“Mama, did you put a chocolate chip Z-bar in my lunch?”
“Yes, it’s in there.”
“…Mama…Mama, did you put a chocolate chip Z-bar in my lunch?”
“Yes…I just told you, I put a chocolate chip Z-bar in your lunch.”
“Okay. I don’t like bananas. Don’t put a banana in my lunch.”
“Since when do you not like bananas?”
This is how my pride month started out this year – June 1, 2022. A conversation with my three-year-old as we’re running around the house to get him and his five-year-old brother out the door and to preschool on time.
When I came out of the closet, I was 30 years old. I was married with two kids, and it was June 2020. Instead of going to my first pride parade, my spouse and I were jolted awake around 6am every morning, pouring small bowls of cereal, tag-teaming as we tried to get work done with two small children – sheltering in place to shield our family from a raging pandemic – all before we’d start lunch, then nap-time, then tag-team work and child care, then dinner, then bed time, then redirecting our children’s endless attempts at stalling sleep, then more work before – collapse. Wash, rinse, repeat. The endless cycle of a pretty boring family life. We were bored, which, during a pandemic, meant we were alive.
Hearing people voice concern about gay and trans people – what we mean for society, how our existence affects children and the institutions of marriage and family – used to make me laugh when I first came out. I would think, if only they could see how boring we are…how we’re just a typical family – wiping boogers, searching for their favorite stuffed animal, trying to reason with a child who is having a meltdown because you put the toothpaste on their toothbrush when they wanted to do it. Our kids run our schedule; they are both the goal and the reward.
It's an old idea that LGBTQ people and families are mutually exclusive. Many LGBTQ+ couples might need assistance from medical science – an option that was largely out of reach before the 20th century. Yet, we really don’t need medical help any more than the 10% of straight couples who experience infertility. Most (68%) of us who are LGBTQ+ parents are raising our own biological children – either children we had through fertility assistance like other straight couples, or children we had from previous straight-appearing relationships.
Other LGBTQ+ adults become parents through the legal system – just like other straight couples do when they foster or adopt. The legal system is involved with all kinds of families – adoptive families, single parents needing enforced child support, families involved in the child welfare or criminal justice systems. Even though most of us who are LGBTQ+ parents are raising biological children, LGBTQ+ adults are still 7x more likely to be raising an adopted or foster child than their straight-counterparts.
While LGBTQ adults like myself have more rights to marriage and parenting than we did in previous generations, LGBTQ+ families are an ancient tradition. Throughout all of human time and across every society and culture, LGBTQ+ people are estimated to make up 5% of the population. Many LGBTQ+ adults throughout history remained closeted due to anti-LGBTQ+ stigma and violence, and many LGBTQ people got married within straight-appearing relationships. Even though they may have tried to present as straight or cisgender throughout history, their sexual orientation and gender identity remained unchanged and they likely raised their own children with their different-sex spouse or even in the companionship of a same-sex partner.
Historical examples of LGBTQ+ people who had children and were in straight-appearing relationships include the Greek Philosopher Socrates, Irish poet Oscar Wilde, American poet and civil rights activist Audre Lorde, Greek imperial king Alexander the Great, 1st Chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights & former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, American Computer Scientist Lynn Conway, Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, American musician Little Richard, American musician Nina Simone, King James VI & I of Scotland & England.
For LGBTQ+ adults who did not marry a different-sex spouse and have children of their own, their “bachelorhood” or “Boston marriages” made them available to care for nieces and nephews if their sibling passed away. This is sometimes called the “helper in the nest” or kin selection theory, or the idea that LGBTQ+ people provide a biological advantage to a society in that LGBTQ adults without children of their own are available to care for others’ children as needed.
History is full of caring aunts and uncles, and the following historical figures were cared for by unmarried or childless uncles and aunts: Roman Senator Cato the Younger, British Musician John Lennon, British poets the Brönte Sisters, French Fashion Designer Coco Chanel, Italian Renaissance painter Raphael, French philosopher René Descartes, and US founding father John Hancock.
Many LGBTQ people, not having children of their own, often cared for children who were unrelated to them as well. Some LGBTQ+ adults were official godparents and others cared for children whose lives crossed with theirs by accident or fate. As helpers in the larger nest, LGBTQ adults were able to care for children who lost their parents due to war or disease for centuries, and many created children’s causes charities.
Examples of LGBTQ+ people who did not have children of their own but cared for children or championed children’s causes include creators of the social work profession Jane Addams and Mary Ellen Richmond, pioneering child welfare social workers Jessie Taft, Virginia Robinson, and William Meezan, Mexican actress Dolores Del Río, American-born French resistance spy and performer Josephine Baker, American jazz singer Billie Holiday, Danish children’s book author Hans Christian Anderson, American astronaut Sally Ride, American jazz musician Billy Tipton, American activists Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, and pediatricians and child welfare advocates like Dr. Sara Josephine Baker and partners Dr. Martha May Eliot and Ethel Collins Dunhan.
As a child welfare social worker, wife, mother, and LGBTQ person, I’ve felt a mix of much joy, relief, pride, and even some poignant grief in discovering the rich history of LGBTQ people in caring for children. Many of us who grew up LGBTQ thought family life or working with kids would be out of reach if we came out of the closet, and history is here to show us that LGBTQ people have always been caregivers whose lives were filled with mundane tasks like wiping noses, quartering grapes, and rocking babies to sleep.
This Pride month, whether you’re part of the LGBTQ community or not, I invite you to consider the ways you can contribute to championing children’s causes, including by becoming a CASA advocate. A recent study shows over 30% of youth in foster care are LGBTQ, and they need advocates to speak for their best interests in and out of the courtroom. If you’re interested in becoming an advocate, please sign-up for an information session or contact us to learn more!
With pride,
Catelyn Devlin, LMSW, LCPAA-I
Director of Grants & Contracts
