A new report from a wide range of research and advocacy organizations shows that because of discriminatory laws, LGBT women are among the most at risk of poverty in the U.S.—and that this can impact their starting and raising a family.
Paying an Unfair Price: The Financial Penalty for LGBT Women in America, co-authored by the Movement Advancement Project and the Center for American Progress, shows that LGBT women sit at the center of a Venn diagram of discrimination. Women in general are still paid less than men and are more likely to be in minimum-wage jobs when employed. Women of color face even lower wages and higher unemployment. Women disproportionately have to take leave from work (often unpaid) to care for children or aging parents, and incidents of violence and harassment against women remain high. On top of all this, LGBT women face added challenges because of anti-LGBT laws and policies that can reduce incomes, add costs for housing and healthcare, and restrict access to tax credits and other benefits.
Here are some of the report’s key findings. I’ve italicized the ones relating to starting a family and raising children, and offer some further details on child-related topics below.
LGBT WOMEN ARE DIVERSE, RAISING CHILDREN
- 4.1% of U.S. adult women identify as LGBT. There are an estimated 5.1 million LGBT adult women in the United States including approximately 350,000 transgender women. Two-thirds of LGB women identify as bisexual.
- Large numbers of LGBT women are raising children. A Gallup survey found nearly half of LGBT women under 50 years of age were raising children, with higher rates of childrearing for African American, Hispanic, and Asian LGBT women compared to White LGBT women. Also, more than half of transgender women surveyed in the National Transgender Discrimination Survey … were parents.
- LGBT women are diverse. People of color are more likely to identify as LGBT than are White people. According to a 2012 Gallup survey, 4.6% of African Americans identified as LGBT, as did 4.0% of Hispanics and 4.3% of Asian Americans, compared to 3.2% for White respondents.
Fifteen percent of female same-sex couples raising children are in poverty, versus 9% of married opposite-sex couples with children.
- LGBT women are more likely to live in poverty. Almost 30% of bisexual women and 23% of lesbian women live in poverty versus 21% of heterosexual women. Only 29% of LGBT women say they are thriving financially versus 39% of non-LGBT women. Transgender women are nearly four times as likely than the general population to have yearly incomes of $10,000 or less.
- LGBT women of color, older LGBT women and LGBT women raising children are particularly vulnerable. African American and Latina women in same-sex couples are three and two times more likely, respectively, to be poor than White women in same-sex couples. Same-sex female couples ages 65 and above have nearly twice the poverty rate of comparable married opposite-sex couples. Fifteen percent of female same-sex couples raising children are in poverty, versus 9% of married opposite-sex couples with children.
LGBT WOMEN CONFRONT BURDENS FROM STIGMA AND DISCRIMINATION
- JOBS: LGBT women struggle to find and keep good jobs. LGBT women face discrimination when looking for work and on the job, leading to lower pay and fewer advancement opportunities. Workplaces also may be unwelcoming, hostile, or physically unsafe. Transgender women face added challenges because they often cannot obtain accurate identity documents necessary for work.
- HEALTH: LGBT women face challenges to good health that impact economic security. Healthcare can be more costly for LGBT women because of discriminatory laws, discrimination by providers, insurance exclusions for transgender people, and inadequate reproductive health coverage. The result: LGBT women are at greater risk for health problems that can affect quality of life and threaten their ability to work, and must often pay higher healthcare costs.
- FAMILY RECOGNITION: Lack of support for LGBT women and their families results in higher costs. In many states, LGBT women still are not able to legally marry their partner or establish legal ties to their children. This means they may not be able to access affordable health insurance, safety net programs meant to keep families out of poverty, and job-protected leave to care for a sick partner. Like all women in the U.S., too, LGBT women often are forced by law to make difficult choices that can threaten their family’s economic security. The U.S., for example, is the only developed country that does not offer paid parental leave.
Looking more closely at child-related topics, the report notes that when starting a family, LGBT women may not be able to access a partner’s private insurance. They must instead rely on their eligibility for public coverage or pay out of pocket. Without insurance, the average price for a vaginal birth in a hospital is approximately $30,000; for cesarean birth, it is $50,000.
LGBT nonbiological, non-adoptive parents in many states must also choose between being legal strangers to their children or paying legal fees to obtain what rights they can. States in the South are more likely than those in other regions to deny parental rights—even though same-sex couples in the South have higher rates of childrearing than those in other regions.
A mother who is not legally the parent of her child may also not be able to qualify for federal assistance or certain child-related tax credits, limiting her family’s ability to pay for child care. And many LGBT women, particularly transgender women, may work in low-wage jobs that do not offer flexible or regular schedules that allow for planning of childcare.
It’s easy to get bummed out by reports like this—and in a way, that’s good, as it may motivate us to work for change. At the same time, it helps to remember all of the LGBT women who are raising families despite these challenges, and to find hope in their strength.
What can we do about these obstacles? The report recommends LGBT-inclusive legislation for increased family recognition; job-protected paid leave to care for a spouse, child, or other close family member; affordable child care; flexible work schedules (and advance notice of work schedules); better enforcement of pregnancy discrimination; and better accommodations for pregnant workers.
Most of these items are not LGBT specific, but will require us to work in coalition with other social justice movements. The Movement Advancement Project and the Center for American Progress have given us an example of how this can be done by issuing this report in partnership with 9to5, A Better Balance, Center for Community Change, Center for Popular Democracy, Family Values @ Work, Forward Together, Legal Momentum, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, National Association of Social Workers, National Center for Transgender Equality, National Education Association, National LGBTQ Task Force, National Partnership for Women & Families, National Women’s Law Center, Re:Gender, Transgender Law Center, and UltraViolet.
Go read the whole report if you have the time, for it raises a host of other issues and details that I haven’t covered here.
