Family Equity Justice
Here is what we know: There are more than 11.3 million LGBTQ+ adults in the United States, and up to 3.7 million children under the age of 18 have an LGBTQ+ parent. But what kind of data exists about families across the LGBTQ+ spectrum? LGBTQ+ families with only one parent? LGBTQ+ BIPOC families? LGBTQ+ families in rural communities?
The key to serving our families better is understanding their needs in the first place.
That’s where the Family Equity Justice Project comes in.
About the Family Equity Justice Project
The Family Equity Justice Project is an initiative that seeks to understand and document the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ families. We are eager to reach as many families as possible, hear their stories, understand their challenges, and share their joys — because we know that robust data collection is essential to ensuring that we are truly putting all families first and showing the world what “family” really means. In particular, we’re looking at how BIPOC, economically under-resourced, and/or geographically remote families who live outside the major urban centers of the United States experience the LGBTQ+ family journey. As a national nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that everyone can experience the unconditional joy and belonging of family, maintaining a full and complete picture of what all our families experience is essential to serving them better.
As a national nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that everyone can experience the unconditional joy and belonging of family, maintaining a full and complete picture of what all our families experience is essential to serving them better.
The goals of this project are to:
- Challenge existing assumptions and embedded bias of data and statistics related to LGBTQ+ families, specifically around race, socioeconomic status, family structure, and family creation
- Empower our organization to better respond to and include BIPOC families
- Expand the Family Equality community to include more geographically, structurally, and socioeconomically diverse individuals and families
- Strengthen our organizational capacity to respond to emerging opportunities and threats at local, state, and national levels
- Provide concrete recommendations for action and ethical research to advance the work of our organization and our movement partners
At the center of this project is a desire to engage with non-urban, BIPOC, and under-resourced LGBTQ+ families to collect data reflecting their perspectives, concerns, experiences, and needs as valued members of the LGBTQ+ family diaspora. As such, all our interactions with partners and participants must be grounded in Family Equality’s values.
The road ahead
We are so grateful to develop this initiative with the early support of Disney, The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, Target, and Fidelity.
We can’t wait to continue diving more deeply into this work with the help of partners and supporters like you!
