Types of Adoption
Legal recognition of the parent-child relationship (“parentage”) is important for many reasons, including health care and school related decisions to economic security, and much more. But for both LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people alike, families are made in many different ways, and so there need to be multiple ways for the parent-child relationship to be legally secured. These maps illustrate some of the pathways to parental recognition that are especially important for LGBTQ families.
There are multiple types of adoption that can either establish a legal relationship between parent and child, formally confirm such a relationship, or both. Stepparent adoption is available in every state to someone who is married to a child’s legal parent; as a result of marriage equality, this type of adoption is available to married same-sex couples nationwide. A co-parent or second-parent adoption is available in some, but not all, states, and it does not require the parents to be married. Separately, a confirmatory adoption is a streamlined adoption process established by law to confirm a parent’s existing legal relationship to a child. Click “Citations” for more details about each of these types of adoption.
See also MAP’s June 2023 report, Relationships at Risk: Why We Need to Update State Parentage Laws to Protect Children and Families, for further discussion of the importance of legal recognition of parent-child relationships, the many pathways to legal recognition of parentage, recent examples of modernized parenting laws, and policy recommendations for all states.
Recommended citation for this set of maps:
Movement Advancement Project. 2026. “Equality Maps: Parental Recognition Laws.” www.mapresearch.org/equality-map/parental-recognition-laws/. Data as of June 12, 2026.
Recommended citation for this specific map:
Movement Advancement Project. 2026. “Equality Maps: Types of Adoption.” www.mapresearch.org/equality-map/parental-recognition-laws/#adoption-types. Data as of June 12, 2026.
Percent of Adult LGBTQ Population Covered by Laws
*Note: These percentages reflect estimates of the LGBTQ adult population living in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Estimates of the LGBTQ adult population in the five inhabited U.S. territories are not available, and so cannot be reflected here.
