Washington law permits same sex couples to adopt and permits LGBTQ individuals to adopt. Therefore, there should not be a problem with one partner being able to adopt the biological child of the other partner with that partner’s consent.

It is possible that finding an outside couple or agency willing to consent to adoption of a child by a same sex couple could be more difficult, as prejudices still exist. A very helpful online resource for more information is Lifelong Adoptions.

Generally, an adoption disestablishes one or both parents as legal parents and establishes a new set of adoptive parents as the legal parents in their stead. A full adoption is where a couple adopts a child that is without parents or whose parents are not able to continue to care for the child. A stepparent adoption is a form of adoption where one parent remains as a parent, but that parent’s spouse adopts the child and steps into the place of the biological parent.

In an adoption, both the rights and responsibilities of legal parent shift to the new parents and are removed from the former parents. However, sometimes there may be an open adoption contract that still give the former parents rights to maintain some relationship with the child.