Attitudes des psychologues franÇais À l'égard de l'homoparentalité

Abstract

This article examines the attitude of 275 French psychologists in regard to homoparentality and its connection with certain characteristics mostly drawn from their professional practice. The analysis of the data gathered by questionnaire has made it possible to describe this attitude through three dimensions: beliefs in regard to the development of children in homoparental families; attitudes in regard to the legalisation of access to parentality for homosexuals; beliefs relative to parental aptitudes of homosexual parents. Most of the participants are favorable to opening up adoption to homosexual couples although less than half are favorable to allowing them access to artificial insemination with anonymous donors and less than a quarter of them favor gestation by a third party. For the three dimensions explored, the participants present a generally positive attitude, particularly as concerns parental aptitude. Finally, the participants ' attitudes reveal only a slight connection with their having had professional experience with homoparental families and with recourse to psychoanalysis in the framework of their practice. The publication of the research results on homoparental families, the diversification and the progressive nuancing of viewpoints of these « specialists » concerning the stakes involved, have touched psychologists as a specialised, professional group in an elective way and have helped destigmatize homoparental families. They no longer appear to be marginal families whose « dan-gerousness » is suspected. Finally, it is not so much, or it is no longer a question of « difference of the sexes » which seems to be the nodal point of debate for psychologists, but that of filiation and its « truth » from a biological point of view.