Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Broke

By DANIELLE MOODIE-MILLS, an advisor on LGBT Policy and Racial Justice at the Center for American Progress. Her political and cultural analysis and commentary have been published in The Atlantic, Ebony, Essence, and the Huffington Post, and she has appeared on MSNBC, Current, and the CBC. She is also the host of Politini, a politics and pop culture show on blis.fm.

“You’re already black and a woman. How much more do you want to have against you?”

That’s what my mother said when I came out to her as a lesbian more than a decade ago. My parents were terrified, because there was no blueprint to help them envision the kind of life I had before me.

Waiting to come out to them until I was 22 and out of college was a strategic move on my part. I wanted to be in a place where I could support and care for myself in case my parents didn’t take the news well and put me out. Indeed, this fear of rejection and being cast out is in the hearts of many LGBT youth before they share their sexual orientation or gender identity with their families—fear that the people whose job is to love and protect them will toss them aside, fear that they’ll be left alone in a world that doesn’t understand or accept them.

My own parents were indeed panicked by the prospect of their youngest daughter being a lesbian, but after the shock subsided a week later, they were where they had always been: in my corner and rooting for my success. I was lucky, unlike so many LGBT youth who are rejected by their families and left to fend for themselves. While these youth make up only 5 to 7 percent of the U.S. population, they comprise a staggering 40 percent of all homeless youth.¹

Sometimes it’s the LGBT teen herself who chooses to leave. Imagine being a 16-year-old gender-nonconforming girl who experiences constant physical and emotional abuse from her peers at school, but at home, her parents tell her the bullying is her own fault, because she’s “choosing” to stand out. They believe that all she needs is a “good beating” and berating to teach her how to “act like a lady.” End result: The abuse both at home and at school pushes her to the brink, and she feels the streets are her only option.

I’m grateful this was not my story, but it is for 43 percent of LGBT youth living on the streets.² For them, family rejection—plus hostile school environments, institutionalized discrimination, and violence—begins what can become a lifetime of economic insecurity and living on the brink.

These stories of LGBT youth being discounted and dismissed are what prompted me to become an advocate. Then my work on the frontlines of the marriage equality movement in the District of Columbia showed me even more evidence that my parents had good reason to be concerned about my coming out. Even as many of us were hailing the Supreme Court decision overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, I came to see that marriage alone isn’t the silver bullet of full equality for the thousands of lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women. For them, the basic measure of equality still to be realized is simple economic security.

Contrary to the myth of gay affluence perpetuated in the media, many, many LGBT couples and their families are far from wealthy or even comfortable. Lesbian couples in particular face an economic and cultural double bind. As women, they already earn less than men, and as lesbians—especially those who are gender nonconforming—are subjected to anti-gay bias in the workplace for not fitting the cultural aesthetics society demands of women.

These women are particularly vulnerable to discrimination at work, given that there are no federal protections to prevent them from being fired from their jobs—or not hired at all—simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Employers in 29 states can legally discriminate against these workers.³ And the economic consequences are real. Lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women are at the bottom of almost every economic metric.

It’s almost unfathomable to believe, in this day and age, that just being a woman in a same-gender relationship immediately qualifies you for a life on or over the brink of poverty, but it does. According to “A Broken Bargain,” a joint report by the Center for American Progress, the Movement Advancement Project, and the Human Rights Campaign:

Two women—even if they individually earn more than comparable heterosexual women—may still have a combined household income that is lower than that of a married different-sex couple, because both earners’ wages are affected by the gender wage gap. This “double-gap” multiplier means less money for the entire family every year and fewer resources to save for retirement.⁴

That means that even when both partners are working, they are more likely to be among the “working poor” than their different-sex counterparts.⁵

The economic prospects are even worse for lesbians and transgender women who are black. The CAP report “Jumping Beyond the Broom” revealed that black lesbian couples were five times more likely to be living in poverty than white lesbian couples, at a rate of 21.1 percent compared to 4.3 percent.⁶ Transgender women fare worse, with double the rate of unemployment of the general population and higher rates of job discrimination pushing them into extreme poverty. They are four times more likely than the general population to have a household income of less than $10,000 per year.⁷

These numbers make it painfully clear that sexism—coupled with anti-gay bias and then compounded by systemic racism—can result in economic catastrophe for lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women of color. No wonder my parents were terrified.

When you add kids to the picture, it gets worse. Analysis by UCLA’s Williams Institute finds that lesbian couples are more likely than different-sex and gay couples to be raising children, and 37.7 percent of those children are living in poverty. It’s not surprising then that these families are also more than twice as likely to receive government assistance—14.1 percent compared to just 6.5 percent of different-sex couples.⁸ Antiquated family policies⁹ that ignore LGBT family structures, limit parental rights, and deny these children legal ties to their families further perpetuate the cycle of poverty. These are the women and families I advocate for every day.

We are seeing in this Shriver Report that when we invest in women, we invest in entire communities and our economy as a whole. Similarly, ensuring that our public policies work for lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women and their families is essential to boosting the economic outcomes for the gay community overall. This is why we need to pass the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act and update our family and anti-poverty policies, so that children of lesbian parents do not fall through the safety net.

Despite the progress toward LGBT equality we’ve seen since I came out more than a decade ago, the economic condition of lesbians in particular remains virtually the same. Kids are coming out at younger ages, but more LGBT youth are living on the streets. Women make up half of the workforce, but two women working to provide for one household still fall short, because of pay inequity and workplace discrimination. The Defense of Marriage Act has been dismantled, but family policies have not been updated to reflect all varieties of the modern American family.

These are the facts, but we also know this to be true: Not too long ago, there were no examples of openly LGBT couples. Today, there are. There were no models of thriving lesbian-headed households. Today, there are. Despite the obstacles we still have to overcome and the myths we still have to dispel, today there is a blueprint for LGBT youth to follow. Now it’s up to us to ensure that public policy evolves in pace with our culture.