Creating forever families for foster youth and LGBTQ+ families

As a teenage foster child, I longed for a loving family. I wished my foster parents could have offered me affection and a place to belong. Foster care was a business proposition for them, and for many people, it still is. In the United States, more than 113,000 children are languishing in foster care, and 48,000 children live in residential homes, waiting to live in safe and loving homes.

As children grow into adulthood, they still need a family, regardless of age.

There is a critical shortage of adoptive parents. When adoption policies exclude LGBTQ or unmarried people, children often end up in foster care until they age out. I serve on the board of You Gotta Believe, an organization dedicated to finding "Forever Families" for older foster youth. We welcome LGBTQ parents, but many adoption agencies don't. A 2023 Gallup and Kidsave study found Americans who identify as LGBTQ+ are more likely than straight Americans to foster or adopt than their straight peers (28% vs. 18%).

There are several reasons many individuals and adoption agencies were against allowing LGBTQ+ and single people to foster and adopt children. One popular rationale is that it would deny children the benefits of being raised by a mother and a father. The Annie Casey Foundation found that 25.1% of children under 18 lived with a single parent in 2023. Today, it's commonly acknowledged that half of all marriages end in divorce.

I've had my own fraught journey trying to plan a family. As a partnered lesbian in the early 1980s, we had few options to access alternative insemination or adoption. We were able to conceive with the help of an OBGYN, who helped me get pregnant in 1985 and 1992, despite the NY fertility centers refusing to help lesbians. We provided our children with two loving parents, though many single parents – straight and gay – offer the love their children need.

It was not until marriage equality for same-sex couples arrived in the U.S. on June 26, 2015, with the Supreme Court's 5 to 4 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, that LGBTQ+ couples could foster and adopt as a married couple in states where this was possible. On the 30th anniversary of our commitment ceremony, we married legally. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex adoption. Despite this ruling, many states have policies that make adoption difficult for LGBTQ+ people.

Critics argue that children would be in danger or grow up facing social trauma if placed with LGBTQ+ parents. The majority of research has shown there is no significant difference between heterosexual and homosexual parents in their ability to provide safe and nurturing homes for children; studies consistently show that children raised by same-sex couples experience similar levels of well-being and development as those raised by heterosexual couples. Our children are well-adjusted adults contributing to society; they love us and often praise how we raised them.

At least 510 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in state legislatures in 2023 — a new record, according to the ACLU. The laws and protections the LGBTQ+ community has fought for and won can easily be reversed, just as the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion after almost 50 years in a 6 – 3 ruling.

I worry the Supreme Court will hear cases about the rights of LGBTQ+ people to adopt children and marry and overturn our gains. The NYT covered a story noting that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito discussed taking a legal baseball bat to the court's 2015 decision, Obergefell v. Hodge, in October 2020, validating my fears.

There is no time to lose. LGBTQ people should seize the moment. For LGBTQ individuals or couples wanting to marry or adopt, do it now. Children are waiting to be part of a loving home.

Raising our children with my loving wife of over forty years has brought me unimaginable joy. I wish the same for other LGBT people. I want foster children to have the love they deserve. I want LGBT adults who wish to adopt to have the right. No child should grow into adulthood feeling unwanted when there are families who want to offer love and a safe home.

Robin Rosenbluth has worked for years in the non-profit world, advocating for LGBTQ+ rights and racial equality among multiple progressive communities. She is active in the foster care system in NYC, where she has served as the board member of You Gotta Believe, an organization dedicated to finding permanent families for older foster youth.

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