I know the lovely group of people doing this research, and can personally recommend them, so please, trans families with children, take their survey. We complain all the time that the T is left out of LGBT studies, & these folks are making sure we’re part of it this time.
Here’s how they explain it:
Our online survey explores the ways in which LGBT parents and their children manage social policies and pressures within their communities. The survey is kind of long—it may take you an hour to complete. However, we want to learn about each family’s perspectives, experiences, and opinions. Parents are asked questions about topics such as attitudes in your community, parenting and family relationships, social pressures and sources of support, as well as questions regarding your child(ren). Children are also welcomed to participate in our study.
At this point, over 150 LGBT families from 24 states have participated, but we want to hear more voices and perspectives. So far, we only have small numbers of gay dads and trans-parents–we need your help! We want families from ALL backgrounds: economic, ethnic, spiritual, and disabled diverse families. With your help, we hope to better understand challenges facing LGBT families and promote social policies that support all families.
If you would like to participate or to learn more about us, please check out our website: www.lgbtparents.org
If you have questions, ideas, or comments please feel free to email Beth Haines (hainesb@lawrence.edu
) or Julie Konik (konikj@lawrence.edu). Thanks again for your help!
Warmly,
Beth Haines, Julie Konik, and Siobhan Brooks
Sarah Bruemmer and Erin Henzi
I took the survey and, while I greatly appreciate its intentions, it’s very skewed towards same-sex parents and often confusing and difficult to take for heterosexual trans people. While they do offer questions specifically about gender identity, a lot of them are about sexual orientation with no chance to explain the differences in my experience from that of gay people. Also, I feel there are too many questions which lump LGBT together, as though we have some uniform experience and are a unified community. It’s a good start, but needs some revision to take the complexity of our experiences into account. Without this, I feel as if my experience/identity is pretty much being marginalized.