ABSTRACT
The past two decades witnessed a burgeoning scholarship on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)-headed families, with shift from LGBT individuals and couples to same-sex couples with children, gay parenting, and child outcomes. This chapter presents the demographic characteristics of queer individuals and queer families and then use the minority stress model to discuss research on vulnerabilities. It also discusses research on how queers do family, focusing on the navigation of pathways to coupling and parenting. Here, heteronormativity is conceptualized as the ideology and beliefs that uphold the Standard North American Family (White, middle class, monogamous heterosexual couples with at least one child) as the one and only functional family. As members of marginalized groups, queer individuals and families are subject to unique stressors and vulnerabilities, termed minority stress. Several child and family professional associations uphold research asserting that children of queer parents are well adjusted, and this has been used as major argument in the legalization of queer marriage.
