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Adoption & Fostering Adoption & Fostering http://aaf.sagepub.com/ Lesbian and Gay Foster Care and Adoption: A Brief UK History Stephen Hicks Adoption & Fostering 2005 29: 42 DOI: 10.1177/030857590502900306 The online version of this article can be found at: http://aaf.sagepub.com/content/29/3/42 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: British Association for Adoption & Fostering Additional services and information for Adoption & Fostering can be found at: Email Alerts: http://aaf.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://aaf.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav >> Version of Record - Oct 1, 2005 Downloaded from aaf.sagepub.comWhat at University is This? of Manchester Library on July 22, 2013 Lesbian and gay foster care and adoption A brief UK history Stephen Hicks presents a history of foster care Council/Children, Families & Social Care, 2004). and adoption by lesbians and gay men in the UK Fostering law and policy in England, since 1988. He reviews key research, policy, law and Wales and Northern Ireland now operate debates about lesbian and gay carers and discusses an equality position that rejects discrimi- key changes and developments in this field of nation on the basis of an applicant’s practice. The article discusses a number of common sexuality (National Foster Care Associa- tion, 1999a, 1999b; Department of Health, arguments that surface in debates about this topic, 2002). In Scotland, however, unrelated, including the idea that the children of lesbians and unmarried adults of the same sex who live gay men will suffer psychosocial damage or develop together cannot foster due to the Fostering problematic gender and sexual identity. In addition, of Children (Scotland) Regulations 1996. the author critiques the notion that children do best Adoption in England and Wales is gover- in ‘natural’ two-parent, heterosexual families and that ned by national standards (Department of Health, 2001) and by the Adoption and lesbian or gay carers should not be considered or Children Act 2002. This Act allows should be used only as a ‘last resort’. Although the unmarried couples, including lesbians and number of approved lesbian and gay carers has gay men, to adopt jointly. In Northern been increasing and there has been a range of Ireland and in Scotland, however, only positive changes in this field, it is argued that a married couples are able jointly to adopt. Although some of these changes can series of homophobic ideas remain a key feature of be regarded as positive, the story of this debate. The article asks how much things have lesbian and gay foster care and adoption changed since 1988 and what social work can do to in the UK is not a straightforwardly suc- contribute to an anti-homophobic practice. cessful one. There has been, and contin- ues to be, evidence that some lesbian and gay applicants are rejected outright on the basis of their sexuality (Hicks and Stephen Hicks is a Introduction McDermott, 1999) and it is also clear that Senior Lecturer in The adoption or fostering of children by right-wing moral opposition to all forms Community, Health lesbians and gay men is now firmly estab- of gay parenting (Morgan, 2002) has Sciences & Social Care at the Univer- lished in some regions of the UK. Several influenced debates such as those which sity of Salford. He local authorities have a small number of took place in the Houses of Parliament is also a link foster approved lesbian or gay carers on their over the Adoption and Children Act 2002. carer and Chair of books, and the total number of lesbians In addition, there are still hostile press the Northern Sup- port Group for and gay men caring for fostered or adop- reports that suggest gay or lesbian carers lesbian and gay ted children has been gradually rising are exploiting children, making a ‘mock- foster carers and since the 1980s. Although the actual ery’ of family life or are unable to provide adopters. number of such carers is not known, there children with correct gender and sexual are now at least two national support identity roles. The Daily Express piece, Key words: lesbians, gay men, foster care, groups in the UK and a growing body of ‘Scandal of the Gay Dads: how could adoption, sexuality, autobiographical evidence from lesbian couple be allowed to adopt three little social work and gay foster and adoptive parents and children?’, for example, was a front-page their children (Hicks and McDermott, headline story (Baron, 2004). 1999; Saffron, 2001; Alderson, 2004). In Finally, even where lesbians and gay addition, some UK agencies are begin- men are accepted as potential foster carers ning to openly address this area of prac- or adopters, they will still encounter a tice and issue guidance for social workers whole range of heteronormative ideas. (Romaine/BAAF, 2003; Manchester City ‘Heteronormativity’ has been defined Downloaded from aaf.sagepub.com at University of Manchester Library on July 22, 2013 42 ADOPTION & FOSTERING VOLUME 29 NUMBER 3 2005 as a situation in which heterosexuality is lesbian and gay foster care and adoption taken to be: in the UK. I intend to ask how things have changed, whether they have changed for the elemental form of human association, the better and, crucially, whether they as the very model of inter-gender rela- have changed much at all, taking the year tions, as the indivisible basis of all com- 1988 as my starting point. This is a brief munity, and as the means of reproduction history, not a straightforward ‘factual’ without which society wouldn’t exist. history but rather a history of ideas, (Warner, 1993, p xxi) practices and events. There are many others who would probably write a very These ideas manifest themselves in and different version and I hope to provoke through the practices of fostering and further debate about this important but adoption work. This means that lesbian little researched topic. and gay applicants’ assessments are far from straightforward, there may be A history of lesbian and gay foster care problems at panel level and they may face and adoption in the UK since 1988 lengthy delays in waiting for children to be placed. Much of this is because The late 1980s notions of family, kinship and parenting The year 1988 was something of a ‘water- are governed by a dominant and hetero- shed’ in the UK history of lesbian and gay normative account that insists upon the foster care and adoption for a number of superior ‘nature’ of the two-parent, reasons. Although a few lesbians and gay heterosexual model. men had been successful in their fostering I have been researching lesbian and or adoption applications, many of them gay foster care and adoption since 1991 had not ‘come out’ about their sexuality when, while studying for a Diploma and and so the practice was largely hidden Masters in Social Work, I first contacted from view (see, for example, Brennan, and met with members of the Lesbian & 1994). In 1988, however, Skeates and Gay Foster & Adoptive Parents Network Jabri produced their report on fostering (LAGFAPN). At that time, my interest in and adoption by lesbians and gay men, the debate had been sparked by my read- the first ever UK publication to deal with ing of Jane Skeates and Dorian Jabri’s this issue (Skeates and Jabri, 1988). pioneering publication (Skeates and Jabri, In brief, Skeates and Jabri argued that 1988), by Pratibha Parmar’s important opposition to lesbian and gay foster care short film for the Channel 4 ‘Out on and adoption was founded upon a number Tuesday’ series (Parmar, 1989) and also of stereotypical and discriminatory by my involvement in challenging assumptions. They suggested that, for paragraph 16 of the consultation paper on many, the categories ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ family placement practice under the were associated with gender deviance and Children Act 1989, which had stated that the idea that children would be subject to ‘ “equal rights” and “gay rights” policies various forms of social-psychological have no place in fostering services’ trauma and abuse. Skeates and Jabri (Department of Health, 1990, para 16). opposed such ideas by challenging the I went on to co-organise a national assumptions behind them and by quoting conference for lesbian and gay carers in Metropolitan Police figures on the sexual Manchester in 1994, was a founder assault of children which showed that ‘96 member of the Northern Support Group per cent of all such attacks are perpetra- established that same year and subse- ted by heterosexual men against children quently became a link foster carer. In within their own households’ (Skeates and addition, I have written a number of Jabri, 1988, p 23). Nevertheless, they also pieces based upon my own research in suggested that such discriminatory ideas this field (Hicks, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, about lesbians and gay men were present 2000, 2003, 2005a, b, c; Hicks and within social welfare organisations. This McDermott, 1999). Here, then, I wish to was responsible for the outright rejection give an account of the recent history of of many fostering and adoption applicants Downloaded from aaf.sagepub.com at University of Manchester Library on July 22, 2013 ADOPTION & FOSTERING VOLUME 29 NUMBER 3 2005 43 on the basis of their sexuality alone. cies nervous about such carers, but also The small group of lesbian and gay allowed the justification of homophobic respondents who featured in the study ideas and practices among those social comprised 11 white and two black people, workers and others who were already none of whom were disabled. Most of the opposed to gay parenting.
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