Attitudes Toward Adoption by Transgender Adults

This study explored cisgender heterosexual adults’ perceptions of children placed in an adoptive family led by a couple with a transgender partner. Participants (n = 871) read one of five vignettes in which a couple (a cisgender different-gender couple, a cisgender same-gender male couple, a cisgender same-gender female couple, a couple with a female transgender partner, or a couple with a male transgender partner) intended to adopt two children. After reading the vignette, participants rated beliefs about children’s psychological development, willingness to support the adoption, and completed an attitude toward LGBTQ rights scale. Moderation analyses revealed that participants with low levels of support for LGBTQ rights perceived children adopted by couples with a transgender partner as being at greater risk of victimization and poor psychological adjustment compared to children adopted by either cisgender same-gender couples or cisgender different-gender couples and were less inclined to endorse adoption. A multigroup path analysis model revealed that support for LGBTQ rights impacted on agreement with adoption via the mediation of participants’ concerns for children’s psychological adjustment more strongly regarding transgender parents than cisgender same-gender couples. Our findings demonstrated that cis-heteronormativity concerns eclipsed claims to reproductive justice for transgender people seeking parenthood.