About a quarter of LGBT men may be getting Happy Fathers’ Day wishes today. According to the Pew Research Center’s new survey of LGBT Americans, 23% of LGBT men are fathers, including 16% of gay men and 32% of bisexual men.
LGBT men are significantly less likely than men in the general public to be fathers: Seven-in-ten American men are fathers, according to Pew Research Center polling. And, LGBT women are about twice as likely as LGBT men to be parents: 48% are mothers, including 31% of lesbians and 59% of bisexual women.
Not surprisingly, younger LGBT men are less likely to be parents (just 13% of 18-44 year old LGBT men are fathers compared with 34% of those ages 45 and older), but are more likely to say they’d like to have children in the future (23% vs. 3%) .
In addition to the 23% of LGBT men who are currently fathers, 14% say they would like to have a child someday.
LGBT adults—both men and women—are less likely than the general public to view having children as an important reason to get married. Even as 93% of LGBT Americans support same-sex marriage and the same number favors allowing gay men and lesbians to adopt children, just 28% of all LGBT adults say having children is a very important reason to get married, with no significant differences between gay men (23%) and lesbians (29%). A third of bisexuals say this is a very important reason to get married. By contrast, 49% of American adults say that having children is a very important reason to get married. Read more
See our other Father’s Day posts: