Since the start of the twenty-first century, the literature on same-sex couple relationships and families headed by single parents who identify as lesbian or gay has grown exponentially, and research published in the past 10 to 15 years tackles many new questions about sexual minority families. This review concentrates on four topics that have dominated the sociological arena: who counts as family and how/whether changing definitions of family incorporate households formed by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people; the biological, social, and legal obstacles that influence family formation for this population; the outcomes for youth raised with lesbian or gay parents; and family dynamics , relationship quality, and relationship dissolution in same-sex couple and transgender partner households. We conclude with future directions for the sociological study of LGBT sexuality and families. A NOTE ON DEFINITIONS In this review, we use terminology that represents the varying scope of populations in the research we review from tight to broad according to the sample and description in the cited study. Lesbian and gay refers to men and women who identify themselves as attracted, usually exclusively, to members of the same sex/gender. As an adjective, gay may sometimes refer to both gays and lesbians. LGB (lesbian, gay, and bisexual) includes individuals who identify themselves as attracted to both sexes/genders. LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) includes individuals who have or are in the process of changing sexes or gender identities. Finally, sexual minority refers broadly to individuals whose sexual identity/behavior is marginalized by heterosexually prescribed norms.

Drawing on in-depth interviews with 10 French lesbians, gays and bisexuals (LGBs) living in the United States and 13 American LGBs living in France, this article examines how national cultural context shapes the way LGBs understand and frame their sexual identity. The meaning these mostly White middle-class migrants attributed to their sexual identity was revealed -and in some cases changed -through cultural mechanisms provoked by crossing borders. Their journey gave them a unique perspective on the dominant national understandings of sexual identity in both countries. Through interaction, they discovered on the one hand, the French cultural expectations that individuals downplay their differences in the public sphere, and on the other, American cultural expectations that individuals align themselves with a minority category in the public sphere. As theories on the relationship between sexual identity and culture would predict, some respondents expressed feeling more comfortable with the sexual identity model of the country in which they came to embrace their sexuality. Half, however, preferred the model of the new context. These findings suggest that further theorization is necessary to understand why sexual identity appears to be highly contingent on culture for some people but seemingly independent of it for others.

Drawing on 30 in‐depth interviews with U.S. and French lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, we find important similarities in how U.S. and French respondents strategically managed the visibility of their sexual identities but differences in the vocabulary used to discuss those experiences. Specifically, all of the Americans used the expression coming out spontaneously while only five French respondents did so. Instead, French respondents typically rejected coming out in favor of other words or expressions. Rather than simple effects of speaking different languages, these differences stemmed from distinct connotations given to the same—widely diffused—expressions within each local context. Unlike their American peers, who saw the expression's origin in their own history and used in everyday lives, most French respondents resisted what they perceived to be an American cultural object imported by the French media. We also find evidence that the meaning of coming out is changing in both contexts such that in the future, the French and Americans may perceive and use it more similarly. This research contributes to our understanding of the intersection between language, meaning, and political context, within a cross‐national setting.

Before 2013, French children could not have two parents of the same sex. For example, non‐biologically related mothers in lesbian couples were legally invisible and prohibited to use second‐parent adoption. A 2013 bill legalising same‐sex marriage and adoption authorised that option. However, this reform requires same‐sex couples – but not heterosexual couples – to marry before establishing parental rights. Given this inequality, we ask: compared to their heterosexual peers, do French same‐sex couples with children marry more often? What do they think about same‐sex marriage in general and their own marriages in particular? To answer these questions, we draw on survey responses and interviews from the first national cohort study of French same‐sex couples, most of whom are lesbian, raising children born between 2011 and 2013 (n = 162). We find significantly higher marriage rates among same‐sex parents compared to different‐sex parents. What may appear at first glance to be an unvarnished attachment to marriage is belied by discriminatory logics requiring couples to go against their stated ambivalence towards the institution of marriage in order to safeguard their parental rights. We argue that this burden is a form of legal violence that enforces heterosexist norms through legislation that was ostensibly enacted in the name of equality.

This paper examines experts who have testified before U.S. and French courts and legislatures on same-sex marriage and parenting debates between 1990 and 2013. Experts can provide special evidentiary weight to political arguments, which I call expert capital. For this reason, social movements and decision-makers on both sides of the debate solicit them. Yet, because of specific national conditions, this article shows that not all experts have the same capacity to use their respective academic and professional resources to impact policymaking in each country. Drawing on 71 in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation in both the U.S. and France, it analyses how progressive and conservative experts have struggled for dominance in their fields. Results show that American progressive experts have achieved a degree of power in their fields as their conservative counterparts turn to resources outside the academic mainstream. In France, progressives have only recently begun to challenge conservatives' dominant position. I argue that these power balances, which are subject to change, are due to: 1) size and centralization of knowledge regimes; 2) disciplinary and university reactions to research on gender and sexuality; 3) academic and professional organization strength; 4) social acceptance of gay families; and, 5) the degree of division among allied experts. These findings have implications for research on social movements. They show that the capacity of experts to provide expert capital to their activist and decision-maker allies is constrained and enabled by factors specific to knowledge production fields that vary cross-nationally.

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This article presents an undergraduate student research project on a cross-cultural comparison of AIDS prevention approaches in France and the United States conducted on a study abroad program in Toulouse, France.

This article presents an update about some of the student authors whose research appeared in the first two Undergraduate Research Special Issues. These updates serve as testimony to the ongoing impact of the study abroad experience and to value the distinctiveness of study abroad learning.