current Field Director for Equality
California, Trina Olson, for sharing
this great article with us. It features one of our very own
OUTSpoken families: Huda Jadallah & Deanna Karraa. The article,
which appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, is titled “Same-sex
couples raising children less likely to be wealthy, white.”
The article states:
Oakland mom Huda Jadallah spent Tuesday afternoon
balancing last-minute Halloween costume shopping for her twin boys
against her daughter’s soccer practice. It was a familiar conundrum
for a woman used to juggling a variety of identities – as a
Palestinian American, a lesbian and a mother.Jadallah and her partner, Deanna Karraa, are among more than 26,000
gay and lesbian couples across the state who are raising an
estimated 70,000 children. Like most – and unlike common public
perception – these same-sex parents are neither white nor above the
average in income.
According the report compiled by local California LGBT
organizations, 55% of LGBTQ parents in the Alameda County area are
people of color. In San Francisco, 42% of LGBTQ parents are people
of color. In addition, LGBTQ couples have a 17% lower median income
than their married, heterosexual counterparts.
Judy Appel, the director of the Our Family Coalition in San
Francisco, responded:
“There is an idea of LGBT families, when people think
about it at all, there’s this perception that it’s affluent white
folks, and the data show that’s based on our own misperceptions.
We’re in every neighborhood, every race, ethnicity and economic
group. Our kids are playing in the playgrounds and parks with all
other kids.”
On top of lower income levels, LGBTQ couples are faced with a
number of financial inequities including being denied “preferential
tax rates, inheritance rights, and the legal recognition of the
family without costly court procedures.”
Indeed, the days are numbered for the misperception that we are all
white and wealthy.