Same-sex parent families in Italy: Validation of the Coparenting Scale-Revised for lesbian mothers and gay fathers

Even though Italy is still struggling to establish equal rights and access to assisted reproduction techniques for sexual minorities, an increasing number of lesbian women and gay men are now becoming parents. There are only a few studies that have evaluated coparenting in same-sex couples. However, these addressed adoptive couples and not the lesbian and gay parent families through donor insemination or surrogacy, respectively. This study examined the psychometric properties of the Coparenting Scale-Revised and its relationship with dyadic adjustment, discipline management, and internalized sexual stigma in Italian same-sex-planned families. The factor structure showed a satisfactory internal consistency and criterion validity with correlates of coparenting behaviours. While Family Integrity factor was confirmed, Disparagement and Reprimand dimensions collapsed into Conflict factor. Non-genetic parents showed lower levels of conflict than genetic parents. Most importantly, coparenting emerged as a significant function not shaped by gender, but influenced by parental status and internalized sexual stigma.