Lesbian Families Happy Despite Homophobia

The 17-year-olds participating in the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) “demonstrate significantly higher social competence” and “significantly lower total problem behavior [than the standard population]. This is a very high indication of mental health,” asserts Dr. Nanette Gartrell, principal investigator of the NLLFS and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California-San Francisco. “They are performing much better than the enormous [overall] population of teens out there.”

She and her colleagues Heidi Peyser, the study’s executive director, and co-investigator Dr. Henny Bos of the University of Amsterdam have begun releasing preliminary results from the teen phase of this multi-year study of a group of lesbian families, the longest-running and largest investigation of its kind. To date, they have completed interviews (including questionnaires and standardized psychological tests) with about half of the families. They hope to have the rest by next spring. Their findings provide reassurance for lesbian parents and prospective parents, and offer evidence and guidance for educators and policy makers.
The primary goal of the study was to follow the first wave of lesbian families created through donor insemination. (Limited resources meant they did not also look at adoptive families.) Her team began interviewing the mothers in 1986, when they were inseminating or pregnant, then again when the children were a year and a half to two years old, five, and ten. They directly questioned the 10-year-olds, and now the 17-year-olds, as well. Of the initial 84 families, 79 are still participating, which Gartrell calls a “phenomenal” retention rate for studies of this type.

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