LGBTQ Parents' Accounts of Their Children's Experiences With Heterosexism in Schools

Children in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (trans), and queer (LGBTQ) parent families are vulnerable to exclusion and marginalization in the school setting, including both institutionalized and interpersonal stigma. Prior studies of LGBTQ parents have documented reports of heterosexism and homophobia in schools, but these studies have generally used small samples and focused on cisgender parent families. This mixed-methods study examines 419 LGBTQ parents' (65% cisgender women, 22% cisgender men, 13% trans/nonbinary parents) narrative accounts of their children's experiences with stigma in schools. Forty-two percent had at least one child <6, 36% had at least one child 6-10, 36% had at least one child 11-15, and 11% had at least one child aged 16-18. Two-thirds of the sample reported that their children had encountered structural and/or interpersonal stigma at school. Logistic regression indicated that parents of older children had greater odds of reporting stigma than other parents, and trans parent families had greater odds of reporting stigma than cisgender gay male parent families. Parents described how they had sought to prevent or mitigate, as well as prepare their children for, stigma (proactive advocacy), and how they responded to institutional and interpersonal stigma (reactive advocacy). Findings underscore how parent factors (e.g., gender) and child factors (e.g., age) may intersect to shape the school experiences of children in LGBTQ parent families, and have implications for therapists and family advocates, school professionals, and researchers.