual-itative research

Received 1 April 2009; revised 8 May 2009; accepted 10 August 2009.This research received financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Re-

search Council of Canada, Standard Research Grant Number 410-2005-0593. Dr. Lori Ross’ssalary is supported by a New Investigator Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Re-search and the Ontario Women’s Health Council (Award NOW-84656). In addition, supportto the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health for the salaries of scientists and for infrastruc-ture has been provided by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. The viewsexpressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.The authors wish to thank the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies for their supportof this project, and the families who participated for sharing their stories with us.

Address correspondence to Lori E. Ross, 455 Spadia Avenue, Suite 300, Toronto, Ontario,M5S 2G8, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]

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LGBTQ Adoption in Ontario, Canada 273

INTRODUCTION

There is substantial regional variation in the extent to which lesbian, gay,bisexual, transgender/transsexual, and queer (LGBTQ) people are consid-ered and approved as adoptive parents. In the United States, some statesexplicitly prohibit adoption by openly lesbian or gay people (Mallon, 2000).Bisexual and trans people are not typically named but are presumed to beincluded in these prohibitions. In other jurisdictions, decisions about whetherLGBTQ people may adopt are made on a case-by-case basis, with variabilitydepending upon the focus of the agency (e.g., special needs children), anyreligious affiliation of the agency, and the biases and beliefs of placementworkers and others involved in the adoption process (Brodzinsky & and thestaff of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, 2003; Ryan, Pearlmutter,& Groza, 2004).

Resistance to LGBTQ adoption stems in part from institutionalized dis-crimination but more broadly from essentialist constructions of “family”wherein the heterosexual, two-parent nuclear family is considered the idealmodel (Sullivan & Baques, 1999; Hicks, 2008; Riggs, 2006). Some researchhas examined the extent of homophobia and heterosexism in the child wel-fare system. For example, in a recent study, 305 newly hired child welfareworkers in a Midwestern U.S. state were asked to rate their level of agree-ment with the statement “to place a child with a gay or lesbian couple isnot in the best interest of the child.” On a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5(strongly agree), the mean score was 2.67, with a strong correlation betweenratings on this variable and self-ratings of a conservative political orienta-tion (Jayaratne, Coulborn Faller, Ortega, & Vandervort, 2008). Other studieshave suggested that lesbian and gay prospective adoptive parents may beheld to a higher standard than heterosexuals (Brodzinsky et al., 2003), andtheir mental health, parenting skills, and relationship quality/stability maybe more closely scrutinized (Ryan et al., 2004). In order to successfully ne-gotiate the adoption process, it has been suggested that lesbians (and byextension, other LGBTQ people) must present themselves as similar to, orindeed the same as, heterosexual applicants, particularly in the extent towhich they comply with traditional gender role stereotypes about caregiving(Hicks, 2000). Lesbian and gay foster parents face similar challenges (Riggs& Augoustinos, in press; Riggs, 2007).

From a global perspective, Canada is one of the most supportive coun-tries with respect to protections for LGBTQ people in general and LGBTQfamilies in particular. In 2001, Ontario became the first jurisdiction in NorthAmerica to recognize same-sex marriage, when the Ontario Court of Appealfound that the definition of marriage in heterosexual-only terms violatedthe Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In 2005, Canada approvedthe Civil Marriage Act, becoming the fourth country in the world to legalizesame-sex marriage. With respect to parents of children conceived through


274 L. E. Ross et al.

anonymous donor insemination, in 9 of the 13 Canadian provinces and ter-ritories, the nonbiological mother can be named on the birth registrationand as such immediately recognized as a parent. In the other provinces andterritories, families have access to second-parent adoption to allow the non-biological mother (or gay nonbiological father) parental rights. Finally, in all13 provinces and territories, LGBTQ people can apply to adopt an unrelatedchild through the public adoption system (Epstein, 2009).

With respect to access to adoption in the province of Ontario, ground-work was laid in a 1995 charter challenge, in which four lesbian couplessuccessfully challenged the heterosexual definition of “spouse,” enablingsame-sex stepparent adoptions (McCarthy & Radbord, 1998). At this time,some branches of the Children’s Aid Society (e.g., the Children’s Aid Societyof Toronto) developed policy to support same-sex adoption; however, itwasn’t until 2000 that the provincial Child and Family Services Act (CFSA)was revised to read as follows: “The court may make an order for the adop-tion of a child, in the child’s best interests, on the application of (a) arelative of the child; (b) the child’s parent; or (c) any other individuals thatthe court may allow, having regard to the best interests of the child” (PartVII section 146). This amendment did not explicitly refer to sexual orienta-tion of adoptive parents; however, in a memo released the same day, theMinistry of Community and Social Services informed all practicing adoptionagencies/individuals that it should be read to permit same-sex adoption andfurther that “all Ontario residents are able to apply to adopt a child withoutdiscrimination on the basis of such factors as age, gender, race, culture orsexual orientation” (memo from Doug Hyman, 2000).

This revision of the CFSA ensures LGBTQ people the right to make anadoption application, and the Ontario Human Rights Code ensures the rightto “equal treatment with respect to services, goods, and facilities, withoutdiscrimination because of . . . sexual orientation” (gender identity, thoughnot explicitly named, has been read to be included in this provision, On-tario Human Rights Code R.S.O. 1990, Chapter H.19). However, Canadiansocial norms and values have not necessarily kept pace with these legisla-tive changes. For example, in a telephone survey of 706 randomly selectedCanadians conducted in 2000, more than 50% considered “lesbian and gaycouples” to be “not very acceptable” or “not at all acceptable” as potentialadoptive parents. In comparison, only 1% of respondents thought similarlyabout heterosexual married couples and 34% about single women (Miall &March, 2005). Since adoption placements are made using a “best interests ofthe child” decision-making model, child welfare workers, agency managers,and foster parents can have an important impact on the degree to which les-bian and gay people are recruited, considered, approved, and supported asadoptive parents (Mallon, 2000; Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, 2006;Riggs, 2007). Many adoption workers, foster parents, and others in the adop-tion system are likely to have internalized, to some extent, the homonegative,



heterosexist, biphobic, and transphobic values that predominate in the cur-rent North American social context. While the CFSA and the Ontario HumanRights Code ensure that LGBTQ people in Ontario are not denied the rightto adopt on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, it is possi-ble that discrimination could influence the adoption process in less explicitways, for example, in prospective parents’ perceived support from theiradoption workers and in the time prospective parents spend waiting for anadoption placement.

This study is influenced theoretically by a critique of the essential-ist paradigm that assumes that biological sex differences result in genderdifferences in parenting, that is, that mothering and fathering are distinct,noninterchangeable social roles and that healthy child development requiresboth (Silverstein & Auerbach, 1999). In contrast, social constructionist the-ory examines how power and other social processes influence the cre-ation of meaning, theories, and common knowledge (Kitzinger, D’Augelli, &Patterson, 1995), viewing sex and gender differences in a social, historical,and political context. In this regard, we concur with Stacey and Biblarz (2001)that parental sexual orientation or gender identity are not most significantas decisive characteristics of parenting, but as sources of social and politicaldiscrimination. There is ample evidence to demonstrate that discrimination,both experienced and anticipated, has significant effects on LGBTQ individ-uals, resulting in important health disparities for these communities (Mays& Cochran, 2001; Meyer, 2003). Research examining LGBTQ peoples’ expe-riences accessing social services is therefore important not only to informservice provision, but also from a social justice/social determinants of healthperspective (Mule et al., 2009).

Research examining lesbian-, gay-, and bisexual-led families (and byextension, families led by parents of other minority sexual orientations andgender identities) has, as a result of a discriminatory social context, primar-ily been focused on demonstrating that children raised in these families arethe same as children raised in heterosexual families (see Tasker, 2005, fora review of this literature). Made invisible are potential differences betweenLGBTQ and heterosexual families, some of which may, in fact, offer ben-efits to children raised in LGBTQ households (Stacey & Biblarz, 2001). Inour research, we reject a hierarchical approach to family diversity, which as-sumes the heterosexual, nuclear family as the optimal environment for childdevelopment, adopting instead a pluralist approach to family diversity thatvalues exploration of a range of family structures and does not rank familyconfigurations (Stacey & Biblarz, 2001).

The goal of this research was to examine whether legislative and policychanges allowing access to adoption for same-sex partnered people (andimplicitly bisexual and trans people) have translated into supportive ex-periences within the adoption system, as perceived by LGBTQ adoptiveparents and prospective parents. In this paper, we aim to inform research



and practice related to LGBTQ adoption by demonstrating the strengths andchallenges of adoption policy and practice in a relatively supportive juris-diction. We hope to provide useful feedback to those working within theadoption system in Ontario and to provide those in other areas with somestrategies for success and advance warning of some potential future chal-lenges. In addition, we hope that information about the experiences of otherLGBTQ people with the adoption process might benefit prospective LGBTQadoptive parents as they set out to negotiate this system.

METHODS

Data Collection

The data analyzed for this study are drawn from 43 qualitative interviews, 42of which were conducted in person at a location requested by the participant(usually their home) and one by telephone in a case where it was not feasibleto travel to the participant’s location. All data collection occurred betweenMay 30, 2006, and August 27, 2008. The interviews followed a semistructuredguide, which was based on the interview guide used in our pilot study oflesbian and queer adoptive mothers (Ross et al., 2008). The primary purposeof the interview guide was to elicit participants’ stories of adoption, beginningwith their decisions to pursue adoption and closing with their experiencessince the adopted child(ren) joined their family. Prior to the interview, eachparticipant provided written informed consent to participate and completeda short demographic questionnaire. Interviews were approximately 1 hour to1.5 hours. An honorarium of $25 was offered to all participants. The projectreceived approval from the Research Ethics Board of the Centre for Addictionand Mental Health, a fully affiliated teaching hospital of the University ofToronto, Ontario, Canada.

Participants

Potential participants were identified through convenience sampling of localLGBTQ-affiliated organizations, local organizations and services for parents,online support and discussion groups, and distribution of flyers throughOntario branches of the Children’s Aid Society. Flyers invited lesbian, gay,bisexual, transgender, transsexual, two-spirit, and queer people who werein the process of adopting a child or who had recently adopted a child toparticipate in a study about their experiences of the adoption process inOntario. Where couples adopted/applied together, one or both members ofthe couple could choose to participate in the interview. Due to budgetarylimitations, members of a couple could not be interviewed independently,so where partners were interviewed together, the couple was counted asone participant.



A total of 66 potential participants expressed interest in the study. Fifty-nine (89%) of those who contacted us completed a brief screening question-naire over the phone to ensure that they were eligible to take part in thestudy. In order to participate, volunteers needed to (1) have self-identifiedas LGBTQ at the time of their adoption/adoption application (although itwas not required that they had disclosed their orientation during the adop-tion process); (2) reside in Ontario and have applied to adopt within On-tario through public, private, or international adoption; (3) have adopted orapplied to adopt since 2001; (4) have completed at minimum their adoptionhome study at the time of the interview; (5) be at least 18 years of age; and(6) be sufficiently fluent in English to participate in an interview. Individu-als who had completed a second-parent adoption (i.e., the legal adoptionof their partner’s biological child), and not adoption of an unrelated child,were not eligible to participate in this study. Of those screened, 9 (15%) wereineligible: 5 participants had not completed the home study, 3 had adoptedprior to 2000, and 1 had adopted in another province.

Once interested and eligible participants were identified, purposive sam-pling was used to identify a final sample of 43 participants with as muchdiversity as possible in participant gender (men and women, including transpeople according to their self-identified gender), race/ethnicity, geographiclocation (Toronto, smaller centers, and rural or isolated areas of Ontario),and type of adoption (public, private, international). Of the eligible partici-pants, 12 individuals and 31 couples participated in an interview, for a totalof 74 participants. Selected demographic characteristics of these participantsare summarized in Table 1. Of note, our sample almost exclusively (68, 86%)identified as ‘White’. In terms of geographic location, the largest proportionof the sample (16, 37%) resided in the Greater Toronto Area, 11 participants(26%) in other major urban centers (population >250,000), 4 participants(9%) in midsize communities (population between 100,000 and 250,000),and 10 participants (23%) in smaller communities or rural areas (population<100,000). Two participants identified as transgender in addition to identi-fying as lesbian or butch. No two-spirit or transsexual people participated inthe study. With respect to their adoption status, 38 (88%) of the participantswere involved with public adoption, 3 (7%) with private adoption, and 2(5%) with international adoption. At the time of the interview, 24 (56%) ofthe participants were in the adoption process, while 17 (40%) of the partici-pants had completed an adoption and 2 (5%) of participants had completedone adoption and were in the process of adopting again.

Data Analysis

All interviews were digitally recorded and later transcribed verbatim. Par-ticipant identifiers were assigned and identifying information was removed



TABLE 1 Selected Participant Demographic Information (12 Single People and 31 CouplesParticipated in This Study, for a Total of 74 Individuals)

Variable N = 74 (%) Notes

Gender identificationWoman 43 (58%)Man 29 (39%)Butch/trans 1 (1%)Between lesbian and trans 1 (1%)

Sexual orientationLesbian 34 (46%) Other/more than one orientation:Gay 27 (36%) 1: “‘Between lesbian and trans”’Bisexual 6 (8%) 1: Lesbian, pansexual, omnisexualQueer 1 (1%) 1: Queer-lesbianOther/selected more than 6 (8%) 1: Queer-bisexual

one orientation 1: Lesbian-bisexual1: Queer or gay

Ethnocultural backgroundWhiteBlackMetisEast Indian

65 (76%)3 (4%)2 (3%)1 (1%)

‘White’ includes: White/Caucasian,White/Canadian, Jewish/White,French-Canadian/White, andvarious European ancestries.

Multiple backgrounds 3 (4%) ‘Black’ includes Jewish/Black andBlack-Caribbean.

‘Multiple backgrounds’ includesFrench-Canadian-mixed,European-Cuban, andEuropean-Lebanese.

Age, mean (SD) 39.5 (6.6)

as part of the transcription process. After verifying the accuracy of the tran-scripts, they were entered into QSR N7, an electronic text management andanalysis software package. All data collected during interviews were codedindependently by two of the authors using an iterative process wherein eachtranscript was read, coded, reread, and recoded as necessary. Coding wasan ongoing process conducted during the data collection period. Transcriptswere coded manually and the codes entered into QSR N7. Following thecoding procedure, the text subsumed under each code was reviewed andsummarized and an analytic memo was written to capture the major issuesrelevant to this code.

We identified several major themes in the data, which essentially fol-lowed the chronology of the adoption experience (e.g., pathways to adop-tion, navigating the system). Subthemes of each major theme were alsoidentified to capture participants’ specific experiences at each stage (e.g.,choosing an adoption agency, experiences being matched with a child).As data analysis evolved, we identified three higher-level themes that cutacross the major themes (i.e., were relevant to all stages of the adop-tion process). These were negative/unsupportive experiences (e.g., expe-riences and expectations of homophobia/heterosexism), positive/supportive



experiences (e.g., experiences with knowledgeable adoption workers), andidentity-based experiences (e.g., experiences as a bisexual or trans-identifiedperson or as an LGBTQ person living in a small town). In this analysis,we draw from these higher-level themes (negative/unsupportive experi-ences, positive/supportive experiences, and identity-based experiences) toexplore the level of support our participants perceived as LGBTQ parents inthe adoption system. Subthemes within these higher-level themes describethe specific characteristics of or interactions with the adoption system thatcontributed to participants’ attributions of their experiences as either positiveor negative.

RESULTS

Most participants’ adoption stories as a whole overlapped between the twobroad categories of positive/supportive and negative/unsupportive expe-riences (e.g., in experiences with different adoption workers or differentstages of the adoption process). In the sections below, we summarize eachof these two categories of experiences. Positive/supportive experienceswere reported primarily by lesbian and gay participants, while the nega-tive/unsupportive experiences were experienced by the spectrum of LGBTQparticipants (a finding that will be discussed in depth below). As such, thelanguage used in each section reflects the identities of the participants whoseexperiences are described therein.

Positive/Supportive Experiences

GENERAL WORKER SUPPORT

Several participants felt that overall they were supported by their adoptionworkers, and this contributed to their positive perception of their adoptionexperience:

[The workers] said, “‘I knew right away when I met you that you’d begood parents.”‘ They actually said it.—Elijah, a partnered gay man living in a large city in South-Central On-tario who had completed his adoption at the time of the interview

EXPLICIT SUPPORT FOR LESBIAN AND GAY ADOPTION

In addition to stories of workers’ general support for them as adoptiveparents, participants also described experiences where the support of theagency or worker for lesbian and gay adoption was explicitly noted. These



comments were very valued, particularly since they alleviated anxiety aboutpotential homonegativity or heterosexism in the adoption process:

At the home study, when the person came, right off the top, she said[sexual orientation] wasn’t going to be a barrier. We didn’t even have toask, so it wasn’t a big concern for us.—Saleem, a partnered gay man living in a midsize city in Eastern Ontariowho was fostering with intent to adopt at the time of the interview

WORKER EDUCATION/EXPERIENCE

Adoption workers who had experience placing children with lesbian andgay families, those who were more knowledgeable about lesbian and gayissues and culture, and/or those who identified as lesbian or gay themselveswere perceived to be particularly supportive:

I hit it lucky with the person who was doing my home study, and grantedthe other person [who did home studies for the agency] was very nicebut not as politically astute. The woman who did my home study hasbeen tangentially acquainted with various parts of the lesbian and gaycommunity around [northern community] over a long period of timethrough her political work. I think she was unusual.—Susan, a single lesbian living in a midsize city in Northern Ontario whohad completed her adoption at the time of the interview

WORKER AS A RESOURCE

Knowledgeable workers were particularly helpful in that they were able topose challenging but important questions in a culturally competent way.When asked in a supportive, nonheterosexist manner, participants appre-ciated the opportunity to discuss potential challenges they might have tonegotiate as lesbian or gay adoptive parents. For example, parents talkedabout where and how they would be open about their sexual orientationas parents and how they would support their children through any teasingor bullying they might experience as members of lesbian- or gay-parentedfamilies:

There were some things that she touched on as far as problems thatyou might see in the future . . . have you thought about what is goingto happen when your son is in school [or] your daughter’s in schooland somebody starts making fun of them because they have two moms.Things of that nature, more to make sure that you’ve already thoughtabout these things than saying this is going to be definitely a problemfor you. Having you think ahead. There were also some books that sheprovided that covered things like that, and of course we were able to



make some recommendations to her about some books that she mightbe able to use.—Elana, a partnered lesbian living in a very small and isolated town inNorthern Ontario whose adoption was not yet finalized at the time of theinterview

WORKER ADVOCACY IN A HETEROSEXIST SYSTEM

Where parents did encounter heterosexism or homonegativity at a systemslevel (e.g., in agency forms), participants felt supported by workers whoacknowledged, apologized for, and supported them through these barriers:

They were aware that the material was old and they said they wereplanning on fixing it—where things said mommy and daddy they werechanging to “parents“ and stuff like that because they knew it was het-erosexist.—Donald, a partnered gay man living in a midsize city in SouthernOntario who was waiting for a placement at the time of the interview.

WORKER ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF LESBIAN/GAY IDENTITY AS A POTENTIAL STRENGTH

Finally, the most significant supportive role for adoption workers describedby participants in this study was in highlighting a sexual minority identityand the struggles and experiences associated with this identity as potentialstrengths for them as adoptive parents:

[The worker] really put it neatly. She said, these kids have had challengesin their lives, and gay people, in general, most have had challenges intheir lives. And therefore, according to her, we believe you can handlethis because you have that experience with challenges in your lives thatyou can handle a kid that will have challenges. . . . She actually turned itinto a positive for us, which was very reassuring.—Chamika, a partnered lesbian living in a midsize city in Southern On-tario who had completed her adoption at the time of the interview

Supportive adoption workers drew parallels between the stigma associ-ated with adoption and the stigma associated with a lesbian or gay identity,recognizing that lesbian and gay parents might be well equipped to pro-vide support to a child experiencing discrimination and stereotyping basedon their adopted status and could encourage their children to be open andproud of this stigmatized identity. Further, some workers valued lesbian andgay peoples’ broad definitions of ‘family,’ particularly the idea that parentsand children can form loving relationships with one another in the absenceof a biological connection. Explicitly noting these perceived strengths of les-bian and gay people was doubly helpful in that it alleviated concerns aboutpotential homonegativity and heterosexism in the adoption process, but it



also gave lesbian and gay prospective parents confidence that they wouldbe placed with a child and, ultimately, be very capable parents.

Negative/Unsupportive Experiences

In contrast to these positive experiences, some of our participants reportednegative experiences in the adoption process, particularly in their interactionswith their adoption workers.

EXPERIENCES OF HOMOPHOBIA/HETEROSEXISM

Often participants described this as a general, nonspecific feeling of lack ofsupport, without any tangible evidence that could be definitively labeled ashomophobia or heterosexism. Occasionally, however, homophobic or het-erosexist attitudes were explicitly voiced. For example, one heterosexuallypartnered, bisexual-identified couple described how their adoption workervoiced his opposition to same-sex marriage before they had disclosed theirbisexual identities. Consequently, this information informed their decisionnot to disclose their bisexuality during the home study process.

He told us that he was against same-sex marriage. . . . He said somethinglike, well, maybe I’m a little bit old-fashioned but I’m not quite ready toaccept two men or two women as a family, or something like that. . . . Hesaid something to the effect that he was kind of working on it himself,sort of thinking about it and learning more about it. That was kind of theimplication, and he kind of knew that he was a bit old-fashioned.—Miriam, a partnered bisexual, living in a large city in South CentralOntario who had completed her adoption at the time of the interview

Similarly, another lesbian couple initially thought that the person teach-ing their parenting course was very supportive of LGBTQ people, since sheoffered to introduce them to other same-sex couples who were adopting orfostering. They were surprised, then, when the instructor then told them thatwhile she was okay with same-sex relationships she was uncomfortable withsame-sex marriage. In the context of the complex power dynamics implicatedin the relationships between adoption workers and prospective parents, fewparticipants felt safe to challenge homophobic/heterosexist workers or tomake formal complaints about their experiences, out of concerns that theywould jeopardize their chances of being placed with a child. In fact, only twoparticipants reported making complaints to their agency about their adoptionworkers inability to work with them in a culturally competent manner, re-questing a different adoption worker. No participants made complaints to theOntario Ministry responsible for adoption or filed human rights complaints.



EXPECTATIONS OF HOMOPHOBIA/HETEROSEXISM

More often, adoption workers prepared prospective LGBTQ adoptive parentsfor potential discrimination from others involved in the process (e.g., fosterparents, other agencies’ workers, birth parents). Specifically, this anticipatedhomophobia and heterosexism was used to discourage LGBTQ parents frompursuing private adoption and to encourage them to accept children whodiffered from their stated preferences (e.g., older children, children withspecial needs, sibling groups) in order to be placed:

Where [the appointment] was supposed to be an hour, [the private adop-tion worker] took 20 minutes to tell us there was probably not a shot inhell we’d ever adopt a child . . . because we were a lesbian couple. It wasthe most heart-wrenching [experience]; at this point it was 3 weeks afterI found out I was infertile, and he pretty much said that he only knewof one couple that had ever adopted through him, and it was a strangecase because she was just a strange girl who got pregnant that happenedto want a gay couple.—Anna, a partnered lesbian living in a large city in South Central Ontariowho had completed her adoption at the time of the interview

Carlos: Yeah, yeah, [our sexual orientation] did come up. [The worker]said it’d be a barrier, because there’s a team that chooses the family andbasically the impression we got is because we’re gay, we’re going to getthe damaged goods . . .

Brian: We wouldn’t get a baby, let’s put it that way. She was very up-frontabout that.Carlos: Yeah, we wouldn’t get a baby. We wouldn’t get a baby. And we’dbe more apt to get a child, you know, 6 and a half.Brian: And if we went with a sibling group, we’d be stronger candidatesfor adoption.—Carlos and Brian, a gay couple living in a large city in South CentralOntario who had completed their adoption at the time of the interview

By discouraging LGBTQ people from pursuing private adoption andencouraging them to accept harder to place children, these workers are lim-iting opportunities to test their assumptions that birth parents, other adoptionworkers, and others involved in the process do indeed hold these homopho-bic or heterosexist attitudes, or to challenge these attitudes if encountered.

GEOGRAPHIC VARIABILITY

Many (though not all) of the negative or unsupportive experiences our par-ticipants described occurred outside of major urban centers. Participantswho had contacted more than one adoption agency often perceived that



different regions had different policies and comfort levels around workingwith LGBTQ prospective parents:

Certain agencies were welcoming, come on in, let’s talk. Other agenciesjust looked at us, said need not apply . . . don’t bother applying. Don’tbother picking up the material.—Marc, a partnered gay man living in a midsize community in SouthernOntario who had completed his adoption at the time of the interview

It is important to differentiate between agencies that did not viewLGBTQ people as appropriate prospective adoptive parents and those thathad never worked with openly LGBTQ people but were willing to learn.Several of our participants from small communities had very positive expe-riences with agencies new to working with LGBTQ people:

I was really surprised at how easy the whole process had been, especiallysince we were in [a community in northern Ontario]. We weren’t incivilization with a capitol “C.” And also I was dealing with two small [childwelfare agencies]. . . . And in both cases things went really smoothly andreally easily. And I didn’t encounter the type of resistance or problemsthat I expected.—Susan, a single lesbian living in a midsize city in Northern Ontario whohad completed her adoption at the time of the interview

Indeed, some participants perceived that living in a small town wherethey are well known and well supported was an advantage in the adoptionprocess. At the same time, however, other participants from small communi-ties described their experiences as difficult and isolating, particularly whenthey were the first out LGBTQ people to have adopted through their agency:

[His small town] is “hockeyville,” and I remember part of the interviewwas [about] what would I do with a boy who wanted to play hockey andwanted to be a man. That to me was, was that homophobia, or is thatbecause she’s born and raised here? So there’s kind of a mentality thatgoes along with [the town] that’s very heterosexual, very traditional, very“boys will be boys, girls will be girls.”—Jerome, a single gay man in a midsize city in South Central Ontariowho was waiting for placement at the time of the interview

GENDER AND GENDER ROLE MODELS

Nearly all of our single and same-sex partnered participants were asked bytheir workers whether they would be able to provide their adopted child withappropriate gender role models. This question seemed to be grounded inthe presumption that children need male and female role models to develop



normally and, by extension, that families without both a male and femalerole model were deficient, relative to a heterosexual nuclear family. Further,the question was grounded in a belief that there are two discrete and clearlydifferentiated genders. Our participants varied in the extent to which theytoo endorsed or were critical of these assumptions:

There were questions about male role models and what we plan[ned] todo about that. . . . I wanted to know what was best for the welfare of thechild. From what I had read and single mothers, same thing, having amale role model for any child is important and somebody that you canactually look up to. I wanted [my son] to have someone who was malewho he could respect and look up to and want to be like since he wasa boy.—Maha, a partnered lesbian living in a smaller city in Southern Ontariowho had completed her adoption at the time of the interview.

They are very open to and welcoming to same sex couples, but they’restill very, very tied to the idea that you must have a same-gender rolemodel. They really wanted to know what men we have in our lives. Itfeels like that’s happening without a lot of analysis. What are you asking?Do we just have to have anybody with a penis? Or does it have to besomeone really macho so we can train him to be a man? They hadn’treally figured out that gender is a lot more complicated than that, andwhat exactly are you asking?—Liana, a partnered lesbian living in a large city in South Central Ontariowho had completed the home study at the time of the interview

Even those participants who were critical of the way their workers wereconstructing gender felt compelled to provide gender role models in orderto pass through the process smoothly:

When we were adopting our first daughter, that was one of the questions[the worker] asked us—if we are going to place her with you, will shehave males in her life? And we were like, are you kidding me? That’s like. . . I just can’t believe you’re asking me that question. They did, and weanswered it.—Erica, a partnered lesbian living in Eastern Ontario who had completedmultiple adoptions at the time of the interview

For one participant, the males in her life included a trans-identified man.She perceived that in the adoption worker’s view, this person was not “maleenough” and that only having cisgendered (non-trans) men in her life wouldallow her to meet this requirement:

[The worker] said, “are there any men in your life?” I was like, yeah, and Imentioned a few. And I said Anthony, and I don’t even know why I said



trans but I think it just came up. . . . Then she said, are there any othermen? I think this particular man was not good enough, wasn’t probablyenough. There needed to be more men, biological men.—Amina, a single bisexual woman living in a large city in South CentralOntario who was waiting to be placed at the time of the interview

This binary construction of gender has clear implications for transgenderand transsexual people who wish to pursue adoption. In this study, our fewtrans-identified participants chose not to disclose their trans identities inorder to avoid the barriers they perceived would result. For example, onecouple decided not to disclose a partner’s trans identity because they did notexpect the adoption worker to understand it, since the adoption worker wasalready struggling to understand their identity as a butch-femme couple.

To the degree that we made her aware [of the trans identity] in any way itwas just, it was like talking to brick wall, you know. Remember when wetold her about ‘Well you know [child] has to make a card for father’s dayso she makes it for [trans-identified partner].’ [The worker] just smiled,like ‘oh that’s nice.’—Jana, a partnered lesbian living in a large city in Southern Ontariowho had completed one adoption and was waiting to finalize a secondadoption at the time of the interview

Participants with fluid sexual and gender identities challenged adoptionworker’s notions of gender, that is, the assumptions that cisgendered (non-trans) women solely embody femininity and, similarly, that cisgendered menare the best and only models of masculinity. One participant who identifiedas both lesbian and trans felt that she could bring masculine energy toparenting regardless of her sexual orientation and gender identity.

We sensed that our worker kept pushing for a male role model, and Ifinally came and said clearly, ‘I’m probably more masculine than someof the heterosexual men I know’ . . . and that binary terms were just notuseful to us. So I did say that to the adoption worker, and she just tookthat as information and pondered that for a while because she was quiteadamant . . . because she seemed to think that since she was placing thekids in a same-sex couple, they were always going to have . . . I’m notsure what it was, but feminine energy.—Tracy, partnered, who identifies as between lesbian and trans, lives ina large city in Eastern Ontario, and had completed an adoption at thetime of the interview

When the adoption worker persisted in asking for male role models,Tracy challenged this idea and laid out their strengths as potential parents as



a strategy to avoid erasure by the adoption workers’ essentialist ideas aboutgender and parenting:

She came forward strongly, insisting that we have a father figure outsideof our relationship for role models for the boys, and that’s when I was in-creasingly uncomfortable talking about that. That’s when I came forwardin offering the range of roles that I thought that between myself and [part-ner] we offered—the kids wouldn’t be any less well off or hard-done-bythan kids in any other relationship or parenting arrangement.—Tracy, partnered, who identifies as between lesbian and trans, lives ina large city in Eastern Ontario, and had completed an adoption at thetime of the interview

BISEXUAL IDENTITIES

Similarly, bisexual identity was perceived to be misunderstood by adoptionworkers and equated with sexual promiscuity and unstable relationships.Indeed, most bisexual participants in this study felt it was safer to attemptto pass as either heterosexual or as gay/lesbian, depending upon the sexof their current partner, than to disclose their bisexual identities. The expe-riences of some of our bisexual participants have been described in detailelsewhere (Eady, Ross, Epstein, & Anderson, 2009); here, we provide twobrief examples where perception of the worker’s biphobia led to a choicenot to disclose bisexual identity.

In the first example, a single woman was assumed to be lesbian whenshe mentioned a past female partner. She decided not to correct this as-sumption by her adoption worker because she was apprehensive that herworker would subscribe to commonly held negative assumptions about bi-sexuality and that this would then have a negative impact on her likelihoodof adopting:

They assume that I am a lesbian . . . I just felt like I would have hadto have explained more. Because then you would come across as morepromiscuous.—Amina, a single bisexual woman living in a large city in South CentralOntario who was waiting to be placed at the time of the interview

Similarly, in the second example, a couple who was read as heterosexualfelt subtle pressure from their worker to not disclose their bisexuality or pastsame-sex relationships:

There was something in which he had made it clear that it’s better not todiscuss [bisexuality] too far. We got the message from him that he didn’twant to hear about being involved with same-sex partners . . . best notto discuss that.



—Miriam, a partnered bisexual woman living in a large city in SouthCentral Ontario who had completed her adoption at the time of theinterview

In this second example, the participants’ bisexual identities were inad-vertently disclosed later in the home study process because of the man’sinvolvement in an activity at Pride Day:

[The worker] said ‘you can’t have this in your home study’ . . . he said it’sa red flag, seeing that I was at Pride [Day] . . . we’d basically be turneddown automatically if [members of the provincial body who approveprivate adoptions] saw that . . . he said that he was going to try and see ifhe could write something into our file to explain it but first he asked usa lot of questions . . . he started to question us about whether we weremonogamous. He started to question, you know, what kind of same-sexrelationships we had had . . .

—Josh, a partnered bisexual man living in a large city in South CentralOntario who had completed his adoption at the time of the interview

In this case, the participants’ concerns were warranted, as the workerassumed that Josh’s participation in Pride Day was evidence of an unac-knowledged gay identity or concurrent male sexual partners and would bea barrier to adoption (see Eady et al., 2009, for a fuller description).

DISCUSSION

Many participants in this study described positive experiences with the adop-tion system in Ontario. In particular, coupled lesbians and gay men adoptingthrough the public system in major urban centers perceived few barriersassociated with their sexual orientation. Several participants’ workers ex-plicitly recognized experiences associated with their lesbian and gay iden-tities as potential strengths in parenting an adopted child. These strengthshave been highlighted in the adoption literature (James, 2002; Matthews &Cramer, 2006) and substantiated with empirical research (e.g., Leung, Erich, &Kanenberg, 2005). However, it is clear, even in this Ontario-based study, thatthe potential strengths of LGBTQ people are not universally recognized oracknowledged in the adoption process. People adopting in small communi-ties are particularly likely to encounter adoption workers who have had littleexposure to LGBTQ individuals and communities and, in many cases, de-spite good intentions, simply lack the knowledge and training to understandthe skills and strengths that LGBTQ people can bring to adoption. It will beimportant to educate adoption workers about these strengths, including thepotential benefits of placing an adopted child with parents who themselveshave negotiated a stigmatized social identity. Models wherein experienced



agencies offer mentorship to agencies who have worked with few LGBTQpeople may facilitate this learning. LGBTQ community members may alsobenefit from learning about their strengths as potential adoptive parents, asour data (not presented) suggest that gay men in particular may struggle withinternalized social messages that they are unfit parents or do not have theright to parent children. Educating LGBTQ communities about the specificstrengths they bring to adoptive parenting may encourage more individualsto pursue adoption as their first choice in forming families.

On the basis of our participants’ narratives, it appears that many adop-tion workers in Ontario have mastered a basic understanding of sexualorientation as it relates to parenting, in that they are comfortable placingchildren with a lesbian or gay couple that can be construed to be similarto a heterosexual nuclear family. In other words, despite their support foradoption by same-sex couples, it appears that many adoption workers stillenvision families through an essentialist lens that prioritizes the heterosexualnuclear family model. It may now be time to challenge Ontario workers andagencies to disrupt this model and educate themselves about groups withinLGBTQ communities that historically have been less visible. In particular,our data suggest that adoption workers may lack sufficient understanding ofthe concepts of bisexuality and gender to work effectively with bisexual andtrans-identified prospective parents.

With respect to bisexuality, our data suggest that even heterosexuallypartnered bisexual people may be at a disadvantage relative to same-sexpartnered lesbians and gay men, since many adoption workers seem toendorse common social attitudes about bisexuality, such as that bisexualpeople are promiscuous and cannot have stable relationships (Eady et al.,2009). Since these values are widely held among the general public (Israel &Mohr, 2004), and even among gay and lesbian people (Welzer-Lang, 2008),it is unsurprising that adoption workers share them. Adoption workers maybenefit from specific training about bisexuality to deconstruct some of thesenegative social beliefs and to develop cultural competency in working withbisexual parents. Until adoption workers are better prepared to work withbisexual prospective adoptive parents, it is not surprising that bisexual peo-ple may choose to try to “pass” as either heterosexual or gay/lesbian in anattempt to facilitate the adoption process.

Other literature has examined adoption workers’ (e.g., Hicks, 2008) andothers’ (e.g., Clarke & Kitzinger, 2005) attachment to the concept of “genderrole models,” the assumptions underlying this concept, and the implicationsof this construct for LGBTQ parents and prospective parents. Our studysuggests that the assumption that healthy child development requires “maleand female role models” is often still endorsed even by adoption workersand agencies who are otherwise very supportive of adoptions by LGBTQpeople (or, at least, lesbian and gay people). This attachment to “genderrole models” is rooted in sexist and essentialist understandings of the roles



of “mothers,” “fathers,” “women,” and “men” in parenting, although manyadoption workers may be unaware that they perpetuate sexist construc-tions of family and of parenting when they pose this question. This hasimplications not only for LGBTQ families but also for single parent fami-lies. Requiring different-sex gender role models undermines LGBTQ (andother nonnuclear, heterosexual) families by judging their family structuresas inadequate because they do not necessarily include both male and fe-male parents. A focus on the need for “gender role models” is particularlyproblematic for transgender and transsexual prospective parents, who aredismissed and made invisible by the requirement that children have accessto cisgender (non-trans) male and female role models. Similarly, those withfluid sexual orientations or gender identities are erased when their gen-der expression does not fit within traditional expectations of their perceivedgender. Adoption workers may need to be challenged to articulate the valuesand assumptions underlying their questions about gender role models andalso to acknowledge that these questions may be read by LGBTQ prospectiveadoptive parents as indicative of perceived deficits in their family structure.

Our study is limited by the small number of trans-identified respondents.Although reliable statistics about trans adoption in Ontario are not available, arecent survey suggests that only a very small number of adoption placementsare made to trans people who are identified as such by the adoption agency(specifically, in the years 2003 and 2004, 1 placement out of a total ofmore than 3,000 placements made by Ontario agencies during those years)(Ross, Epstein, Goldfinger, & Yager, in press). More research is needed tobetter understand the invisibility of transgender and transsexual people in theadoption process. Do trans people chose other methods of forming familiesout of concern that adoption workers and agencies may not support themas potential parents? Or, do trans people, like the few who did participate inour study, choose not to disclose their trans identities in order to avoid anypotential associated challenges? In either case, many adoption workers wouldlikely benefit from specific training about gender identity and transgenderand transsexual identities, specifically. This training might assist them in notonly acting as advocates for trans-identified prospective parents but also inmeeting the needs of transgender children and youth who may be placedthrough their agencies.

Our study has important limitations that should be noted. First, the sam-ple was relatively homogeneous in terms of participant ethnicity/culturalbackground, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Additional research isneeded to better understand the experiences of ethnoracial minority, bisex-ual and trans-identified prospective parents. Further, our study explored thenarratives of LGBTQ parents and prospective parents only and did not in-clude the experiences and perceptions of other important stakeholders inthe adoption process. As such, we draw conclusions about the values andattitudes of adoption workers without hearing directly from these individuals



themselves. Future research would benefit from the involvement of adop-tion workers, managers, foster parents, and others to examine the extentto which our participants’ perceptions were accurate or presumed based onprevious negative interactions with homophobic and heterosexist institutionsand individuals. Finally, our sample was limited to individuals who had ei-ther completed an adoption or were far enough along in the process to havecompleted a home study. This criterion was chosen as a result of our interestin examining the experiences of LGBTQ people within the adoption system.Additional research is required to determine whether LGBTQ people faceunique barriers to accessing the adoption system (i.e., experiences of beingrejected prior to the home study process).

Despite these limitations, our study suggests that many LGBTQ peopleare having positive experiences with the adoption system in Ontario, andadoption workers and agencies should be congratulated for the work manyof them have done to ensure that their policies and practices are inclusiveof this important group of potential adoptive parents. Still, more work re-mains to be done, particularly in challenging workers to examine their in-ternalized beliefs about bisexuality and gender—and encouraging them toimagine and value family forms that do not resemble the heterosexual nu-clear family model (Riggs, 2006). This work will help to ensure that allmembers of LGBTQ communities have access to adoption as one means offorming families, and in turn, that more children in care are placed in lovingfamilies.

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Documents

Policy, Practice and Personal Narratives: Experiences of LGBTQ People with Adoption in Ontario