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62 > 63 As residents of suburban North Carolina, both Lars and Joshua acknowledged anxieties regarding how they, as a gay male couple, would be received by the child welfare system. Lars described the process of going for the initial informational session at the Department of Health and Human Services as nerve-wracking: “I was very, I was nervous, I was scared just being there, you know, being there the two of us: ‘Oh, we’re a gay couple looking to adopt a child in the middle of the South.’ It was a complete rollercoaster.” Fortunately , Lars and Joshua were matched with a social worker who was supportive and affirming, and whom they viewed as an advocate. Even though North Carolina did not allow same-sex partners to co-adopt, therefore requiring Joshua to adopt as a single parent, the kindness and support of their social worker, Annie, helped to offset the heterosexist treatment they received at the legal level. They were aware that if they had been attempting to adopt in a more rural area of their state, things might not have been so easy. As Lars explained to me: Annie said many times that though they work with all the counties in North Carolina, certainly [in] the more rural counties there is no possibility that they will work with a gay single or a gay couple in placing a child with them. She said that the metropolitan areas in the state are sort of the opposite, because there’s such a great need in the foster care system. Yet even as they were matched with a relatively supportive and accepting social worker, Lars and Joshua still encountered heterosexism in the adoption process. Joshua described how some of their written materials and adoption classes had to do with “fertility issues and how you have been impacted by not being able to have a child.” From their perspective, the materials failed to acknowledge the perspectives of couples who had not experienced infertility or those who approached adoption as their first choice. Also, at the broadest level, Lars and Joshua were forced to contend with the reality that Joshua would be adopting as a single parent. They noted that a nearby county’s judge was known for performing second-parent adoptions for same-sex couples, but neither partner was sure whether they had to be a resident of that county to pursue a second-parent adoption there. This “not knowing” caused both men some concern, but understandably evoked more anxiety for Lars, who was discomfited by the possibility of not having any legal ties to his future child. After the couple had been placed with a toddler-aged boy named Evan, Lars continued to face uncertainty regarding whether he would ultimately be able to adopt the child, since, in the county that was routinely performing [3.15.221.67] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 09:42 GMT) 64 > 65 ideal. Agencies may also impede gay men’s parenting efforts in more subtle and possibly inadvertent ways—for example, by failing to provide them with appropriate guidance and support during the adoption process. Gay men who are seeking an open adoption may face additional challenges, because birth mothers are more likely to choose heterosexual couples than gay male couples to be the adoptive parents of their child (Brodzinsky, 2003; Goldberg, Downing, & Sauck, 2007). Finally, at the broadest level, state laws also function as powerful barriers to gay men’s adoption efforts. Although most states allow individual, unmarried adults (a category that presumably includes gay individuals) to petition to adopt a child, only a limited number of states have demonstrated, via judicial ruling, either an openness to adoption by openly gay individuals or an openness to adoption by openly same-sex couples (Goldberg, 2010a). The latter states allow both partners to adopt a child together, at the same time; such adoptions are often referred to as co-parent adoptions. In states that are unlikely to grant co-parent adoptions, same-sex couples typically choose one partner to legally adopt, as a single parent, and then the other partner can petition to adopt his or her partner’s child via a second-parent adoption.1 But there are many states where second-parent adoptions are rarely granted to same-sex partners, leading to a situation in which there is one legal parent and one parent who is not legally recognized. Further, regulations governing second-parent adoptions vary within the same jurisdiction and may even be differentially...

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