Shortly after a transgender woman was named “Working Mother of the Year” by Working Mother magazine, a new report finds — not surprisingly — that the children of transgender parents are doing well.
In “Transgender Parenting: A Review of Existing Research,” from UCLA’s Williams Institute (which has been busy recently), authors Rebecca Stotzer, Jody L. Herman, and Amira Hasenbush found that there is no evidence of developmental differences between children of transgender parents and those of other parents, and no differences in regard to the children’s gender identity or sexual orientation.
While these findings should surprise few readers here, they are nevertheless important because they can help policy makers, legal professionals, social workers, educators, and others better understand the concerns, needs, challenges, and strengths of families with transgender parents.
Based on their analysis of 51 previous studies, they estimate that between one quarter and one half of transgender study participants are parents, compared with 65 percent of males and 74 percent of females in the general population. An estimated 700,000 adults in the U.S. identify as transgender, so that means between 175,000 and 350,000 transgender adults are parents.
Government agencies, family courts, adoption agencies, and child welfare workers are therefore encountering more issues that involve transgender parents — but transgender parents who are transitioning, especially from male to female, are “particularly vulnerable” in family courts, the study says. In one case, the Nevada Supreme Court ended one transgender woman’s parental rights after she began transition, saying, “Suzanne, in a very real sense, has terminated her own parental rights as a father.”
Although transgender parents can adopt in all states, only six prohibit discrimination in adoption and foster care based on gender identity. The report notes, “This means that adoption agencies are left to create their own policies, which can lead to discrimination.”
Other key findings include:
- Two studies have found that people who transition or “come out” as transgender later in life tend to have higher parenting rates than those people who identify as transgender and/or transition at younger ages. This higher rate of parenting could be due to individuals becoming biological parents before they identified as transgender or transitioned.
- Of the six studies that asked about both “having children” and “living with children,” all found that there were more transgender respondents who reported having children than living with children. It may be that many of the respondents represented in these studies had adult children and are no longer living with them. However, there is some evidence that formal and informal attempts to limit the contact of transgender parents with their children may also partially explain this discrepancy.
- Transgender parents have reported having social service needs related to child care, networking with other parents, and support for family planning.
- Transgender parents have reported discrimination — either formally through the courts or informally by the child(ren)’s other parent — in child custody and visitation arrangements. Transgender people who wish to adopt may experience discrimination in adoption.
Current studies have only begun to explore transgender parents and their families. The authors say that more research is needed on how parent-child relationships evolve as a parent is transitioning, and how gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and other factors could impact family formation rates among transgender people. They say federal agencies and national population-based surveys should include questions to identify transgender respondents to help create “national benchmarks for certain aspects of transgender parenting.” More research on differences in family formation among transgender people could also help assess the needs of these families. They also suggest further research on parents who identify as gender nonconforming or genderqueer. All good ideas that I hope policy makers, academics, and others will take seriously.
For one trangender parent’s view of how her transition impacted her children and spouse, go read Jennifer Finney Boylan’s wonderful memoir, Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders