Tag Archives: research findings

Study: Transgender Children Allowed to Live Openly Fare Well 

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Young transgender children allowed to live openly as the gender they identify with fared as well psychologically as other kids in a small study that suggests parental support may be the key.

Rates of depression and anxiety were equal in the study, which compared 73 transgender kids aged 3 to 12 with 73 nontransgender youngsters. The trans kids also fared as well on both measures as a group of their nontransgender siblings.

Rates of anxiety among trans kids were “a smidge higher” than national averages for children of the same age, but otherwise they matched national norms, said lead author Kristina Olson, an associate psychology professor at the University of Washington.

Source: ABC News

Worldwide, Catholics Disagree with Vatican Sexual Doctrines.

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There is an abundance of research evidence to show that US Catholics reject Vatican doctrines on almost all elements of sexual doctrines, from contraception through masturbation and cohabitation, to gay marriage. Conservative Catholics often respond to this evidence with the claim that outside North America and Europe, things are different. From a global perspective, they claim, most Catholics support church teaching. Findings of a new global survey show they are wrong.

Pope Francis faces church divided over doctrine, global poll of Catholics finds

Most Catholics worldwide disagree with church teachings on divorce, abortion and contraception and are split on whether women and married men should become priests, according to a large new poll released Sunday and commissioned by the U.S. Spanish-language network Univision.

Catholics worldwide approve of contraception (graphic - Washington Post)

Catholics worldwide approve of contraception (graphic – Washington Post)

On the topic of gay marriage, two-thirds of Catholics polled agree with church leaders.

Overall, however, the poll of more than 12,000 Catholics in 12 countries reveals a church dramatically divided: Between the developing world in Africa and Asia, which hews closely to doctrine on these issues, and Western countries in Europe, North America and parts of Latin America, which strongly support practices that the church teaches are immoral.

The widespread disagreement with Catholic doctrine on abortion and contraception and the hemispheric chasm lay bare the challenge for Pope Francis’s year-old papacy and the unity it has engendered.

 – The Washington Post.

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Australian Government study finds kids with gay parents do as well as those with straight parents

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A new review of research by the Australian Government’s Institute of Family Studies has found that kids who are being brought up in families headed by gays and lesbians do as well as their heterosexually parented peers

24 JANUARY 2014 | BY ANDREW POTTS

The Australian Institute of Family Studies has released a report on the well being of children raised by gays and lesbians and found they did just as well as those raised by heterosexual men and women.

The Australian Institute of Family Studies is the Australian Government’s key research body in the area of family well being and provides an evidence base for developing policy supportive of the well being of families in Australia.

The report was authored by Dr Deborah Dempsey – a Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the Faculty of Life and Social Sciences at Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology.

‘Research to date considerably challenges the point of view that same-sex parented families are harmful to children,’ the report found.


‘Children in such families do as well emotionally, socially and educationally as their peers from heterosexual couple families.’

‘Some researchers have concluded there are benefits for children raised by lesbian couples in that they experience higher quality parenting, sons display greater gender flexibility, and sons and daughters display more open-mindedness towards sexual, gender and family diversity,’ the report found.

Gay Star News

 

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Research: Same-Sex Marriage Doesn’t Affect Opposite-Sex Marriage

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The data sets are in, and marriage equality isn’t the harbinger of death for “traditional” marriage between men and women, according to a study from the School of Community Health at Portland State University published this week in PLOS ONE.

The study took the number of opposite-sex marriages from all 50 states and the District of Columbia from 1989 to 2009, as a percentage of the adult population in each state (somewhat poetically referred to as “those ‘at risk’ of marriage”), and compared it to opposite-sex marriage rates from the 13 states (and D.C.) where either same-sex marriage or same-sex unions became legal before 2009.

The researchers found that indeed, same-sex unions aren’t bringing down the venerated institution of marriage. The rates of opposite-sex marriage did not differ in states where same-sex marriage or civil union were legalized in the time period analyzed.

“We conclude that there is no relationship between implementation of same sex marriage or strong or weak same sex union laws and rates of opposite sex marriage,” the researchers write. They had hypothesized that there could be a jump in the marriage rate with same-sex marriage laws directly after legalization, because of movements like the National Marriage Boycott where LGBT allies pledge to forgo marriage until same-sex marriage becomes legal, but the data didn’t bear that theory out.

However, the study does call for further research into how same-sex marriage prevalence, as well as the varying strengths of civil union laws, might play into opposite-sex marriage rates. They were unable to analyze the impact of divorce because of considerable missing data, and several states have enacted marriage equality laws since the end of the sample period in 2009.

via Popular Science.

The full study is accessible on – line at . Included in the text, is a reference to a study of five European countries, which had produced similar results. Here’s the abstract of that paper:

This paper analyzes data regarding the impact on heterosexual marriages of laws in five European countries that provide marriage or marriage – like rights to same – sex couples. The data provides no evidence that giving partnership rights to same – sex couples had any impact on heterosexual marriage. Specifically, heterosexual marriage rates and divorce rates in Denmark, Sweden, Iceland and the Netherlands displayed no significant change in trends after implementation of rights for gay couples; longstanding trends in nonmarital birth rates showed the same changes in countries with and without partnership laws. Finally, because the United States gives many more incentives for heterosexual couples to marry than European countries, any effects of passage of gay marriage or partnership laws in this country would be be even more likely to have an impact on the status of heterosexual marriage.

–  Sexuality Research and Social Policy

(Badgett, MV Lee. “Will Providing Marriage Rights to Same-Sex Couples Undermine Heterosexual Marriage?.” (2004)).

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Foster kids do equally well when adopted by gay, lesbian or heterosexual parents, study suggests

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High-risk children adopted from foster care do equally well when placed with gay, lesbian or heterosexual parents, UCLA psychologists report in the first multi-year study of children adopted by these three groups of parents. The psychologists looked at 82 high-risk children adopted from foster care in Los Angeles County.

Of those children, 60 were placed with heterosexual parents and 22 were placed with gay or lesbian parents (15 with gay male parents and seven with lesbian parents).

Source:  — ScienceDaily