Difference and Diversity:

Some therapists believe that they should treat gay and lesbian couples ôjust like heterosexual couples.ö Others hold the view that same-sex couples are completely different from heterosexual couples and that only specially trained therapist can work with them. This paper is an attempt to over come the lack of information about gay and lesbian couple by describing the differences between heterosexual couples and homosexual couples; differences between gay couples and lesbian couples; diversity within both lesbian couples and gay couples; and the therapeutic implications of these differences. The discussion of differences has powerful political implications and is embedded within a larger context of belief systems about gender and sexual orientation. Therapist needs to protect against categorizing, essentializing, or over generalizing about gay and lesbian couples. Although heterosexism, homophobia, and sexism affect the dynamics of all gay and lesbian relationships, it is important to recognize that age, class, race, ethnicity, and physical ability, as well as the dynamics of each individual couple, make each relationship unique. The therapist, whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, or heterosexual, should be familiar with issues specific to lesbian and gay experience within the dominant society, and, at the same time, be attuned to the idiosyncratic nature of individual couples.     

Development of the Gay and Lesbian Relationship Satisfaction Scale

This article describes the development and evaluation of the Gay and Lesbian Relationship Satisfaction Scale (GLRSS) as a measure of individuals' gay and lesbian same‐gender relationship satisfaction and social support. Clinicians and researchers administer relationship satisfaction scales to persons in gay and lesbian relationships with a heteronormative assumption that scales developed and validated with opposite‐gender couples measure identical relationship issues. Gay and Lesbian couples have unique concerns that influence relationship satisfaction, most notably social support. Using online recruitment and data collection, the GLRSS was evaluated with data from 275 gay and lesbian individuals in a same‐gender relationship.     

Results of Gottman Method Couples Therapy with Gay and Lesbian Couples

The results of an uncontrolled study of Gottman Method Couples Therapy in changing relationship satisfaction with 106 gay and lesbian couples is reported in this paper. Measurement of relationship satisfaction was conducted at five separate time points. The data show significant improvements in relationship satisfaction following eleven sessions of therapy for both gay male and lesbian couples. Effect sizes suggest that this therapy was highly effective, compared to the usual 0.5 standard deviation effect size in couples therapy. Initial co‐morbidities did not affect the size of the changes; in fact, some changes were significantly larger for three initial co‐morbidities.     

Out of the Darkness: Three Waves of Family Research and the Emergence of Family Therapy for Lesbian and Gay People

Like family relationships themselves, the history and treatment of lesbian and gay people and their families is complicated. For this paper, three waves of research on the families of gay and lesbian individuals are described. During the first wave, gay and lesbian sexual orientation was seen as a disease and family dynamics were blamed for its genesis. Subsequently in the second wave it was believed that, fearing rejection many gay and lesbian people either distanced or were rejected from their own families and established friendship networks that have been described as families of choice. More recently, in the third wave, the family has been identified as a resource for lesbian and gay youth whereby open relationships with parents can help protect them from mental illness, substance abuse, and HIV risk. Furthermore, an increasing number of same-sex couples are choosing to become parents, overcoming biological and social obstacles. In this article these shifting views of the role of family in the lives of lesbian and gay people will be described along with case material that illustrates the historic influences, current developments and future directions of family treatment for this population. To be maximally effective with gay and lesbian people and their families, clinical social workers and other mental health professionals must understand how family therapy has been influenced by a progression of ideas that continue to evolve. In this paper, research examining the role of the family in the lives of lesbian and gay people will be described in three waves; as a source of blame, to an impediment to gay and lesbian happiness and ultimately a resource that can enhance lesbian and gay well-being. The influences of research on family therapy with this population will be described and case examples will demonstrate how to harness the strengths of family relationships identified in the most recent wave.     

Use of Assisted Reproductive Technology and Gay and Lesbian Couples

Abstract

There are various reproductive health options for gay and lesbian couples who want to become biological parents. However, there remains controversy regarding the use of assisted reproductive technology for gay and lesbian couples. This article describes assisted reproductive technology options for gay and lesbian couples, socio-cultural and gender issues, ethical and legal considerations that influence access to reproduction options, and implications for counseling.     

The Effect of Parental Gender Roles on Students' Attitudes Toward Lesbian,Gay, and Heterosexual Adoptive Couples

All of Canada's provinces and territories legally recognize the right of gay and lesbian couples to adopt children; however, widespread acceptance of this practice has not been documented. Using an experimental design, with 506 university students, the present study assessed (1) attitudes toward gay, lesbian, and heterosexual adoptive couples; (2) the sex of the child to be adopted; (3) gender role characteristics of the adoptive couple; and (4) predictors of attitudes toward adoption by same-sex couples. Using vignettes describing potential adoptive couples, the results revealed that gay and lesbian couples were rated significantly less favorably than heterosexual couples when asked about outcomes for the adoptive child. Participants were more likely to approve of child placements with lesbian adoptive couples whose gender role characteristics emulated the traditional masculine/feminine dyad as compared to lesbian couples in which both partners displayed feminine characteristics. Statistically significant predictors of negative attitudes toward adoption by lesbian couples were religiosity and non-essentialist beliefs about homosexuality as well as endorsement of modern homonegative attitudes predicted negative attitudes toward adoption by gay male couples. Targeted education for social workers and adoption agency workers should be developed to ensure objective assessments of prospective same-sex adoptive couples regardless of their gender role characteristics.     

Are Gay and Lesbian cohabiting couples really different from heterosexual married couples?

Both partners from gay and lesbian cohabiting couples without children were compared longitudinally with both partners from heterosexual married couples with children (N at first assessment = 80, 53, and 80 couples, respectively) on variables from 5 domains indicative of relationship health. For 50% of the comparisons, gay and lesbian partners did not differ from heterosexual partners. Seventy‐eight percent of the comparisons on which differences were found indicated that gay or lesbian partners functioned better than heterosexual partners did. Because the variables that predicted concurrent relationship quality and relationship stability for heterosexual parents also did so for gay and lesbian partners, I conclude that the processes that regulate relationship functioning generalize across gay, lesbian, and heterosexual couples.     

Gay and Lesbian Couples at Home: Identity Work in Domestic Space

ABSTRACT

Social research into gay/lesbian experiences of home has tended to posit domestic environments as alienating for gay/lesbian subjects, silencing their sexual identities. Meanwhile, work on the spatiality of sexual identity more broadly has largely focused on individuals or communities, not couples or households. In this context, this article aims to recover the importance of home for gay/lesbian couples. I explore how cohabiting gay/lesbian couples generate shared identities through domestic space, examining various ways in which these couples use homes to establish and consolidate their partnerships. Empirical data is drawn from twenty-three in-depth interviews with gay/lesbian Australians who are cohabiting, or have cohabited, with a long-term partner. The sample is largely limited to white, educated, middle-class gay men and lesbians living in urban Australia, providing an ethnographic window into the domestic identity-formation of a particular community of practice. Four key themes regarding “coupled identities” at home emerged from the interviews: (i) the importance of privacy and control at home for enabling gay/lesbian partnerships; (ii) the negotiated creation and use of shared domestic spaces; (iii) the accumulation and arrangement of household objects in those domestic spaces; and (iv) the importance of maintaining separate “personal” spaces for each partner for the well-being of the relationship.     

Couple Assessment:

This paper examines the three paradigms that intersect when working with lesbian couples affected by domestic violence. The intersection of these three paradigms-family systems theory, lesbian and gay affirmative therapy, and the feminist analysis of domestic violence-creates a dilemma for lesbian therpists working in rural areas or small cities. Without the support of domestic violence services developed for or within the lesbian community, or a lesbian/gay community committed to acknowledging domestic violence, the lesbian affirmative therapist must balance the needs of the lesbian client with the feminist analysis of violence. This article outlines strategies that protect abused lesbians, without prematurely sacrificing the lesbian couple's relationship.     

What Shall We Call Ourselves? Last Names Among Lesbian,Gay, and Heterosexual Couples and Their Adopted Children

ABSTRACT

Choices of last names for both adults and children are important family decisions that are often made upon marriage or upon the birth of a child. The gendered nature of such choices among heterosexual populations is well known, but they have not been widely studied among lesbian or gay populations. We studied selection of last names among 106 adoptive families—27 headed by lesbian couples, 29 headed by gay couples, and 50 headed by heterosexual couples—all of whom had adopted children at birth or in the first weeks of life. Whether in selection of last names for adults or for children, we found that heterosexual adoptive couples were more likely than lesbian and gay adoptive couples to follow patronymic conventions. Thus, heterosexual parents and their children were most likely to have identical last names. For lesbian and gay couples, in contrast, the most common scenario was for both adults to retain last names given to them at birth and hyphenate them to create last names for their children. Parents in lesbian and gay couples offered more detailed explanations of their choices than did those in heterosexual couples. Explanations offered by heterosexual parents were most likely to refer to tradition, but those given by same-sex parents were more likely to mention egalitarian or practical considerations. Overall, we found that same-sex and other-sex couples took very different approaches to the problem of naming themselves and their children.     

Adoption of Black children by White parents in heterosexual and homosexual relationships: Exploring mental health trainees' explicit and implicit attitudes

ABSTRACT

We investigated 163 (82.2% female; 73% White; and 91.4% heterosexual) mental health trainees' explicit and implicit attitudes toward heterosexual, lesbian, and gay White couples adopting and raising Black children. Explicit attitudes were assessed with a vignette depicting a Black child in need of a home. Implicit attitudes were assessed with the multifactor implicit association test (IAT) protocol. Explicit data showed that most participants indicated no strong family preference. However, IAT data showed that most trainees had implicit preference, with a moderate preference for lesbian couples over heterosexual couples and a moderate-to-strong preference for lesbian couples over gay couples. The trainees only demonstrated a very weak preference for heterosexual couples over gay couples. Overall, congruence between explicit and implicit is very low. Implications for training are discussed.     

Gay,Lesbian, and Heterosexual Couples About to Begin Couples Therapy: An Online Relationship Assessment of 40,681 Couples

We currently have little idea of precisely who goes for couples therapy. This is a report of the results of a validated online assessment of relationship and individual functioning based on 39,251 heterosexual, 1,022 lesbian, and 438 gay couples about to begin couples therapy. Using validated and reliable questionnaires of relationship and individual functioning, this report presents and compares, for each sexual-orientation, the percentage of couples, pre-therapy, who are coping with a variety of relationship problems. To test for the replicability of results, the sample was divided randomly into two subsamples and statistical tests were performed on each sample. Couples initiating therapy suffer from greater distress and many more co-morbidities than has been presumed in previous literature, and same-sex couples present a particular set of both strengths and challenges compared to heterosexual couples. Gay-male and lesbian couples were very different on trust and monogamy, as were heterosexual and lesbian couples. Based on this epidemiologically sized sample, the challenge to our field may be to create interventions with much larger effect sizes than we currently have.     

A Comparative Study of Relational Interconnectedness,Merger, and Ego Development in Lesbian,Gay Male,and Heterosexual Couples

Abstract

One hundred ninety participants, including 34 lesbian couples, 31 gay male couples, and 30 heterosexual couples, were administered a series of questionnaires which assessed each partner's perceptions of relational interconnectedness and merger. The Washington University Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development (SCT: Loevinger& Wessler, 1970) was also administered to assess participants' level of ego development. We predicted that lesbian couples would be most inclined to relational interconnection as well as merger when compared to heterosexual and gay male couples, and that merger, postulated as a healthy process, would be positively correlated with ego development across all couples. Couples revealed occasionally experiencing merger and rated this experience as moderately important to their overall sense of relationship satisfaction. Ego development was not significantly correlated with relational interconnectedness or merger. Findings provided partial support for recent reformulations of merger as a healthy versus a regressive or pathological experience and did not suggest strong differences among lesbian, heterosexual, and gay male patterns of emotional connectedness.     

“When You’re Sitting on the Fence,Hope's the Hardest Part”: Challenges and Experiences of Heterosexual and Same-Sex Couples Adopting Through the Child Welfare System

This study of 84 foster-to-adopt parents (42 lesbian, gay, and heterosexual couples) examined the challenges that parents faced as they navigated multiple systems during the post-placement period. Some participants described the legal insecurity associated with their role as foster-to-adopt parents as impacting their well-being and attachment. Lack of support services, disorganization within social service agencies, and strained relationships with birth parents were also identified as stressors. Lesbian and gay participants faced additional concerns regarding the security of their placement due to the possibility for discrimination. Participants as a whole identified positive aspects of their experiences within various systems (e.g., supportive social workers).     

A Family Matter

Abstract

The 2004 debate over civil marriage for same-gender couples highlights issues faced by mixed-orientation couples after one of the spouses comes out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. The disclosure becomes a family matter as their spouses and children cope with the new information and antigay attitudes. The majority of couples divorce. A minority stays married for three years or more by developing strategies that enhance the relationship, offset outside pressures, and sustain the family circle. Peers provide the most support, while therapists are often unfamiliar with sexual orientation, mixed orientation couples, or societal attitudes that impact families with a gay, lesbian, or bisexual parent. This article provides that information so that professionals can help these couples improve the quality of their lives and develop skills to create a future in which homosexuality, same-gender relationships, and gay parenting are more widely accepted and legalized. This development would decrease the number of mixed-orientation marriages with closeted spouses and increase the potential for both types of families to form lasting marriages and strong family units.     

Queering the Home

Abstract

In the West, the private sphere of the home is traditionally associated with the heterosexual nuclear family. Through social, cultural, and legal processes, the heterosexual bond has been constructed as central to the family home. Despite these dominant discourses, the home is also a space in which heteronormativity (or the unacknowledged assumption that heterosexuality is the natural and normal form of sexuality) may be subverted. This article considers how the domestic lives of lesbian and gay couples in England challenge the heteronormativity prevalent in dominant discourses of the home. Drawing on in-depth interviews with lesbians and gay men, the article continues to extend and build on the existing literature on queer domesticity by focusing on how lesbian and gay couples divide and understand domestic labor in their homes. The perceived normativity of coupled domesticity and childrearing means that on the one hand the lesbian and gay participants in this study could be seen to fit in with normative ideals of domestic family life. On the other hand, I show how these couples subvert heteronormative assumptions about gendered household practices through their approaches and attitudes towards domestic labor and parenting. In particular, the article focuses on the complex ways in which lesbian and gay couples destabilize traditional domestic gender roles and queer the spaces of the home through the seemingly unremarkable, mundane practices and negotiations of domestic labor and childcare.     

Freud,Grafenberg, and the neglected vagina: Thoughts concerning an historical omission in sexology

Because similarity between partners has been thought to be related to relationship quality, this study assessed similarities between partners in 44 married, 35 heterosexual cohabiting, 50 gay, and 56 lesbian couples on demographic characteristics, appraisals of relationship quality, and factors predictive of relationship quality. With regard to demographic characteristics: Partners' age was correlated for each type of couple; partners' income, education, and job prestige were correlated only for heterosexual cohabiting couples; and gay partners had the largest discrepancies in age, income, and education. With regard to appraisals of relationship quality: Partners' scores were correlated for each type of couple on relationship satisfaction but for only gay and lesbian couples on love for partner; partners across all couples differed in their assessments of relationship quality. With regard to the predictors of relationship quality: Partner scores were correlated for each type of couple only on shared decision making; these predictor scores were most frequently correlated for lesbian partners; differences between partners were least for lesbian couples on attractions to the relationship and perceived family support and greatest for cohabiting couples on dyadic attachment. Relationship quality was not related to discrepancies between partners' demographic variables but was negatively related to discrepancies in partners' dyadic attachment. In conclusion, partner homogamy was most pervasive in lesbian couples, and for all couples homogamy on dyadic attachment was related to relationship quality.     

Assessing nontraditional couples: validity of the marital satisfaction inventory--revised with gay,lesbian, and cohabiting heterosexual couples

Thirty-one gay male couples and 28 lesbian couples were compared with 36 cohabiting heterosexual couples using the Marital Satisfaction Inventory-Revised (MSI-R), a multidimensional measure of relationship functioning intended for use with both traditional and nontraditional couples. Analyses of scales' internal consistency and factor structure supported the construct validity of this measure with nontraditional couples. Analyses of mean profiles on the MSI-R indicated that cohabiting opposite-gender and same-gender couples were more alike than different, and were more similar to nondistressed samples of married heterosexual couples from the general community than to couples in therapy. Implications of current findings for clinical assessment and intervention are considered, and directions for future research are proposed.     

Same Sex Couples and Counselling:

This paper is about homosexual relationships and the way that clinicians and researchers have conceived them and then attempted to compare them with heterosexual models. When there are problems experienced by one or both people in a relationship the available conceptualizations are inadequate. The need for a different perception of these dyads in counseling is suggested. This paper extends earlier research with men and women who migrated to Australia as part of a same sex couple (Hart, 1990). My aim is to broaden the view of the social and personal dynamics of gay and lesbian couples in general. I conclude that couples, in or out of counseling, should be sited within gay and lesbian multicultural kinship patterns.     

Different Storks for Different Folks

SUMMARY

When gay and lesbian couples decide to become parents, they are unique as a group in always requiring the involvement of a facilitating other: a donor, surrogate, or (in the case of adopted or foster children) birth parents. This clinical paper explores common psychological and social challenges gay and lesbian couples face when using alternative reproductive technologies to attain parenthood. Between the wish and the actuality of being at home with their baby, gay and lesbian parents travel a long and winding road of choices and chances taken. The parenting partners often consist of one biological and one non-biological parent. Issues of psychological/emotional parenthood as opposed to merely biological parenthood (including assumptions of potential inequality or differential legitimacy) must be reconciled in the minds, couple relationships, family of origin relationships, and friendship support systems of the partners before and after the child's birth. The family must also navigate others' questions and assumptions as they venture ever further beyond their intimate circle and as their growing child forms relationships with peers. Specific guidelines are offered for helping couples surmount these psychosocial challenges.