I have this idea for a character's backstory that involves the character, an 18-year-old girl, having two mothers and being raised thinking she was adopted, when in reality she's actually the biological child of both of her mothers due to certain supernatural shenanigans. However, this story is set in the late 90s, specifically 1998, when gay rights were... considerably less robust than they are today. And from what I hear, it was a lot harder, if not impossible, for a lesbian couple to adopt a child than it would be today. Especially considering that when this character was born, it would have been in 1980. Is there any way I can still make this work? Were there any loopholes I could have her parents take advantage of, or any parts of the country that allowed it or at least didn't enforce the laws against it? This all seems like a massive stretch, and I don't have my hopes up, but I figured I might as well ask.
A lesbian couple adopting in the 1980s seems incredibly unlikely, but a lesbian woman presenting herself as single for the purposes of adoption might work. The daughter could believe herself to be adopted by one of them but regard both as her mothers.
It’s not that uncommon for lesbian couples in the 80s or 90s to get pregnant with the help of a male friend ( either the apocryphal turkey baster story or doing it the old fashioned way) also that aside if you have a child of two mothers from supernatural shenanigans then realism isn’t the top concern. Just have her be told that she’s adopted and the audience will suspend disbelief about how likely that actually is
It seems VERY unlikely, but every state in the United States handles adoption differently, not to mention countries outside of the United States. Also (and this might sound cruel) not all children are created equally, or at least they are not treated as if they are. A healthy new born white baby is praised above anything else, an older minority with any kind of disability is put at the bottom of the list. (bring that up to say the second type might be easier to adopt). Also the foster care system is different than adoption and has different rules, usually less rules to get a kid but more follow up since the kids are still consider in state control. (Although there are more than a few horror stories about foster care that question how much that 'follow up' really happens). All of this is to say if the focus of the story is "Lesbian Couple in the 80s has a kid" There are a ton of ways that could happen even if unlikely, especially if they are not openly gay during the selection process.
Somewhere in the early 1980s, in the U.S., the architecture firm I worked for designed a house for a single woman who was adopting two orphans from Korea. So a single woman could adopt -- but I don't think she, as a single woman, would have been allowed to adopt American orphans at that time. And I'm fairly certain she wasn't a lesbian (closet or otherwise). She was a senior executive with the telephone company, and it was widely understood (but not spoken of) that she was in a heterosexual relationship with her boss.
