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Black Lives Matter: Political and Artistic Mobilization against Systemic Racism in the US and the UK

Black Lives Matter’s Influence on an LGBTQ+ Activist Group Dedicated to LGBTQ+ Families (2018-2024)

Églantine Zatout

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À la suite du meurtre de George Floyd en mai 2020, plusieurs entreprises et organisations à but non lucratif ont commencé à faire référence au mouvement Black Lives Matter et à faire face aux inégalités raciales en leur sein. Cet article explore la manière dont une organisation LGBTQ+ dédiée aux familles, Family Equality, a mis en œuvre certains changements. Elle a commencé par embaucher de manière plus diversifiée, ce qui a influé sur sa rhétorique, en particulier au sujet de l'adoption. Avant 2020, elle se concentrait sur l'injustice du refus d’adoption à des adultes compétents en raison de leur orientation sexuelle, sans prendre en compte d'autres caractéristiques. Après 2020, elle n’hésite plus à dénoncer le racisme institutionnel au sein du système d'aide sociale à l’enfance. Ce changement de rhétorique modifie ses relations avec d'autres groupes. Elle a commencé à collaborer avec des organisations extérieures à la communauté LGBTQ+, telles que celles qui luttent pour les droits civiques des minorités raciales, et a même participé à des événements en dehors de la communauté LGBTQ+.

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1From its inception in 2013, the founders of Black Lives Matter (BLM) intended their antiracist movement to be intersectional, as illustrated by the following quote found on the BLM website, in the “herstory” section:

As organizers who work with everyday people, BLM members see and understand significant gaps in movement spaces and leadership. Black liberation movements in this country have created room, space, and leadership mostly for Black heterosexual, cisgender men — leaving women, queer and transgender people, and others either out of the movement or in the background to move the work forward with little or no recognition. (#BlackLivesMatter)

2Historically, mainstream African-American activism has not included queer and trans people, therefore this positionality has to be made explicit by BLM (Cohen 34-35; Collins 16, 48). The inverse holds true: some mainstream LGBTQ+ groups have not taken into account the perspectives of non-White LGBTQ+ people (Marche 15, 149–151). Family Equality, a non-profit organization dedicated to LGBTQ+ families, meaning LGBTQ+ adults raising children, has been no exception to this lack of inclusion of non-White voices. It was created in 1979 by gay fathers who wished to maintain a relationship with biological children they had from a previous heterosexual marriage (“The Story of Family Equality”). At the time, courts routinely denied custody or even visitation rights to LGBTQ+ parents who were out (Pershing 290-291; Shapiro 625). The organization was thus launched as a support group for those fathers, who shared legal advice to face the legal system and emotionally supported one another. Since then, it has become a national activist group as well as a social network of support for LGBTQ+ parents. It has created local and virtual networks for LGBTQ+ individuals to connect and it has hosted an annual gathering of LGBTQ+ families in Provincetown Massachusetts since 1995. The event, which gathers around 600 families, is a way for them to socialize and see one another (Zatout).

  • 1 It has addressed the courts through amicus curiae, or “friend of the court” briefs, in every landma (...)
  • 2 The list of sponsors is available on their website.

3Its activism has been dedicated to the legal and social recognition of LGBTQ+ families in the United States. In other words, it has historically fought for the right of gay parents to maintain custody rights, for marriage equality, for the recognition of parentage for non-biological parents, and the right to adopt for LGBTQ+ adults. The group has publicly spoken to defend LGBTQ+ families in the media, has turned to the courts to make their voices heard1 and encourages their newsletter subscribers to reach out to their representatives, providing them with scripts to be as effective as possible. It is a relatively small non-profit with an annual revenue of $2,884,273 in 2024 (Family Equality 2024), compared to Human Rights Campaign Foundation (the largest LGBTQ+ organization in the US) which had a revenue of $28,627,289 for the same year (Human Rights Campaign Foundation). Family Equality’s revenue come from donations from individuals but also from national corporate sponsors (such as Target, Warner Bros. Discovery, Growing Generations—a surrogacy agency—and California Cryobank—a sperm bank); as well as foundations (Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, etc.).2

  • 3 American sociologists Mignon R. Moore and Amy Brainer conducted a literature review on the subject (...)
  • 4 I will expand on that point regarding the staff composition. As for members, I was able to access i (...)
  • 5 POC is the phrase used to refer to non-White people in this paper because it was used by members I (...)

4Over the summer of 2018, I was an intern in this organization (whose headquarters is in New York City, but the internship was located in Boston) which enabled me to conduct ethnographic observation. I was thus able to observe that the group displayed racial diversity in its visual communication, but did not adequately center race in its advocacy. As a result, the concern of non-White members3 were not foregrounded and some people who participated in the events organized by the group felt overlooked. Prior to conducting my fieldwork, I had visited the organization’s website and found several pictures of multiracial families, but that was not actually representative of the member population or the staff that were mostly White and middle to upper-class.4 Although the BLM movement was founded in 2013, it was not until the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 that Family Equality acknowledged its existence for the first time through a press release (E. Harris). This acknowledgement constituted a departure from my observations in 2018, which was confirmed by my monitoring of their website, Youtube page and direct mailing since then. Those observations prompted the following inquiry: how did the organization recognize BLM, if at all? This question seemed relevant since over the summer of 2020 many organizations acknowledged the existence of racism and of BLM but have since scarcely changed their practices or even reneged on their pledge to implement anti-racist policies (Alcorn; Guynn). In order to answer this question, I will analyze staff changes as well as documents produced by the organization. More specifically, this paper will study the changes undertaken and implemented by Family Equality under Jaymes Black’s leadership (2021-2024). I will show that over that period, the non-profit displayed a willingness to include the voices and concerns of LGBTQ+ People of Color (POC)5 and their families through the hiring of more POC among other things. This new positioning has had an impact on their rhetoric, which will be the object of the second part. Rhetorically, the association has become inclusive of POC’s concerns on the topic of adoption in particular. This shift was welcomed by groups defending racial minorities, who agreed to collaborate with Family Equality, which will be the theme of the third section. Family Equality also took part in events that were not explicitly about the LGBTQ+ community, thus furthering its reach within non-White groups.

Staffing Changes

  • 6 In 2016, Nancy Lyons, the Chair of Family Equality’s Board of Director at the time, had expressed f (...)

5In 2018, Family Equality had twenty employees but only three of them were people of color; out of those twenty people, only three still worked for the organization in 2024. From 2016 to 2020, the CEO was Stan Sloan, a White Episcopalian reverend. The Family Equality board of directors chose to name him CEO because, following the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015 (Obergefell v. Hodges), the battle over LGBTQ+ parents’ rights moved to the question of adoption. Indeed, the right then started to try to impose restrictions on the issue especially for married couples, even though that would constitute a violation of the Obergefell decision since it would treat some marriages differently from others. In this context, religious adoption agencies used the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993) to request exemptions which would allow them to refuse LGBTQ+ prospective parents even if they were married6 (Family Equality 2016; Family Equality 2020). As a consequence, naming a reverend as the head of the organization could be understood as a rebuttal of the right’s narrative that opposes religious and LGBTQ+ people by proving that a person can be both gay and a person of faith.

6He stepped down in June 2020 following the murder of George Floyd in May of that year. He explained his departure in the following way:

Our understanding of Family Equality’s mission has also grown. It is increasingly clear that our goal of full lived and legal equality for LGBTQ+ families cannot be realized without also addressing the combined challenges of racial justice, economic justice, and gender justice. (“Rev. Stan Sloan”)

7This quote implicitly states that the BLM movement is the reason for his departure: he wanted to make room for someone better equipped to confront racial justice than a White man.

  • 7 In his presentation Brandon Gill defines himself as “a married, black, gay cisgender man” (Maria). (...)

8He was first replaced by Denise Brogan Kator, a White trans woman, in an interim capacity before being permanently replaced by Jaymes Black in March 2021 (Brogan-Kator). Jaymes Black, a queer African American, worked for an investment firm prior to becoming CEO of Family Equality. They use all pronouns and their multiple identities are stated explicitly in their biography on the website (Corona 2023b). In May 2024 the organization still had 20 employees, among which at least 8 (one could not be definitely ascertained) were POC and 11 were White. Assessing their racial identity was possible because self-identification was explicit in staff members’ biographies on the website.7 This shows that the effort to diversify the organization’s staff was intentional: an endeavor it wanted to highlight. Indeed, during my fieldwork I had to personally ask staff members for their racial self-identification when I met them because it was not stated on the organization’s website.

9The same was true for the many testimonials displayed on their website and YouTube page, and in their podcasts (Outspoken Voices - a Podcast for LGBTQ+ Families, 2017-2022; Out With It, 2024). My fieldwork and subsequent research on the organization showed me that it relies on testimonies because visibility is one of the group’s main strategies. Family Equality routinely asks members, through direct mailing, to provide testimony in order to address the courts (through the submission of amicus curiae briefs, see Hibsher et al. 2013; Hibsher et al. 2015; Keating et al. 2015; Keating et al. 2020) or to use the power of personal storytelling while reaching out to their elected representatives. This strategy started when the non-profit organized the participation of LGBTQ+ families to the White House Easter Egg Hunt in 2006. During this event, families were highly visible since it was covered by both mainstream and LGBTQ+ publications. Their participation enabled the organization to show that families headed by same-sex couples were respectable. Indeed, despite the fearmongering of the right prior to the event, their participation did not result in violence or disorder, a fact that was commended by the families who had participated (Bumiller; Dodge). This brief example illustrates the second strategy routinely used by Family Equality: respectability politics, paired with visibility efforts. The phrase “respectability politics” was coined by American historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham who studied Black Baptist women’s advocacy of dominant norms in terms of temperance and sexual mores. Their goal was to show White people that Black women could be “respectable” in spite of their race (Higginbotham; P. Harris 213).

  • 8 I have chosen to focus in depth on one blog post rather than multiplying examples in order to be co (...)

10Before 2021, those contributions by members would not state the race of the person, whether it was when the group addressed the courts through the submission of amicus curiae briefs in video format (“The Story of Family Equality”) or on Family Equality’s blog. An example from this blog illustrates what their rhetoric on the topic of adoption used to be before Jaymes Black’s hiring, as the following in-depth analysis will show.8

Evolving Narrative on Adoption

  • 9 This event celebrates adoptive families and highlights the need for foster children to be adopted. (...)

11In the context of National Adoption Month,9 which the organization celebrates yearly, it publishes several testimonies to highlight how difficult the path to adoption is for LGBTQ+ adults. It should be noted that this is the only “special month” Family Equality has consistently acknowledged, along with Pride Month: before Jaymes Black’s hiring, it had not consistently celebrated Black History Month according to my monitoring of their website, Youtube page and mailing.

  • 10 The same reasoning is used in the Fulton briefs the organization submitted (Karmel 2018; Keating et (...)

12One of the testimonies the organization featured in 2018 for the occasion was the story of Christopher Harris, a medical doctor who was discriminated against while trying to adopt because he was a single gay man (C. Harris). The title of the blog post, “How Discrimination Almost Kept a Celebrated Doctor from Adopting his Daughter,” places the emphasis on his social status and wealth, which is reinforced by the lengthy description of his job as a pediatric pulmonologist. This presentation—coupled with the mention that he took extra parenting classes—is meant to imply that this man “deserved” to be a parent. The point of the article is that gay adults are at least as deserving as straight people to be parents: sexual orientation should not disqualify prospective parents. The blog post further emphasizes that gay adults are “more likely” to foster and adopt than straight adults. This argument is used to prove that LGBTQ+ adults are just waiting for the opportunity to do their civic duty and relieve an overextended, overburdened system. Those parents are thus asking the state to support them and allow them to help solve the problems within the adoption and foster care system.10 According to a 2024 Williams Institute study, it is true that same-sex couples have a higher adoption (21%) and fostering rate (4%) than heterosexual couples (3% and 0.4%) (Wilson and Bouton 5). The reasoning illustrates how the organization uses respectability politics. Dr. Harris’s post focuses on characteristics that make him respectable (his academic achievements, his career…) and only foregrounds one potentially assigned stigma (Goffman 3): his sexual orientation.

  • 11 In that regard, we can mention the organization’s unsuccessful fight for the Every Child Deserves a (...)

13Throughout the blog post Harris’s race is never mentioned. It is true that the post includes pictures of him but the silence around race is revealing. He is said to have been discriminated against because he is single, a man and gay. However, his race not mentioned, a way to avoid confronting the discrimination he probably faced in his adoption journey because he is not White. This silence can be interpreted as a way for the organization to avoid addressing the racial imbalance within the foster care system: it is willing to confront one form of discrimination perpetrated by the system but not the intersection of marginalizations that exist due to both racial and sexual discrimination. Indeed, since most foster children are POC, it could have been another argument in favor of Dr. Harris; in this context a POC prospective parent should be more than welcomed by the welfare system. Not using this argument can be read as a choice: a way of avoiding criticizing the welfare system on two fronts at once; this is further evidence that the group is using respectability politics. It wants its members to seem as respectable as possible since those LGBTQ+ families are actively trying to integrate the system. Indeed, Family Equality has been fighting for the right of LGBTQ+ people to foster and adopt since 2009.11 As a result, denouncing the discrimination faced by prospective parents because of their sexual orientation fits within its purview: it is working to end it. On the other hand, it may feel less legitimate on the topic of race, especially since this is a sensitive issue within the welfare institution.

14The racial imbalance of the welfare system has been criticized by academics such as American legal scholar and sociologist Dorothy Roberts. She explains that the welfare system “is designed to monitor, regulate and punish poor Black families” by removing children from their homes, which explains why Black children are disproportionately represented in the foster and adoption systems (Roberts, 2017 6; Roberts 2022). In other words, she denounces an institution in which racism is systemic.

  • 12 This number is for children counted as Black only: 22% were labelled “Hispanic of any race” which m (...)

15Black children are overrepresented since, according to the 2020 census, African Americans accounted for 12.1% of the overall American population (Jensen et al.), while as of 30 September 2022, 23% of children in foster care (83 085 out of 368,530) were Black (AFCARS 2).12 As for Whites, they represented 57.8% of the American population in 2020 (Jensen et al.) and 43% (156,570) of foster children in 2022 (AFCARS 2). White children are also more likely to be adopted than children of other races: 45% (91 411 out of 201,372) of the children who exited the foster care system in 2022 were White while only 20% (40 515) were Black and 21% (42,449) were Hispanic of any race (AFCARS 4). Those figures mean that Black children are less likely to be adopted and more likely to remain in the foster care system. This can be explained by the fact that most prospective parents are White (McElroy 262; Raleigh, 2017 20) and unwilling to adopt transracially (Raleigh, 2017 12).

  • 13 In 2019, 28% of adoptions from foster care were transracial, and in 90% of those cases, the parents (...)

16Despite their reluctance, transracial adoptions do happen;13 even more so when the prospective parents are LGBTQ+. American sociologist Elizabeth Raleigh analyses adoption as a market (2012 452). She shows that LGBTQ+ people and children of color are more likely to be matched to each other because they have the least relative value in this market (2012 466-467).

17Historically, however, the issue of transracial adoption has been controversial. In 1972, The National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) stated:

Black children belong physically and psychologically and culturally in [B]lack families where they receive the total sense of themselves and develop a sound projection of their future. Only a [B]lack family can transmit the emotional and sensitive subtleties of perceptions and reactions essential for a [B]lack child’s survival in a racist society. (McRoy and Griffin 40)

  • 14 The law read: “To prohibit an agency, or entity, that receives Federal assistance and is involved i (...)

18In other words, the NABSW argue that children should be placed in families that match their racial identity in order to secure their sense of self. In 1973, the Child Welfare League of America followed suit and adopted a policy that favored placing children in families that match their racial background (Farr and Patterson 188; McRoy and Griffin 40). However, Congress disagreed in 1994 with the Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA), which adopted a “color-blind” approach to adoption: taking race into account in fostering or adoption placement was now forbidden (Wheat).14 As a result, the silence on race in Dr. Harris’s blog post may be interpreted as a way to avoid criticizing systemic racism within the welfare system but also to refrain from publicly taking sides on the controversial topics of transracial adoption. Even though Dr. Harris’s adoption is not transracial, the argument could have been in line with the NABSW’s: that he was the best equipped to raise a non-White child. This reasoning is put forth by Family Equality after George Floyd’s murder.

19In December 2020, the group changed its official stance on the subject of adoption, as reflected in a document entitled “Transition Recommendations for the Next Presidential Term,” written for the Biden transition team. The tone is now very different, from the outset of the blog post explaining the recommendations. While assessing the problem, it argues that the welfare system should have two priorities:

Priority #1

Whenever possible, children should remain with their families of origin and/or kin. Additionally, we must develop measures to support families of origin and eliminate discrimination in removals.

Priority #2:

When children cannot remain with their families of origin, the state must place them in families or settings that respect and affirm their complex social identities and strive to maintain their community ties. Indeed, this includes their race, color, national origin, tribal affiliation, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and ability. (Kruse, 2021)

20Those are in line with the policy implemented by the NABSW in 1972 since it favors same-race placement as an identity-affirming choice and thus implicitly denounces transracial adoption. It acknowledges the systemic racism the welfare system exercises on Black families which explains the disproportionate number of Black children in the system. In the recommendations proper, Dorothy Roberts’s work is even referenced (Family Equality 2020b). After this introduction, the document also considers the specific forms of discrimination Black lesbians are subjected to: they are more likely to lose custody of their children than both White women and straight Black women, the latter of whom are already more likely than White women to lose theirs. For Family Equality, it is new to be so openly critical of the welfare system and to denounce the specific forms of discrimination minorities within LGBTQ+ families are subjected to. This line of reasoning is very different from the one analyzed above in which the group was pointing out that children were left parentless because of the system discriminating against LGBTQ+ adults. This more openly critical stance in their rhetoric explains why other non-profits—in particular those defending POC—agreed to collaborate with Family Equality from that point on, as shown below.

Collaboration with other Groups

21In 2018, I was told during interviews with staff members that, on the one hand, a gun manufacturer had reached out to the organization in order to become a sponsor (an offer it had refused) while, on the other hand, activist groups representing and defending POC were reluctant to associate with them. At the time, a POC lesbian staff member I interviewed had been trying to form partnership with non-White organizations without success. She analyzed the reasons thusly:

  • 15 On June 12, 2016, a mass shooting occurred in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. 50 people died a (...)
  • 16 She was referring to a series of executive orders, starting with Executive Order 13769, signed in J (...)
  • 17 Interview conducted by phone on 29 June 2018. Since the interview, she has left Family Equality.

It was not directly said but it was made clear that it's because we're too quiet. We're just too quiet we don't take a stand, like we don't, we don't have a stand on gun control... When Pulse15 happened, we didn’t take a stand, we just simply joined a coalition. We don't really take a stand on issues. And so, I think that's where it hurts us as an agency because we stand in the middle and don't really take major stances on things and I think that's… like we've never taken a stand on Black Lives Matter. We have never come out for or against or even mention (sic) it. So, it’s things like that, where I think it's known, people notice that […] When it comes to, like I said, gun control, or this immigration ban,16 we've never taken a stand.17 (Family Equality Staff Member)

22In other words, she considered that the lack of collaboration with organizations focused on POC was partly due to its silence on racial issues. She is implicitly pointing out that the group only focuses on issues directly related to LGBTQ+ parenthood while steering clear of other potentially controversial topics, which is in line with the analysis of Dr. Harris’s blog post above. Further in the interview, Natasha also regretted the lack of non-White members in the organization and attributed it in part to the refusal of the board to produce resources in other languages, such as Spanish.

  • 18 When I first started researching this topic in April and May 2024, there were more resources on the (...)

23Since George Floyd’s murder, there has been noticeable changes on all those points. The group has produced a few resources in Spanish (Avellaneda and Torres-Skendi),18 and even included the testimony in Spanish for National Adoption Month on their YouTube channel (“Mes Nacional de La Adopción”).

24The organization also started to acknowledge and bring attention to Black people being killed by the police, one of the main raison d’être for BLM as a movement. In April 2021, it denounced the killing of “13-year-old Adam Toledo in Illinois, 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Minnesota and 29-year-old, Jaida Peterson in North Carolina” (Libertin). The statement also reaffirms their commitment to racial justice.

  • 19 The name used to be an acronym standing for “Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays” (P (...)
  • 20 In this 2021 case, the Supreme Court weighed whether Catholic Social service (an adoption agency) c (...)

25As soon as 29 May 2020, Family Equality joined one hundred other LGBTQ+ organizations to publicly denounce racism (E. Harris), which is in stark contrast with what the staff member I interviewed pointed out. It is worth mentioning that partnering with LGBTQ+ groups—especially ones dealing with families—was not a first. It had already collaborated with PFLAG,19 for example, when addressing the courts in the context of Fulton v. Philadelphia (Keating et al. 2020).20 However, it should be noted that collaboration with groups dedicated to fighting racism and making a public statement on the topic of race represents a significant shift.

26On 17 June 2020, it called for an LGBTQ+ Families for Black Lives Day of Action on 23 June. In a blog post, Family Equality launched the action by encouraging members to show their support to the BLM movement by posting on social media using the hashtag #LGBTQFamiliesForBlackLives. It also urged members to discuss the movement with their children, as we shall see. This public stance of solidarity was paired with a pledge to commit to the fight for racial equality long-term:

As the leading national organization for LGBTQ+ families, our goal is to build sustainable programs and provide ongoing resources for our families to support the change we want to see. The fight must not stop when the hashtags and protests end. (“Family Equality Announces National Day of Action”)

27The resources provided include a toolkit entitled “Black History & Anti-Racist Toolkit for LGBTQ+ Families.” It contains recommendations on how to talk about race with children depending on the age of the child but irrespective of their race. It also encourages activism by providing a template for teenagers to reach out to their representatives to ask them to “create policies that clearly communicate the value of Black lives” (Family Equality, 2020). It provides a link to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s webpage to suggest talking points useful for teenagers who reach out to their representatives. Family Equality regularly urges members to do so, and supplies templates (usually through their direct mailing). However, before 2020, it only made such appeals on questions related to LGBTQ+ families’ rights (Kruse 2019a; Kruse 2019b). In this toolkit it is urging readers to reach out to their elected officials to demand “policies that clearly communicate the value of Black lives” (Family Equality 2021).

  • 21 As an intern, I was hired to help organize Family Equality’s main annual event: Family Week. That w (...)

28This toolkit constitutes a stark departure from what I witnessed in 2018. As an intern, I participated in the organization of the “Family Chat: Race and our Families”21 in which we had prepared a leaflet to be handed to families. This leaflet was mostly meant to provide advice to White parents who adopt transracially because the event was attended by current or prospective White parents in this configuration. The leaflet we had prepared had not been made public outside the event and is still to this day not accessible from the website.

29Those efforts to correct the deficiencies underlined by the interviewee I met were successful in that they led to greater collaboration with racial minority groups. Indeed, Family Equality was a “community partner” for the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington in August 2023. Jaymes Black spoke from the podium in front of the steps to the Lincoln statue (“Jaymes Black Speaks”). Behind them, a poster for the National LGBTQ+ Task force, an LGBTQ+ organization which has historically been fighting for marginalized LGBTQ+ people (Marche 100-101) was visible; it had previously refused to collaborate with Family Equality according to conversations I had with employees in 2018. In those remarks, the CEO invited the fights for LGBTQ+ family and Black lives to unite to build a better America. This is a veiled reference to the historic exclusion of LGBTQ+ people from the Civil Rights movement and the exclusion of Black people from the LGBTQ+ movement: elements seldom acknowledged in such a public forum. Their participation provides a bigger platform to LGBTQ+ families and shows a willingness to center on race in future activism.

Conclusion

30In May 2020, the murder of George Floyd revived the Black Lives Matter Movement that had been launched in 2013. As a consequence, many companies and non-profit organizations started taking steps to address racial bias and racism within their groups (Alcorn; Guynn). Family Equality took such a step in hiring Jaymes Black as CEO. They were not the only staff change; the group hired more POC and acknowledged those steps publicly. This evolution led to a shift in the rhetoric of adoption. It also acknowledged a wider array of cultures and commemorative months and events. This in turn led to greater collaboration with groups outside the LGBTQ+ umbrella such as those fighting for civil rights and racial minorities such as the NAACP. Those partnerships in turn could have nurtured further advocacy for minorities within LGBTQ+ families. Jaymes Black’s leadership constituted the beginning of a genuine shift in rhetoric and advocacy priorities.

31However, on 10 June 2024, Jaymes Black stepped down to become the CEO of the Trevor Project (“An Important Update”). Their departure, coupled with Donald Trump’s reelection in November 2024, has changed the organization once again. To what extent has this commitment to racial justice endured? In September 2021, it partnered with a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) consulting firm to commit to being more actively inclusive in terms of gender and race (Family Equality 2021b). However, following Trump’s election, the firm closed down and has not been replaced (Lu and Abman). Further, Family Equality resources on race, racism and BLM have been scraped from their website: even the amicus curiae briefs the group has filed over the years and the toolkit studied in this article are no longer available. These deletions show the impact of the Trump administration’s stance on DEI. These, coupled with its attacks on LGBTQ+ people and families in particular, create a climate that has pushed Family Equality to adapt and refocus on what it sees as its primary goal: helping LGBTQ+ adults have and raise children. Further inquiry would be needed to address this potential evolution.

32Family Equality is far from the only non-profit or firm to have taken a step back from foregrounding racial equality following Trump’s reelection. This attitude is part of a larger trend that started before the second Trump Administration in response to a political backlash to BLM and DEI programs that were launched in the wake of George Floyd’s murder (Guynn). Diversifying a company’s workforce was among the most visible step taken by firms, which is similar to what I observed at Family Equality. However, those efforts were short lived. At the corporate level, the share of Black workers in the S&P 100 declined to 16,8% as soon as 2023, having reached a peak at 17% in 2021 (Bloomberg News). A larger study of the racial justice statement made by Fortune 500 firms in 2020 found that most remained silent and those who did speak out on the topic of racial equality only had weak responses: “just 1 in 5 made strong commitments, pledging resources and structural changes to their business practices, such as revamping hiring policies or funding racial justice organizations” (Tomaskovic-Devey et al.). This limited commitment all but collapsed after Trump’s reelection, once the political winds started shifting. The same study found that thirty-one companies among the Fortune 500 stated that they would roll back their DEI efforts as of March 2025; while only eleven firms publicly defended their DEI efforts at the same time (Tomaskovic-Devey et al.). Most firms have remained silent on the topic, which is comparable to what I observed at Family Equality: following George Floyd’s murder their commitment to racial justice was explicit but this latest roll back has been occurring without public acknowledgement.

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Notes

1 It has addressed the courts through amicus curiae, or “friend of the court” briefs, in every landmark case: Windsor v. US (2013), which overturned part of the Defense of Marriage Act, thus allowing recognition of married same-sex couples by the federal government; Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) which declared bans on same-sex marriages unconstitutional; Pavan v. Smith (2017) which found that both mothers must be on a child’s birth certificate if a sperm donor was used, as is the case for different-sex couples using the same technology; Fulton v. Philadelphia (2021) a case dealing with adoption agencies’ right to deny certification to married same-sex couples (Hibsher et al. 2013; Keating et al. 2015; Keating et al. 2020).

2 The list of sponsors is available on their website.

3 American sociologists Mignon R. Moore and Amy Brainer conducted a literature review on the subject of racial and sexual minority parenting in the USA. They find that parents who are both LGBTQ+ and POC consider the issues of welfare and immigration policies as very important (Moore and Brainer). The African-American Queer activist Kenyon Farrow denounces the advocacy goal of same-sex marriage as being anti-Black. He explains that “my most critical need as a Black gay man is to be able to walk down the streets of my community with my lover, spouse or trick, and not be subjected to ridicule, assault or even murder” (Farrow). This feeling may be shared by some Family Equality members who may feel that their physical safety is not adequately taken into account by the group when it organizes events.

4 I will expand on that point regarding the staff composition. As for members, I was able to access internal documents which showed that most members were White. Indeed, the organization hosts an annual event called Family Week after which attendees are invited to answer a survey: in 2017, 84% of adult respondents were White, that number decreased slightly to 76.19% in 2018 (Census Bureau population estimates for that year stated that 60.4% of the general population was White). According to data from the Williams Institute, only thirteen per cent of same-sex parenting couples were White in 2019-2021, 27% were Black, and 21% identified as POC (Wilson and Bouton 15) As for social class, I was able to cross reference data on family formation (the methods used to have children) with the cost of attending the event previously mentioned. Both data points indicated that members were financially comfortable: surrogacy was a widely used method of family formation by gay couples, and lesbian couples chose IVF. Surrogacy costs between $150 000 and $250 000 for one baby, depending on the agency chosen and the state the person lives in (Dehmler). The cheapest options are adoption and fostering (parents are paid to raise the child in the latter case, see Raleigh). As for the economic background of LGBTQ+ parents in the American population at large, the Williams Institute reports in 2024 that LGBTQ+ parents are “more likely to be living in poverty than non-parents and straight cisgender parents (33% vs. 21% and 21%).” (Wilson and Bouton 4)

5 POC is the phrase used to refer to non-White people in this paper because it was used by members I met and interviewed. It stands for “Person of Color” or “People of Color” so the acronym is its own plural form.

6 In 2016, Nancy Lyons, the Chair of Family Equality’s Board of Director at the time, had expressed fears related to the weaponization of this law by the right to discriminate against LGBTQ+ parents (“Nancy Lyons Makes Remarks”). In September 2017, seven states had already allowed adoption agencies to refuse same-sex couples while eight states and the District of Columbia had outlawed this type of discrimination (Movement Advancement Project et al. 8).

7 In his presentation Brandon Gill defines himself as “a married, black, gay cisgender man” (Maria). In Alexis Corona’s biography on Family Equality’s website it was possible to read in 2023 “his personal experience as a queer person of color” (Corona 2023a): this has been erased as of April 2025. There has been quite a lot of turnover in the group since Donald Trump’s reelection, and as a result the biographies of the people who have left have been removed while the biographies of members who have remained have been amended, erasing racial self-identification in several cases.

8 I have chosen to focus in depth on one blog post rather than multiplying examples in order to be concise in the context of this article. What may seem anecdotal at first was observed also in my doctoral dissertation, which identified a similar silence on race in the amicus curiae briefs the organization filed in Windsor v. US, Obergefell v. Hodges and Fulton v. Philadelphia (Hibsher et al. 2013; Keating et al. 2015; Keating et al. 2020). The first two briefs mentioned included the same testimonials from thirteen people (age 8 to 32) who had been raised in households headed by a same-sex couple. The racial identity of the parents and the contributors was not mentioned which seems to indicate that they are all White, given that it is the default understanding when race is not specified in the US. However, I was able to ascertain that at least one contributor is not White. In Fulton the organization filed two similar briefs (one in the first appeal and one addressed to the US Supreme Court) which include the words of twenty-one contributors, yet the racial composition of only two families is specifically identified. In one case, it is an interracial couple who wished to adopt a child who would be of the same race as the non-White parent because they have “the best interest of the child” at heart. The “best interest of the child” is a doctrine used by the court to deny custody to LGBTQ+ parents because they are not deemed worthy to be parents and it’s not “in the best interest” of their children to be raised by them (Pershing 324-325; Shapiro 632-635). Using this argument (the phrase is used six times in the document) is a form of respectability politics since it is a way to show that the families mentioned in the briefs are willing to adhere to dominant norms, those created and enforced by the courts. The families want to prove that they do not represent a threat to the dominant definition of the American family: they are only transgressing one norm because of the gender and sexual orientation of the parents but they do not violate any other norms. In the brief, the racial composition of the couple is not used as an argument in favor of same-race placement though. The other mention of race is mentioned in the Fulton brief is to lament the fact that a lesbian couple (whose racial composition is elided) was denied the adoption of Black teenagers. In that case, it is presented as a tragedy because Black teenagers are less likely to be adopted than other children in the foster care system. However, the silence regarding the race of the potential mothers is a way to avoid the topic of transracial adoptions, a controversial subject as explained further down in this paper.

9 This event celebrates adoptive families and highlights the need for foster children to be adopted. At the federal level, it was first implemented as National Adoption week by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 and turned into a month-long campaign by President Bill Clinton in 1995. This initiative is handled by the US Department of Health and Human Services and more specifically the Administration for Children & Families (Mapa).

10 The same reasoning is used in the Fulton briefs the organization submitted (Karmel 2018; Keating et al. 2020).

11 In that regard, we can mention the organization’s unsuccessful fight for the Every Child Deserves a Family Act. This bill was introduced in Congress every year between 2009 and 2025 but has never been voted on in either chamber (Stark; Gillibrand 2024). In 2019, it read “This bill prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, or religion in the provision of child welfare programs and services by entities receiving federal funding” (Gillibrand 2019).

12 This number is for children counted as Black only: 22% were labelled “Hispanic of any race” which means that some are Black as well.

13 In 2019, 28% of adoptions from foster care were transracial, and in 90% of those cases, the parents were White and the children were POC (HHS-ASPE).

14 The law read: “To prohibit an agency, or entity, that receives Federal assistance and is involved in adoption or foster care programs from delaying or denying the placement of a child based on the race, color, or national origin of the child or adoptive or foster parent or parents involved, and for other purpose.”

15 On June 12, 2016, a mass shooting occurred in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. 50 people died and 53 were wounded (Alvarez and Pérez-Peña).

16 She was referring to a series of executive orders, starting with Executive Order 13769, signed in January 2017, which are known colloquially and collectively as the “Muslim travel ban.” Nationals from six predominantly Muslim countries were barred from entering the US (Thrush).

17 Interview conducted by phone on 29 June 2018. Since the interview, she has left Family Equality.

18 When I first started researching this topic in April and May 2024, there were more resources on the website than when I wrote the article in March 2025. Even using the WayBackMachine, I was unable to access all the resources I had seen in 2024.

19 The name used to be an acronym standing for “Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays” (PFLAG).

20 In this 2021 case, the Supreme Court weighed whether Catholic Social service (an adoption agency) could refuse same-sex married couples while receiving federal funds and being referred children from the state. The agency won narrowly on a technicality because the city of Philadelphia allowed exemption to its anti-discrimination provision when contracting agencies but refused to make an exception in this case without sufficient justification. However, the justices found that the “Constitution [does not] bar the government from enforcing non-discrimination requirements against those with religious objections to complying” (ACLU Pennsylvania).

21 As an intern, I was hired to help organize Family Equality’s main annual event: Family Week. That week, it hosted affinity gatherings for participants to meet one another. It also held what were labelled “family chats,” so that participants could talk in smaller groups about different topics; those were moderated by people with knowledge (personal or academic) on the matter. In 2018, there was a chat on “race and our families,” one on “gender expression and identities within our families” and one on “sex, gender, and sexuality.”

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Églantine Zatout, « Black Lives Matter’s Influence on an LGBTQ+ Activist Group Dedicated to LGBTQ+ Families (2018-2024) », Transatlantica [En ligne], 1 | 2026, mis en ligne le 01 juillet 2026, consulté le 15 septembre 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/29452 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/16jv5

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