Black and Hispanic/Latino female same-sex households are as likely to raise foster or adopted children as opposite-sex Black and Hispanic/Latino households; however, the lesbian households earn considerably less. These are two of the conclusions published in ‘Lesbians Are Women Too,’ a set of fact sheets observing Women’s History Month released by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) Policy Institute.
Data is taken from three reports published by the NGLTF Policy Institute during the last year: Black Same-Sex Households in the United States: A Report from the 2000 Census; Hispanic and Latino Same-Sex Households in Florida: A Report from the 2000 Census; and Asian Pacific American Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People: A Community Portrait. Lopez and Cheung, Inc., provided additional data.
Several key findings from the fact sheets are: Black female same-sex households are raising children at rates comparable with black married opposite-sex households (61 percent vs. 69 percent). Black women with same-sex partners serve in the military at eleven times the rate of women in general (11 percent vs. 1 percent). Hispanic/Latina female same-sex households are raising foster or adopted children at rates almost equal to Hispanic/Latino opposite-sex married households (3 percent vs. 4 percent).
The entire report is available at www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/WHM031605.pdf.