New York, NY — Today Family Equality released data from the LGBTQ Family Building Survey, providing new insight into how many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people are interested in becoming parents, and how they are planning to do so. Most significantly, the data reveals dramatic differences in expectations around family building between LGBTQ Millennials and older generations of LGBTQ people.
Key findings include:
- 63% of LGBTQ Millennials (aged 18-35) are considering expanding their families, either becoming parents for the first time, or by having more children
- 48% of LGBTQ Millennials are actively planning to grow their families, compared to 55% of non-LGBTQ Millennials, a gap that has narrowed significantly in comparison to older generations
- 63% of LGBTQ people planning families expect to use assisted reproductive technology, foster care, or adoption to become parents, a significant shift away from older generations of LGBTQ parents for whom the majority of children were conceived through intercourse.
“Since marriage equality became the law of the land, we’ve known anecdotally that more and more young LGBTQ people are fully expecting to form families, just like their straight and cisgender peers, but no research has been conducted to test this,” said The Rev. Stan J. Sloan, CEO of Family Equality Council. “This research is of truly groundbreaking importance to LGBTQ people interested in forming families, and to the work of Family Equality in supporting our community. We believe that every LGBTQ person should be able to form a family and know the joys of parenthood, no matter who they are or where they live. Family Equality Council exists to make that dream a reality, and the data released today show just how many loving families are waiting to be formed with the right supports.”
As the nation’s leading nonprofit supporting LGBTQ families and those who wish to form them, Family Equality is dedicated to helping members of the LGBTQ community realize their dreams of becoming parents. In 2018, Family Equality merged with Path2Parenthood, a leading provider of educational family-building and reproductive health resources with over a decade of experience serving the LGBTQ community, and in January, the Family Equality Council launched the Open Door Professional Training Program, providing LGBTQ cultural competency training to family-building providers, from fertility specialists and midwives to family law practitioners and social workers.
In parallel, Family Equality’s policy team is working to eliminate discrimination in adoption and foster care, through our leadership of the Every Child Deserves a Family campaign, and to remove barriers to LGBTQ family building in state law, such as our 2019 campaign to eliminate New York state’s outdated ban on gestational surrogacy.
Learn more about the LGBTQ Family Building Survey and view the full report at www.familyequality.org/fbs
About Family Equality
Family Equality advances legal and lived equality for LGBTQ families, and for those who wish to form them, through building community, changing hearts and minds, and driving policy change. Family Equality Council believes every LGBTQ person should have the right and opportunity to form and sustain a loving family, regardless of who they are or where they live. Learn more at familyequality.org.
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Media Contact:
Ed Harris, Chief Communications Officer, Family Equality
646-880-3005 x117 / eharris@familyequality.org
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