Charlotte Patterson

Research and views

Patterson has been described as "the world’s expert on psychological research on children and youths raised by lesbian and gay parents." In addition to publishing numerous scientific studies on this topic, she testified before the Institute of Medicine on the topic of lesbian-related research in 1997. Her research has found that children raised by same-sex parents develop at least as well as children raised by heterosexual parents. She also authored a report, released by the APA in 2004, which stated that "Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents." Patterson estimated that there may be a hundred million Americans that either identify themselves as gay or lesbian or have a relative who does.