Sweeping changes to China’s adoption policies will make it virtually impossible for gay and lesbian Americans to adopt children from the world’s most popular source of international adoptions.

The Chinese government has a long-standing policy of not allowing adoptions by gay and lesbian parents, but that ban was often circumvented by gay applicants applying as single parents instead of as part of a gay or lesbian couple.

The new restrictions on prospective parents — which were announced by the China Center of Adoption Affairs last month and take effect May 1 — close that loophole by ending Chinese adoptions to any unmarried individuals.

"The magnitude of this is huge," said Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Pride, a Washington D.C. based non-profit that advocates for gay and lesbian families. "When you want to have children as LGBT couples, the number of places you can go to is still limited, and to have one of the largest places taken away from you is problematic."

The ban on single parents adopting Chinese children is just one of many alterations to China’s adoption policy, with others including a prohibition on adoptions by overweight people, people who are taking anti-depressants or living with an infectious disease such as HIV, and anyone outside the ages of 30-50. The new policy also stipulates that both parents must have completed high school, have clear criminal records, and families must have a net worth that exceeds $80,000.

The changes are not meant to suggest that fat people — defined in the Chinese regulations as having a body mass index greater than 40 — or gay men and lesbians cannot be good parents, said Dave Ptasnik, co-director of Americans Adopting Orphans, a Seattle agency that supports people interested in international adoptions.

"China’s perspective is that if we have a limited number of children [available for adoption], then we need to start looking for ideal parents, not just good parents," said Ptasnik, who noted that new restrictions are aimed at placing Chinese orphans in financially stable homes with two healthy parents.

Growing demand for Chinese orphans

The Chinese government’s population-control policies that penalize families for having more than one child help ensure a steady supply of orphans, many of whom are female since Chinese culture places more value on male offspring..

In 2005, China placed 8,000 orphans inside U.S. homes, and between 4,000-5,000 children in other countries, while the number of applications the government received doubled from the previous year, Ptasnik said.

The excessive demand for Chinese orphans grants the Chinese government the leverage it needs to become pickier about who adopts its country’s children, said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York.

"That provides the impetus for them to say we have a lot of applicants, and so we can say which ones we want," said Pertman, who is also the author of "Adoption Nation."

The policies will have a "most profound" impact on gay and lesbian Americans by making it "nearly impossible" to adopt from China, and have riled many folks in the adoption industry because they create "norms we typically don’t apply to parenting," Pertman said.

While little can be done to protest and change the new policies, Pertman said it provides an opportunity for those who support gay and lesbian adoption to lobby domestic adoption agencies to educate Chinese officials about the love and care gay and lesbian parents can provide.

"These are cultural norms we’re dealing with and it’s hard to break through — they’re hard enough to break through in our own country," he said.

Other countries also ban openly gay adoptive parents

The new regulations have prompted some adoption agencies like the Colorado-based Chinese Children Adoption International to stop accepting applications from single individuals because it would be a "waste of their emotions and time," said co-founder Joshua Zhong. Many people "might not agree with all of the requirements," but China’s expectations for perspective parents are not unreasonable, Zhong said.

"If you compare China, even with the new regulations, is still much more liberal than any other country — most people still qualify [to be adoptive parents] fairly easily," said Zhong, who added that "the Chinese government made it clear from Day One that they do not adopt to gay and lesbian couples."

In order for gay and lesbian Americans to continue adopting from China they must "rely on adoption agencies playing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ or the would-be parents finding some end-run," Pertman said.

Skirting the official adoption rules of China and other countries has unfortunately become a part of life for ...

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