Gay Couples Adopting

@Kurtni thank you. You can get IVF on the NHS here if you don't conceive before your 30's/40's I think. I remember seeing something on the news saying that couples could get it if nothing worked before then but I'm not sure.

@ Fall To Pieces
That really isn't a bad price. My sister is transgendered and she's doing baby banking, which is where she banks her sperm from before so she and her future wife can have kids down the line. It costs $500 a year just to store the sperm. That doesn't include all the money they'll have to pay later to get her wife pregnant. My parents are paying for it as a gift, but still ... a grand every two years to keep something at the right temp? Pretty insane.

I don't care. I just wonder how they're going to explain it to their child. And I wonder if it will have any kind of influence on their child.

@ dru's hammer.
Yeah, that is crazy. I didn't know it cost that damn much. I guess because eventually sperm will die.

@ Ayana Sioux
Children of gay parents are more likely to be better adjusted, be more likely to be open to the possibility of not being straight, but are no more likely to be gay. They are also not more likely to be bullied because of their parents orientation.

And I think explaining it to their child would be like straight parents explaining it to their child. If, by it, you mean why they're together and have a family and stuff.

Ayana Sioux:

I don't care. I just wonder how they're going to explain it to their child. And I wonder if it will have any kind of influence on their child.

If anything, it'll probably influence the child to be accepting of more types of relationships (same-sex, heterosexual, etc.). But the fact is that the concept of a heterosexual relationship/family won't be totally alien to a kid being raised by gay parents, which is something that quite a few people against gay adoption seem to believe. Very few kids, if any, get all of their learned experience inside the home, with no knowledge of the outside world. There will be schoolkids, friends, neighbours etc. from which they will learn about different types of family. There also wouldn't, contrary to popular belief, be any 'danger' of a gay couple's kids also 'becoming gay'; there is nothing to suggest that homosexuality can be influenced in people by parents/peers/anyone (in the same way that not all people with two straight parents are straight themselves).

@ Fall To Pieces

NHS funded IVF is only available for heterosexual couples, you would have to pay at least £4,000 for one round of treatment and most people need more than one because the 'success' rate is only around 30%. The NHS funds up to three cycles (but they don't always have the funds etc). Personally, £4,000 seems a lot, not unattainable, but a lot of money - it's practically the yearly tuition fees for a research postgrad degree - if you three cycles that's already a PhD and I'd take the degree over the baby. Money affect everybody's decision to have children because raising a child is very expensive, but the added cost of fertility treatments etc do impact when female / female couples and single women have children and how many children they have.

I'm a bit suspicious of the suggestion that children raised by same-sex couples are not more likely to be bullied (although of course I think it's ridiculous to say that the solution to this problem is to prevent same-sex couples from having children rather than work harder to make sure nobody is bullied for anything). I'm also slightly amused by the idea that parents would have to explain 'it' to their children. I can imagine maybe having to explain homophobia because it's so incomprehensible, but don't two people loving each other just kind of make sense on its own? I don't remember ever having to ask my parents what relationship or families / couples are - media aimed at children is often so full of families and couples (which, yes, are usually straight) - ideas of romance-y things are very normalized from a fairly young age and if the parents are not homophobic and they maybe give their children some of the lovely children's books with LGBT characters published in recent years, I really don't think there's that much to explain.

Dubious value of personal experience aside, part of my childhood was spent in a lesbian household and I don't remember it ever being expressly explained to me (perhaps it was and I don't recall, in which case that would just prove it's easy enough to do) - it was just another fact in life. In one house my father shared a bedroom with a woman and hugged and kissed her, and in another my mother did the same. The position of her partner was the same as his, we didn't need to be lectured about homosexuality or homophobia or sex or gender to understand that. It was reflected in how they treated one another and how we treated them.

So I don't really understand the "how will you explain to the children?!?" argument, especially since it's probably even simpler if/when the child is adopted or conceived through alternative reproductive technology, rather than the result of a dissolved heterosexual relationship. (Because other questions arise in that case, like "Why aren't you together anymore?" although this is not seen as a reason to deny straight divorcees their children and/or to deny married couples [with a ~50% chance of breaking up] the right to have children and even articulating that sentence sounds absurd thanks to enculturation / compulsory heterosexuality.)

@kafta my fiancee and I want a sperm donor but we'd still have to through IVF. I'm really scared that we won't be able to afford it but we're definitely going to try because it's what we both want in the future.

@dru's hammer I don't really think $500 is that bad over a year tbh. I just would love to have children in the future with the woman I love.

@ Alex; periphery.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. And I think sometimes people are just a little close-minded, which is why they think that they won't be aware of a straight relationship.

@ dru's hammer.
I have to disagree with the bullying part, though. I think whether a child is bullied because of their parent's relationship has more to do with the child than the actual fact that they have gay parents because kids will find anything to bully a child about if they don't like the child. For example, if the child was one of the "popular" kids, then they wouldn't be bullied. But if the child grew up anything like how I was, they'd find that to be a reason to bully that child.

@ Ayana Sioux
The popular theory isn't really true. I was very popular in primary school and got bullied. Many popular people can be bullied because the problem doesn't lie with the victim but the bully themselves. It's often a control or power thing. Yes, unpopular children are easy targets but popularity doesn't make one immune.

Also, I think the bullying argument is sort of moot because tons of children from straight parents are bullied to. It might be more common in children of gay parents but it's more common in lots of different cases. Anyone can be bullied, it just depends on circumstance.

@ The Rumor
I know, that's why I said it's more to do with the child (and the bully). People will find anything to pick on you. And sometimes it isn't bullies (if you're considered an outcast or loser like I was), sometimes it's everybody. But this is straying off topic.

@ Fall To Pieces
You have to pay it all at once. It's not a bad price, but if you're a poorer person, then it's a lot. I can't even afford a car, so I certainly couldn't afford it.

@dru's hammer. That's quite expensive if it's all in one go. If she had to pay it monthly or something then that would be okay but hmm. I just would love to have children with the woman I love and I know there's a price to pay but we're going to save up quite a lot to be able to do it.

I was in my Government class yesterday and the topic of Gay adoption came up. Some guy in my class said "If they adopt then the baby is going to be gay".

I don't know how this guy got into college.

Jewel Nicole:

I was in my Government class yesterday and the topic of Gay adoption came up. Some guy in my class said "If they adopt then the baby is going to be gay".

I don't know how this guy got into college.

You'd be surprised by the amount of similar comments I have heard at graduate classes

What annoys me is that you can show them all the available and recent literature on how there are no negative outcomes on children's mental health by having homosexual parents. You can show them literature after literature, longitudinal studies, cross-sectional, case studies, anything. They will still deny the literature and continue with their homophobic beliefs.

@ fen'harel.
"I've already made up my mind! Don't confuse me with facts!"

There are kids that need good, loving homes, and there are people who are ready and willing to provide that and more for them. It absolutely sickens and disgusts and enrages me that anyone whatsoever thinks that said ready and willing people should not adopt said children just because of something so utterly irrelevant to character and parenting as sexual orientation. It sickens/disgusts/enrages because it purposes that being gay is somehow a negative trait that is inherently dangerous to a child to be around when, of course, it isn't, and it also is a belief that would keep children from being adopted into perfectly good, willing, and ready homes.

I think Gay couples should be able to adopt. I don't feel as if it really matters. Their still human, Their still capable of doing all the things you or I could do. Sure, It may be tough explanning it the child. Yet, Most kids in that situation, are better adjusted to change, and other things throught there lives. I believe in equal rights across the board and feel that they should be able to adopt.