Lesbian, gay parents likely to be anxious, depressed

Study shows anti-gay laws, environments to blame

By Dana Rudolph

Originally printed 3/17/2011 (Issue 1911 - Between The Lines News)

Same-sex couples with adopted children living in states with anti-gay adoption laws and attitudes had more mental health issues in their first year of parenthood than couples with adopted children living in more accepting states, a new study has found. The study also concludes that same-sex couples with adopted children who perceived higher support from their family and workplace and lived in more gay-friendly neighborhoods reported better mental health than those who did not.

While the results may seem like common sense, this is the first study to examine changes in depression and anxiety across the first year of adoptive parenthood in same-sex couples. It is also the first study to examine mental health among new gay male parents, either adoptive or biological.

Dr. Abbie Goldberg, assistant professor of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., co-authored the work with Julianna Smith at the Center for Research on Families of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Their report appears in the February 2011 issue of the Journal of Counseling Psychology, a peer-reviewed publication of the American Psychological Association.

Goldberg profiled 180 individuals in 90 same-sex couples (52 lesbian couples and 38 gay male couples) at three separate times during their first year of parenting an adopted child.

Goldberg said in an interview that while the sample size is not huge, the data extends over time, which is an improvement over previous studies that have tried to make related observations by looking only at one point in time.

Gay and lesbian adoptive parents living in states with unfavorable laws regarding adoption by gay people showed greater increases in symptoms of depression and anxiety (as measured by standard clinical scales) during the period of study than did individuals living in states with more favorable legal climates.

The effect was most pronounced among those with high levels of internalized homophobia-which was assessed by a questionnaire asking participants how strongly they agreed with statements such as, "If someone offered me the chance to be completely heterosexual, I would accept the chance."

In comparison, individuals with high levels of internalized homophobia, but who lived in states with favorable legal climates, experienced decreases in symptoms of depression during the period of study.

Arkansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, and Utah have laws or policies restricting same-sex couples (or unmarried couples, which in those states means all same-sex couples) from jointly adopting. A number of other states also restrict "second-parent adoptions" in which one partner adopts a child who is already the legal child of the other parent.

Goldberg said that the anti-gay attitudes reflected in anti-gay adoption policies are likely to "trickle down into community attitudes." These attitudes, her data suggests, can have a negative effect on the mental health of gay and lesbian parents.

While studies show that many parents, including straight ones, show an increase in depressive or anxious symptoms in early parenthood, Goldberg said, most recover later. But, she added, higher levels of depression or anxiety "could have negative effects beyond the individual," including among their children, especially if the factors causing them -such as unsupportive workplaces, families, neighborhoods or laws - don't change.

In addition to state legal climates, other factors in the study that predicted lower symptoms of depression and/or anxiety among new adoptive parents were workplace support, friend support, relationship quality, and family support.

"Families of origin appear to continue to occupy a socially meaningful role in many lesbians' and gay men's lives, even as they begin to form families of their own," Goldberg wrote. "(A lack of support) may have particularly deleterious consequences on mental health during the transition to parenthood."

Although this is the first study to look at lesbian and gay mental health among new adoptive parents, several previous studies have shown a general correlation between states with anti-LGBT laws and negative mental health in LGBT people. Most recently, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention released a comprehensive report on the causes of suicidal behavior in LGBT adolescents and adults that concludes, "discriminatory laws and public policies have a profound negative impact on the mental health of gay adults."