Them Before Us #homophobia #transphobia thembeforeus.com
No matter how exceptional at parenting two moms or dads may be, they’re incapable of providing the gender-specific love and biological identity exclusive to the child’s absent mother or father. The problem with same-sex parenting isn’t the gay parent, it’s the missing parent.
“NO DIFFERENCE,” REALLY?
Most “studies” proclaiming that kids with same-sex parents fare “no different” than children of heterosexual parents are methodologically flawed:
Participants were aware that the purpose was to investigate same-sex parenting, thus the respondents may have aimed at producing the desired result.
Participants were often recruited through friends or through advocacy organizations.
Most surveyed parental perception rather than the children’s actual outcomes.
On average, samples of fewer than forty children of parents in a same-sex relationship virtually guaranteed findings showing no statistically significant differences between groups.
Of these erroneous study results, Stephen, who lived part-time with his father and his father’s partner, said, “I keep seeing articles stating that children with gay parents do just as well, if not better, than children with straight parents. Where are they getting their information? Have they interviewed any adult children with gay parents, who can think for themselves and are no longer living with their parents?”
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Many kids with parents who’ve transitioned describe the experience as a type of death. They don’t feel like their father has become their mother; rather, their father is altogether gone.
“My dad made the change to Stephanie and in doing so, destroyed his family…. The feelings I felt were loss. To me, my father had died, and there was no changing that. I was looking at a shell of the man I once knew. It was hard seeing him because, to me, he passed away, and it brought up those same feelings every time. I could no longer relate to him the same way.” -Elizabeth
Joshua reflects on how his father’s decision to become a woman, Karen, has most impacted his own sense of what it means to be a man. “When that person, your masculine figure, is lost to you at the most pertinent age and suddenly [there’s a] woman in front of you, what are you supposed to do?… What is it to be a man?”