There are studies that show that lacking either a male or female parental figure can have bad long term effects. Which I would say is a good reason to prefer a

There are studies that show that lacking either a male or female parental figure can have bad long term effects. Which I would say is a good reason to prefer a male-female paring as adoptive parents. However, with the number of children in care rather than with adoptive parents being quite massive I imagine the damage done by missing one gender of parent is significantly less than the damage done by living in such an institution.