Queer(y)ing care : queer families & in-home child care arrangements

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Queer(y)ing Care:

Queer Families & In-Home Child Care Arrangements

by Kathryn Hinchey Wise

MSc Thesis in Sociology: Social Policy & Social Problems University of Amsterdam Graduate School of Social Sciences Amsterdam, Netherlands Student #11185724 Date of Submission: 24 September 2018 Thesis Supervisor dr Christian Broer Second Reader: dr H.M.W. Bos

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Queering Care Hinchey-Wise 1

Abstract

This thesis research project explores the experiences of and interactions between queer families and care workers in home-based contexts. Existing research explores lived experiences of care workers and queer families through the lenses of symbolic interactionism, queer, and

intersectionality theories, this study applies a similar theoretical framework to in-home childcare relationships. Drawing on a 78 open ended survey responses and 20 semi-structured interviews with queer parents and care workers, my mixed-methods research builds on the existing literature on queer family life. This research sought to answer the questions, What kind of “home-based” childcare arrangements do queer families and care workers use? What risk and protective factors are experienced and under which conditions they can thrive given adversity?

My participants used a diverse set of arrangements that I classified into three categories: 1. Paid In Home Care, 2. Alternative In-Home Care Partnerships, and 3. In Home Day Care Centers. The factors structuring these arrangements were also diverse and I found that queer families in the US stand at the intersection of many forms of vulnerability. Risk factors included political contexts, access to resources, and the intersection of multiple marginalized identities. Due to the lack of consistent legislation from state to state and even city to city, queer families are subjected to many levels of policy that most US families are able to take for granted. The consequences of this

patchwork include exposure to stigmatization and unequal access to resources like legal protections or queer communities.

Protective factors were also a condition for resilient queer families. In order to enhance personal and family well-being, I observed intentional and unintentional protection processes. Parents screen for affirming care intentionally through disclosure in ads, specific interview questions, and community references that they assume establish shared values. My participants thrived when connected to a community of support, online and in person. One element of this project has been the development of a 230 member closed Facebook group, ‘Unicorn Families and Allies’ where carers can connect and share resources.

I found that my participants thrive through a dynamic process of adaptation to their circumstances and the needs of the children in their care. I believe that the combination of these processes produces family and individual resilience, affirming care arrangements, and egalitarian work environments for carers. While looking to define a “unicorn family”, this work considers what can be learned when domestic lives of queer families and their care workers challenges the

heteronormativity prevalent in dominant discourses of care work and family life. My participants experiences of how queer parents and their care workers divide and arrange their caregiving roles and relationships contributes a much needed window into the homes of some of America’s most resilient families.

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This thesis project is submitted...

In honor of my grandfather, Thomas Repici who has made my dreams possible over

and over and teaches me to keep asking “while we are here, what can we do for others?”

&

In memory of Dr. Kelly Ward for inspiring me, guiding me, and giving me the

motivation to keep walking no matter what flies our way.

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Acknowledgements

First, I want to acknowledge both my survey respondents and my interviewees for taking the time to tell me more about how you and your families experience care. Thank you to my interviewees for bringing me into your lives and sharing stories of strength and resilence. In the current political climate, many marginalized people are feeling the effects of stigma and intolerance in a new and raw way. Thank you doing the emotional labor of being vulnerable for a sociological research project and for creating our unicorn family community with me.

My first supervisor and advocate, Christian Broer for challenging me to interrogate my own

interpretations of the world and for your guidance with analyzing the experiences others shared with me. I would not have been able to complete this project without your flexibility and understanding during a very challenging year.

My second supervisor and this research’s theoretical inspiration, Henny Bos. Thank you for modeling a deep dedication to academia and activism’s positive role in our continued resilience as queer families. I had never been introduced to the idea that my own resilience and the resilience of my community was a process until I was introduced to your work. I am so grateful that you took a chance on this work while simultaneously shaping the context of the work itself in our community on a global stage. Most of all, thank you for making headlines breaking up the darkening horizon for queer families and the difficulties I felt doing this research while negative news kept breaking.

To all of my formal & informal MBs, DBs, & NKs- This work could not have happened if I was

not a part of your stories.

Emil, Anja, Ryan, Will, Marlo, Raymond, Yonah, Odelia, Azzi, Jeanne, Emilien, Zoe, Daisy, Henry, Lucy, Dylan, Jake, Trevor, Dailey, Logan, Pt, Kanen, Maia, & Lex- helping to raise all of you and the chance to be a part of your families gave me the inspiration & drive to start and finish this work.

To my unicorn family-bio & logical- I love you all. Resilience is not a character trait but a dynamic process in my life because I’ve learned from you all: Mom, Dad, Grandmom, Michael,

Derry, Grandma Carole, Briana, Allie, Kathy, Kate, Carmen, Amber, Matty, Ezra, Jenn, Olivia, Ariana, Sarah, Maria, Shannon, Emily, Jo, Jac, Kyle, Sam, Noa, Lucy, Sofi, Steph, Anne, Chris, Lauren, Mike, Kim, Kevin, and all the many Hincheys (especially Joe & baby J) and Repicis.

Finally, I am incredibly grateful to Celeste, Fawkes, Dobby, & Indy for being my queer family and my cheering section no matter what. Lilo, I love you and I couldn’t queer the world everyday without your unconditional support. Thank you for being the reason I know fear is only a verb if you let it be.

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Chapter 1: Queering Care: LGBTQ Families & Care Workers

1.1 Introduction

In the wake of sweeping policy changes, conservative judicial rulings and the announced retirement of Judge Kennedy from the United States Supreme Court tensions have continued to increase in the lives of my participants. On the Facebook groups for parents that I joined for this study there begin to be multiple posts from terrified clear families seeking resources, sharing their fears and frustration and even stories of increased blatant discrimination against themselves and their families. The posts in multiple groups this summer asking other families for advice increased as the summer progressed. The day after Justice Kennedy’s retirement was announced multiple groups had similar posts like the ones above. These included examples such as one parent asking “With all the exit plan discussion, I'm curious, what are you looking for as signs it's time to get out of the US?” and another writing “Since it's getting a little too 'Handmaids Tale' for me....Those of you who've moved outside of the U.S.... Where do we start?” I believe these are examples of the most interesting type of protective processes I found, online collaboration & sharing in close Facebook groups.

Within the social sciences, decades of research has established that parents who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) raise thriving, healthy families in the US and abroad (Bos et al, 2016; Cloughessy et al, 2017; Few et al, 2016 ; Gunn, 2011; Noyes, 2007; Oakley et al, 2017; Wheeler et al, 2017; Van Rijn-Van Gelderen, 2015). The number of queer people opting for parenthood is increasing as more queer people choose to have children within the context of an openly queer lifestyle (Wilton, 1999). However, the majority of current research on interactions between queer families and society is centered “outside the "protective capsule" (Goffman, 1963: 32) of knowing family or friends” (Cloughessy et al, 2017: 1) in public settings. This research project deconstructs the in-home experiences of how queer parents, “Early Childhood Education & Care” (ECEC) workers, and families interact and work together to create resilient families (Adamson, 2017: 25).

My care work career and specifically my personal experience in online care worker

communities led me to this research. I chose the name "Unicorn Families," a colloquial term used in care work communities for a “perfect family.” Within this study, it is defined as a collaborative and intersectional model of care work. My research analyzes protective strategies, risk factors, and positive adaptation to stigma by carers. Through interviews and an open ended survey, I identified queer ruptures within all of these situations. According to my respondents, queer parents and their care workers react to subjection with resilience and strength. Many overtly report that they teach and model resilience for their children so they too can be resilient when facing stigmatization, a form of social reproduction (Davies and Robinson, 2013). In my analysis, I will weave the stories of the

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queer families in my participant group with previous research on queer families’ strategies of socialization, to explore the complications of family, and vulnerability in the current US political landscape. I believe that by focusing on LGBTQ+ families’ responses and techniques of self we can "queer" notions of care, family, and parenthood.

My research has found that the conditions for thriving are intentionally created through direct collaboration with their care workers and by creating an egalitarian arrangement. When families experienced stigma, they used individual, family, and community level protective processes, to increase the resiliency outcomes for themselves and their children. I learned that hegemonic ideals can be disrupted and actively challenged. Families were able to create better environments for their family despite stigma and subjectification by engaging in a querying processes with their care workers.

1.2 Relevance of Empirical Study

This research has been carried out during a period of rapidly changing and growing socio-political tension in the United States. Within the past year, there has been an increase violence and loss of civil rights for LGBTQ+ parents and families. Stakes are higher than ever in the public realm and this research is crucial. I want to overall acknowledge the serious contribution of the US

government to the pain and stigma experienced daily by all queer Americans, within my home country. The current political climate in the US and the rise of nationalism globally puts these vulnerable actors in contact with increased stigmatization (Garrison et al., 2018). Queer families and domestic care workers are both at a higher risk under the conservative Trump administration and must increasingly engage in protective socialization strategies to reduce stigma and precarity.

Childcare needs are rising as more parents work. In families with two working parents, parents spend 115 hours per week, on average, out of the home and away from children (Adamson, 2017; MacDonald, 2010). In the United States, an estimated 2 to 10 million kids are being raised in queer families (Few et al, 2016: 74) and 37% of LGBTQ adults identify as a parent (Noyes, 2007: 2). “According to various surveys, at least one quarter and as many as half of transgender people have biological children” (Ditrich, et al 2017:399). The unclear statistics of LGBTQ families and in-home care workers make more solid statistical analysis difficult, if not impossible.

The family is one of the primary vehicles of social reproduction and therefore researchers have argued hegemonic ideals are reinforced within families (Chevrette, 2013: 173). This study explored the experiences of and interactions between queer families and care workers in home-based contexts. Although care work is one of the oldest forms of paid and unpaid labor in history, it is also still incredibly stigmatized. The issue of stigma has long been cast as only relevant to individuals doing invisible care worker within a certain family. Domestic work is always studied as between one worker and their employers. Many researchers of care-work look at the relationships of the parents & ECEC providers but I believe their analysis should be extended into how these relationships can

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redefine ideals of caring to arrangements of mutual respect and shared advocacy (Adamson, 2017; Abrahamson, 2017; MacDonald, 2011; Wu, 2016).

1.3 Methodology of Empirical Study

This research consisted of an online survey and open-ended interviews that explored the dynamics of in-home child care and the nature of the relationships between queer parents and care workers. I also looked to define if families and care workers intentionally aim to queer hegemonic narratives of caring and ideal families. I distributed my online survey through the URL,

www.unicornfamilies.com. The survey was accessed by parents and care workers affected by a wide range of local, state, and municipal policy. Interview transcripts were produced and subjected to discourse analysis. A close reading sought to identify common themes such as when stigmatization or queering ideal types were in play (Gunn, 2011:285). I recruited a sample of in-home caregivers termed “queer parents” and “care workers” (cw) who have parented or worked with children (between the ages of 0-18) being raised in a queer family setting.

I found that queer families in the US stand at the intersection of many forms of vulnerability and their childcare needs are shaped by this. Due to the lack of consistent legislation from state to state and even city to city, queer families are subjected to many levels of policy that the majority of families in the US are able to take for granted. The consequences of this patchwork include exposure to stigmatization and unequal access to resources like legal protections or queer communities. Consumption of expensive “Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART)” like surrogacy or in vitro fertilization are increasingly encouraged, but only in states where more liberal policies prevail (Garwood, 2016).

Generally, families (and their care workers) with more financial resources had access to more types of care arrangements and protection strategies. However, if the parents fostered they had significantly less control over the process. Within the foster system, ECEC policy prevents queer families access to the queered ruptures accessed by those who use an IHCW’s and pay out of pocket. Only one queer family in my research formed through fostering, reported an AFI above $60,000. Fulltime IHCW was not even on the radar as a potential protection strategy for families unable to afford $500 to $1,700 weekly for an in home caregiver expenses. LGBTQ parents experience Minority Stress (discrimination and stigmatization through policy, social, and environmental

experiences). LGBTQ care workers also experience increased adversity. Care workers with multiple minority identities are often stigmatized and in precarious working conditions.

My theoretical framework was two fold. My first theoretical lens is a combination of symbolic interactionist theories. My second lens is based in queer and intersectionality theories and identifies if and how these families “queer” ideas of caregiving, family and domestic labor. Queer theory argues that “queer” is both an adjective and a verb. Queer theory looks at the grey areas within

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definitions (Chevrette, 2013), assumptions of identity politics, deconstructs gender politics, and centers radical subversion and deconstruction of ideal types. My use of a queer theory lens will explore how nannies, parents, and children often engage in named queer ruptures and queering processes (Few et al, 2016:82). My research uncovers queering family structures, caregiving, ideal types, and diversity in the definition of what makes someone a "parent".

In my analysis, I followed Goffman’s theory of stigmatization while studying whether queer families intentionally buffer their children and themselves from experiences of stigma (Wheeler et al, 2017). In Chapter 6, I will deconstruct the protective strategies that parents and caregivers in queer families use to deal with stigmatization. I found that a queer family identity is a factor in care work experiences and access. I found that in-home care worker interviewees had exceptionally positive experiences while caring for queer families. The care workers I interviewed were clear that they had much lower levels of recognition deficit in these situations and did not mention many resistance strategies.

De Lira and de Morais completed a comprehensive literature review of international resilience studies within LGB populations, “Resilience in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual (LGB)

Populations: An Integrative Literature Review”. (2018). As my research progressed, I have connected deeply with the idea that resilience in the face of adversity is not a character trait but an intricate process and response to suffering and marginalization. I used their framework and indicators when identifying protection and risk factors. My discussion and conclusions mirror their explanation of the process of resilience. I believe my research has something to contribute to each of the three main dimensions of resilience within current scholarship: individual, family, and community resilience. The potential contribution of these queer families to expand on understandings of family protection strategies is worthy of continued research with my target populations. The parents in my study expressed that they were motivated to action on behalf of their family by their feelings of anger and fear.

In much of the existing literature one thing is very clear: children in queer families are a hard-fought for blessing. Parents navigate major barriers and are shown to actively protect their families at every level. My sample reflects the in-group diversity of these families and I worked to include rural families, trans-parented families, queer parents of color, and poor LGBTQ people. Parents in the geographical regions of the US MidWest, Mountain-West, and South are more likely to have a family but less likely to be studied (Wheeler et al., 2017:14). My interview participants represent these areas well with 12 of my 20 interviewees hailing from these three regions. I have attached a geographic breakdown of my participants in Figure 1.

The application of my theoretical framework within the micro-context of queer families centered specific themes such as stigma, pride and definitions or understandings of everyone's roles in processes of adaptation. I argue this research highlights the potential strengths of queering care work and the benefits of intentional, egalitarian, and intersectional partnerships. This research challenges us

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to ask parents and caregivers how ideal types can be redefined. These new queered ideal types might then be applied to family and ECE studies in a multidisciplinary way as called for by intersectional scholars (Few et al, 2016; McCall, 2005)

1.4 LGBTQ Families in America: Context of this Study

Public information and research is all limited in its generalizability because there are no real statistics or measurements of diverse families. The US Census defines family strictly and does not ask about sexual orientation or gender identity so policy makers rely on unclear statistics (Badgett et al., 2013:6) It was recently announced that the Obama administration’s decision to include SOGIE questions on the 2020 was thrown out by the Trump administration (Ticona et al., 2018) These unclear statistics and legal deficits leave queer families incredibly vulnerable. Most urgently, we need to learn more about the higher stakes and less legal protections for poly-, single parented, trans-parented, families of color, rural families, and poor queer families. After undertaking this research, I have become overwhelmed with anxiety and anger about the prospects of returning home to my native United States as a young lesbian hoping to start a family soon.

When the United States Supreme Court held that same-sex couples who are legally married should receive all rights of legally married different sex couples this included the so-called

‘presumption of parenthood’ which grants both parents legal recognition as parents for a child born within a marriage. One result of this ruling is that both birth-parent and spouses are listed on the birth certificate but this is not sufficient enough to prove parentage across all 50 states. Despite this ruling, several states refuse to extend parental recognition to children and parents conceived using donor insemination born in same-sex marriages (MAP 2018) by listing them on birth certificates. The marriage ruling also codified that all states that permit joint adoption by married couples must extend this right to married couples. However there are multiple states with laws that permit taxpayer funded agencies to discriminate against queer people including these couples in the foster care system (HRC, 2017).

Queer parents are living within a political context where some (19) states have laws ensuring that queer parents interested in acting as foster parents are not discriminated against based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Other states including 7 within the past 5 years, have laws allowing agencies contracted and receiving state-funded to discriminate against queer parents in their child placing processes (MAP, 2018). Belle, a self described “lesbian mom” explained how the foster care system was no use when trying to understand the potential implications of “religious freedom” policies for child-welfare agencies or foster families:

“Belle: So it’s just, it's an interesting place to be a queer couple or person trying to foster, because the county knows they can't screw up, because they're gonna be in trouble, but then it's, it’s really just like they don't know what to do…most of our issues with them and, and the difficulties that we've had with fostering and adopting haven't had anything to do with being queer. They just don't, they're just super

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dysfunctional. Um, it has been interesting. There was a bill that was proposed, like lots of other states have had to, you know, religious liberty to… blah, blah, blah…

I: Yeah like refuse service at daycares?

Belle: And it was interesting. I’ve been trying to talk about it. Like the people who work for DFACS could not explain what it meant.”

1.5 Research Questions

Research Question #1: What kind of “home-based” childcare arrangements do queer

families and care workers use?

Research Question #1, Subquestion A: What risk factors and types of adversity are these

arrangements influenced by?

Research Question #1, Subquestion B: How do parents & care workers integrate protective

factors and mechanisms into care arrangements?

Research Question #2: Under which conditions can queer families and care workers thrive

given adversity?

Research Question #3: What can we learn by queering ideal types and from collaborative,

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Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework

2.1 Literature Review: LGBTQ+ Families

"As Berkowitz (2009) concluded about theorizing lesbian and gay parenting, 'We as scholars still have much to learn from diverse family constellations. We researchers [family scholars] should keep in mind the implications our treatment of lesbian and gay parenting has on the broader scholarship of gender, sexuality, and families.... After all, just as Judith Stacey (1996) argued, all our families are queer; lesbian and gay families simply show us this with added intensity.”- (Few et al. 2016:75) LGBTQ + or "queer" families are a very broad community full of diverse people and family formations (Noyes, 2007: 46). There are many terms and labels used for who this research identifies as "queer parents": some terms are "legal parent," "biological parent," "social parent," "adoptive parent" (Noyes, 2007; Wheeler et al, 2017). My research focused on childcare work happening in the homes of “queer” families or care workers. In everyday language, “queer” means unusual or odd, something diverging from what is usual (Few et al., 2016). Queer theory has become an overarching term loosely used to signify those who do not fit into heterosexual or cisgender identity categories (Few et al., 2016). Queer is a complicated term because it has historically been used as a derogatory descriptor of LGBTQ people but it has been reclaimed by those against whom it has been used.

I refer to all LGBTQ parents and care workers in my sample as “queer" families so as to explore the umbrella of parents and care workers who share common experiences with childcare while having an LGBTQ + identity. However, this does not mean that all of the participants self identify as “queer” and I have documented the distribution of parents self-identifying with labels such as “gay”, “transgender”, “lesbian”, or "gender nonconforming" (GNC) in my participant tables based on their self identification during the survey or interview in Figure 2.

The current literature about queer parenting cites the complexities of their subject position, the inequalities in recognition and intelligibility in relation to family, friends, and communities, and the vulnerabilities and fears attached to parenting, often with little or no legal recognition or

protections (Hequembourg, 2007). Transgender and non-binary parents are at an increased risk of physical violence, institutional barriers, and stigmatization (Dierckx et al, 2017).

One example of power held over queer families in ECEC contexts is the "expectation" that LGBTQ parents and their young children be resilient and responsible for the reaction they have to maltreatment (Davies and Robinson, 2013). This unfair positioning of children is the notion that they are responsible for educating their teachers and peers, ignoring bullying, and having the language to advocate for their family’s inclusion in the curriculum and community. State and national policy differences are another major distal and proximal stressor through processes influencing families. Killian explains:

“Same-sex couples are very affected by geography. That is, both their state of residence and, if they travel or commute, the state in which they are physically standing can impact whether or not their loved ones are defined as relatives under the law. This has far-reaching implications that those who do

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not live on such shifting ground may struggle to comprehend. Areas of law such as adoption and parenting rights, the extension of benefits, health care decision making, and relationship recognition differ across state lines, making life decisions such as where one lives, where one works, and where one adopts quite significant..”- (Killian, 2010: 10)

Families are subject to legal systems that vary by state (Wheeler et al, 2017: 2) regarding policies on name changes, second parent adoptions, foster care and adoption eligibility, and other state mechanisms. These inequalities privilege queer parents who are financially secure and can choose to employ childcare providers in their home. These families with more legal protection and recognized parental rights are largely white, financially secure lesbian or gay parented families, living in liberal urban areas.

Despite the growing visibility of alternative family structures such as blended families or single parent households, in the US an “ideal family” is understood as a family parented by two heterosexual, opposite sex, monogamously married adults. Our prevailing notion of heteronormative family structures as “best” is accompanied by a patriarchal division of housework, care work, and emotional work divided in ways that continue to disempower care workers and female-identified parents (Chevrette, 2013:173).

Queer parents must deal with the complexities arising from a lack of clear norms for their family roles, social stigmatization, and their individual experiences of coming out both as a queer person to society and as a parent within the queer community. Parenting rearranges the closet and makes disclosure more risky because there are higher levels of scrutiny for queer parents. According to Cloughessy et al., negative attitudes towards queer parents are more persistent than intolerance of LGBTQ people generally. Most people still think it is not in the child's best interest to have queer parents and historically, queerness was grounds for custody loss (Diertrich et al, 2017).

Due to the lack of cultural narratives of queer parenting, much of this could be related to a simple lack of knowledge (Oakley et al., 2017). Queer people's experience within childcare is a topic that is much too large to address in the scope of my thesis research paper but I hope my data can contribute to the voids in the fields of family studies and domestic labor studies.

I extend current literature and argue that both care workers and queer parents are agents of socialization and resilience. Researchers like Wheeler, Oakley, and Cloughssey argue that much of the stigmatization or painful interactions and miscommunications between teachers and parents could be combated through increased knowledge and sharing. Disclosure of their identity is an everyday experience for queer families. Oakley explores how parents are stigmatized in school environments and in public generally (Oakley et al., 2017). This research adds care workers’ experiences to this line of analysis.

Oakley et al wrote extensively on gay and lesbian parenting practices as "cultural

socialization." This refers to the processes by which parents communicate cultural values, beliefs, customs, and behaviors to their kids (Oakley et al., 2017). Wheeler et al. call these strategies of

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socialization by the parents (Wheeler et al, 2017:5). These strategies or actions include legal strategies, increased sociopolitical awareness, and a wide variety of others (Wheeler et al, 2017:4). Queer parents in Oakley’s work reported using at least three protection strategies (Wheeler et al, 2017: 13) My research aimed to identify which kinds of strategies parents and care workers use and how they employ these strategies within this private context.

These coping mechanisms are shown to create family systems where children can deal with negative experiences of stigma and actively resist and challenge ideas of positive family conception as exclusively heterosexual. Queer parents often send their kids to specific LGBTQ family programming so their children will get exposure to families like theirs to counteract stigma (Noyes, 2007: 30). However, not everyone has access to environmental strategies like a local queer community. There is unequal access to protective strategies because of laws and resources. This unequal distribution is reflective of intersections between class status and safety (Wheeler et al, 2017:13). Wheeler emphasizes that because of the skewed data towards white urban families, there are most likely undiscovered strategies and innovative research is still needed (Wheeler et al, 2017: 14). More educational resources that give examples of strategies queer families use are also necessary (Wheeler et al, 2017:14) and my contributes to the current gap:

“Educational resources for GLBTQ couples and individuals considering becoming parents may want to include examples of some of these strategies that GLBTQ families utilize, and include the estimated costs and extensive planning required for legal custodial strategies. Although some of these strategies may be common (such as creating a hyphenated or family name), the processes by which families create rules and norms are often private. Educating others about the fear and uncertainty that many GLBTQ parents experience in building their families could be beneficial in supporting more positive public attitudes toward GLBTQ parenting and creating more momentum for safeguarding the relationships between children and their GLBTQ parents.” - (Wheeler et al, 2017:14)

2.2 Literature Review: Domestic Care Work

Across the globe, one in every 13 women work in domestic labor and there are an estimated 60 million domestic workers in total (Adamson, 2017). Domestic care workers, like queer parents, live diverse lives and must also cope with stigma from employers, community, and family members. Actively managing their experiences of stigmatization likely affects how LGBTQ parents manage their care workers and care work agreements. I hope to find that queer families are naturally inclined towards structures like Abrahamson's "family-friendliness" arrangement and that they are

collaborative with their in-home care workers to empower everyone in their roles (Abrahamson and Wehner, 2006: 159).

Within the context of domestic work studies, interpersonal dynamics and stigma are developed from samples primarily of heterosexual, middle to upper class, white families and their "care workers" (Few et al., 2016; MacDonald, 2010). One example is Cameron MacDonald’s Shadow Mothers, which examines what it means to be a working parent and the societal pressures influencing what it means to outsource care work. Care workers say that they feel as though society in general

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does not take their work seriously and they resist the label of "unskilled worker" (MacDonald, 2010:111). Care workers cope with high levels of stigmatization from employers, parents, and their own family members (Adamson, 2017; Greenfield et al, 2011; MacDonald, 2010; Souralova, 2017; Wu, 2016; Wrigley,1999).

MacDonald argues that "recognition deficit" causes care workers to participate in resistance techniques (2010: 109). Many care workers feel that they cannot communicate with employers. These feelings are derived from direct interactions in which the care workers advice or experience is not valued. If the care worker presents an idea or suggestion, many parents take it as a threat to their parenting skills and ignore the care worker’s advice, creating many problems in the workplace.

MacDonald argues that the struggle to be the ideal caretaker is similar to the struggle

employers feel to be the ideal parent. Both parties then end up devaluing the other’s work in their race to be the penultimate caregiver (2010:162-163). This struggle to mold to the cultural ideal that there can only be one parent who is effective goes against the very nature of care work, yet both parents and care workers ascribe to this unrealistic family structure in different ways. MacDonald declares,

“If the only way that each party can value her contribution to a mutual endeavor is to devalue the other’s contribution, each participates in a downward spiral of diminishing recognition”

(2010:163). Ascribing to ideals that cannot be attained in a care worker-employer situation leads to bad communication, stress, anxiety, and a lesser quality of care and stability for the children.

According to Tina Wu, close to half of US ‘nannies’ are white, young people in a precarious labor market (Wu, 2016). This group of care workers is said to not view their care work as a part of their identity or career goals (Wu, 2016). In my personal experience in online care worker forums many of my fellow care workers are proud of their work and deeply connected with their “NK”s (Nanny Kids), “DB” & “MB”s (Dad & Mom Bosses). My participants experiences counter the existing narratives that suggest this cohort does not values their work through sharing the experiences of my participant care workers who all expressed pride and value in their care work.

My research contributes to calls for critiquing and extending classical care and family studies. MacDonald states that many of the issues that care workers and "mother-employers" face are due to the mother’s inexperience with relating to people from other backgrounds (MacDonald 81). By working for queer families, the queer care workers I interviewed buffered themselves from this. There is little scholarship that directly speaks to queer families and domestic care work so I am inspired to continue the long tradition of classic scholarship on domestic work and families.

2.3 Literature Review: ‘Unicorn Families’ Resilient, Collaborative, and Egalitarian

Arrangements

In my research I sought to find what online care worker communities refer to as a “Unicorn Family”. Existing literature on positive adaptation and the benefits of redefining hegemonic ideals

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exists. Researchers into care work have been calling for deconstruction of family structures and redefinition of norms but have left out caregivers. Abrahamson and Wehner's concept of "family-friendliness" models for care work is presented as the natural consequence of changing definitions of care work in families. However, this framework reproduces the devaluation of paid in-home care workers by leaving them out almost entirely-- only the voices of fathers and children are added (2006).

Relationships between caregivers are complex but especially within this diverse context. I will be deconstructing if caregivers intentionally queer child care agreements or named roles and responsibilities. We know from former research that rupturing hegemonic ideal types is necessary for the well-being of all actors. Queer parents are shown to have negotiated egalitarian and care structures by defining their roles within their family in unique ways. A greater proportion of same-sex, dual-earner couples than different-sex couples indicate that they share routine (74% versus 38%) and sick childcare (62% versus 32%) responsibilities (FWI, 2015).

Furthermore MacDonald’s research argues that the healthiest employer/care worker

partnerships are “egalitarian and collaborative partnerships” (MacDonald, 2010). MacDonald claims that when parents and nannies have equal responsibility and authority over what happens in the child's day-to-day life, they work together to decide what is best and build a foundation of mutual respect and two-way communication. In her analysis of parent and care worker interviews, MacDonald identified egalitarian partnerships by looking for four indicators. I was able to use these same indicators when analyzing my data. I will identify if parents and care workers report experiencing “variations in the quality of four relational elements: trust, autonomy, two-way communication, and mutual decision making” (MacDonald, 2010: 207).

2.4 Theoretical Framework

A. Symbolic Interactionism

A symbolic interaction (SI) framework analyzes how people make sense of and interpret their immediate and broader circumstances. Stigmatization, initially theorized by Goffman, is central to my theoretical understanding of queer families and care worker's experience within their micro-level context. This framework illuminates the ways "family" and "care work" are actively constructed (Few et al, 2016: 79). Independently, both care workers and queer families report high levels of

stigmatization and the resulting discrimination has negative effects on psychological well being, particularly for these socio-politically disadvantaged groups (Wheeler et al, 2017:4).

Symbolic interaction theory is successfully used with queer families to identify the processes of socialization and how parenthood is defined within unsupported legal contexts (Few et al,

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2016:79). Stigmatization and vulnerability of queer families is shown to increase the use of coping mechanisms and actively counter a pride deficit through "protective” or “coping strategies" and a dynamic process of resilence (Bos et al, 2016; Noyes, 2007; Oakley et al., 2017; Van Gelderen, 2009; Van Rijn-Van Gelderen, 2015; Wheeler et al, 2017).

B. Queer Theory and Intersectionality

For my second theoretical lense, I am basing my dual addition of queer theory and

intersectionality on Few et al's (2016) "Queer Theory, Intersectionality, and LGBT-Parent Families: Transformative Critical Pedagogy in Family Theory". The authors perform a comprehensive review of LGBTQ family research in school settings and queer community settings. Their research also shows that queer families protective strategies increase intersectional pride. Increased access to queer communities supports the well being of children and their parents. This review, however, does not mention childcare work that happens in the homes of queer families. Few's argument calls for scholars to expand on experiences, not statistics or pathologies of queer families:

“Queer and intersectionality theories open up seemingly boundless opportunities to revise, modify, and expand current knowledge on family functioning. Queer theory facilitates the "transgressive power of resisting" and the questioning of taken-for-granted social categories. Intersectionality provides a framework to explore the intricacies of power dynamics within discriminatory discourses and interactions, whereas queer theory provides a lens to analyze those individual and family processes that transcend normative notions of gender and sexuality identity and development and incite discriminatory practices. Both theories allow family researchers to imagine the multiplicative interactions of social positionalities and identities.” - (Few et al, 2016: 90)

Queer theory alone is not sufficient for this project because it historically focuses on sex and sexuality and leaves gender analysis to those doing feminist inquiry (Chevrette, 2013:172). I believe this is insufficient when looking into care work and queer parenting because gender is a major element of my participants lived experiences. Intersectionality theory stretches queer theory to deal with other marginalized identities such as race, class, and age. My study has to add these categories into my framework because queer families and their caregivers are not a monolithic group.

Intersectionality is necessary for my study because simply layering factors like the race of a care worker or the social class of their parent employers does not give a complete picture. These multiple, interwoven identities uniquely shape each relationship and no one's experience can be called typical as every LGBTQ family deals with different structures of power.

C. Resilience Studies

I also analyzed my data in the growing framework of resilience studies. Resilience as process is studied on individual, family, and community level. One literature review of existing scholarship of resilience in queer contexts claims:

“it is a dynamic and multidimensional process, with forces acting on individual, family, and community levels (Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000; Masten, 2015; Walsh, 2005). This relational perspective

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acknowledges the active influence of the family and community on individual functioning and captures biological, psychological, as well as environmental factors...Resilience is understood as the outcome of a complex and delicate interplay between risk and protective factors, and positive adaptation

(Coimbra, 2008). Risk factors are significant negative life events which increase the likelihood of a negative psychosocial outcome. Protective factors, on the other hand, have the opposite effect. These consist of internal and external factors which contribute to positive outcomes when facing adversity. Positive adaptation, or psychosocial adjustment, as it is often known, refers to the current level of adaptive functioning and may be an indicator or outcome of resilience in the long term (Fergus & Zimmerman, 2005). The process of resilience results from the interplay of risk and protective factors, which gives rise to positive adaptation” -(de Lira1 & de Morais, 2018:273)

Resilience was an important process for my participants and my study found that care workers play a role increasing resilience within families and communities. I found that my

participants thrive through a dynamic process of adaptation to their circumstances and the needs of the children in their care. I believe that the combination of these processes produces family and individual resilience, affirming care arrangements, and egalitarian work environments for carers.

2.5 Standpoint & Motivation

Intersectional analysis was born out of the experiences of women of color fighting for equality as social movement actors themselves. Patricia Hill Collins states, “Social inequality, power, and politics have been primary concerns of intersectionality since its inception” (Hill Collins, 2000: 443). As a self-identified intersectional scholar, I intend to bring this lens to my research project through my academic history and lived experience. As young, queer nanny in Philadelphia my lived experience of queering family and domestic care far preceded my exposure to academia. Like many other domestic workers and queer women, the only information on how to combat stigma and how to create a better home or workplace I had available to me were stories and advice of from other nannies and queer people. Intersectionality is committed to both the meanings of existing categories and to deconstruction of hegemonic norms and ideals and I hope my analysis will address both ends of these (McCall, 2005).

As emphasized in intersectionality theory, I must engage in critical reflexivity when approaching this work (Few et al, 2016:87; McCall, 2005). I have been an ECEC professional as an in-home care worker since 2004 and as support staff in K-12 schools since 2007. I am also a queer woman. I have observed first hand the struggles of queer parents in my community as they work to provide safe and empowering environments for their families.

Confusing and constantly changing laws and social policies have stymied the development of formal networks, governmental support, educational publications and information about queer families, and competent ECEC curriculum and care workers (Cloughessy and Waniganayake, 2014; Fish and Russell, 2018; Wheeler et al, 2017). My research will hopefully transcend these boundaries and increase public awareness about American queer families and their needs.

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Chapter 3: Methodology

I believe that a qualitative approach was the most appropriate means to research queer families and care worker. Interpretive tradition most appropriately matched this research’s deeply personal nature (Hennink, 2011). Studying personal interactions in private spaces can be profoundly personal and complex so interviews the most appropriate means to illuminate these dynamics. My central motivation for engaging in qualitative research is that qualitative research takes participants responses into constant consideration (Hennink et al., 2011: 8). Since parenting and childcare differ in every family, a qualitative analysis allowed me to have flexibility in the methods and structure of analysis. My primary collection method was a semi-structured interview, which according to Bryman, enabled me to have more freedom (Bryman et al., 2012). This helped me identify common themes in interviews from parents in varying contexts.

My inclusion criteria for parents and care workers allowed my participants to identify themselves regardless of legal or societal labels used by others outside their family. I did not screen out for only legally recognized parents. For purposes of this research, parents were included if they saw my recruitment materials, were located in the US, and answered “yes” to: “Are you an LGBTQ+ parent who has employed or arranged in-home childcare for your family regularly while your children were between ages 0-18?” For care workers I asked, “Have you been an in-home care worker to an LGBTQ+ parented family regularly while children were between ages 0-18?”

Since my main method of data collection was interviews, I chose to use the survey data as contextual. In my attempt to inclusively navigate the many types of identities and roles of caring, I did not clearly define of “in-home care” which led to unexpected findings about home-based day care centers. Finally, since survey questions responses were not mandatory, the amount of data collected from respondents was in some cases skewed. Some respondents comprehensively answered questions and others provided virtually no information.

In my survey, I asked parents to identify their role in the family and the roles of those they shared caregiving with. Responses indicated that roles are flexible and participants defined themselves in many different ways. This included what kinds of care were used and how the relationships

between all the adults and kids were understood. I wanted to elevate and empower the care worker’s understandings and definitions in particular, as they were the hardest to find information about.

3.1 Outreach

I recruited this study’s participants using snowball sampling, primarily by posting recruitment graphics and messages on various Facebook group communities for LGBTQ+ parents or care

workers. I was unable to post in all of the originally targeted groups laid out in my research proposal because some groups had changed or unclear policy on research recruitment. I have attached my

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outreach messages in Appendix B, which were sent to parents and care workers belonging to email lists, queer family online groups, and to my personal contacts. Below is the graphic I posted online in

forums and asked my network to share on their social media:

To effectively monitor the analytics of my site’s visitors, I purchased the web address "unicornfamilies.com." Unicorn families is a moniker used in online care worker communities to describe a CW’s ideal work situation. More about the "unicorn families" theme can be found in my discussion chapters. I built my recruitment site using Google tools “Google Sites” & “Google Surveys” and purchased the domain “unicornfamilies.com.” Then, I rerouted the domain to my free google site with the participation survey embedded into the home page. Screenshots of the websites can be found in the methodology appendix.

I also created a private Facebook group named “Unicorn Families & Allies” in March 2018. This closed group is categorized as a “support” community with 238 current members. Additionally, I asked those in my personal community if they were interested, and over 20 of these members referred others. I also posted a link on the third page of my recruitment survey and 37 of my group members joined after filling out the survey.

According to Google Analytics, my site has had 144 “female” visitors and 16 “male” visitors since its launch. Though I have apparently had 16 male users, what that means is unclear to me. Due

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to the nature of the participant group, it is possible that users are categorized in ways that do not match their personal gender identity or expression. Only one survey respondent identified themselves as cismale. I will expand on this limitation further in my exploration of gay fathers and their use of ECEC. Demographic information such as the top cities from which I had users, can also be found in the analytics section of the methodology appendix.

3.2 Open Ended Survey

Since three populations were identified with the potential for intersecting experiences, I decided to combine my open-ended questions, that were originally split into Population A & B, onto one page. This allowed all respondents to answer any questions they felt were important to their experience. It created transparency between respondents, so neither parents nor care workers felt they could not access the questions for the other group. The complete list of questions on the open ended survey are included in Appendix C.

78 of the 83 survey respondents fit the selection criteria of either being 1.) a queer parent or 2.) care worker for a queer family. The eliminated respondents identified themselves as straight or outside of North America. The completed survey represented 23 states, Washington DC, and 7 respondents of unknown locations. 75 of my 78 survey respondents indicated that they would be interested in a follow up interview and 73 of the respondents were identified as eligible for interview participation.

The data from the open-ended survey was incredibly rich and diverse. Parents and care workers affected by a wide range of local, state, and municipal policies, responded to the survey. Coding each respondent required an extensive process due to the amount of short-answer questions that people chose to answer. I did not anticipate such broad participation from so many diverse local contexts. Findings are only intersectional if they include the most vulnerable or least researched groups in past LGBTQ families research, which is why I obtained a geographically and SES diverse selection of participants. I am proud to have a majority of participants living in the three most vulnerable regions of the country.

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Figure 1: US States of Survey Respondents

Location of Respondent # of responses % of LGBT population raising children in state (MAP, 2018) State Unknown 7 --Washington DC 1 15% Arizona 2 27% California* 8 30% Colorado* 11 31% Georgia* 1 29% Florida 1 26% Massachusetts* 6 26% Maryland 1 26% Michigan* 2 31& Minnesota 1 20% Missouri* 4 30% North Carolina 1 26% Nevada 1 39% New York 4 27% Ohio 1 28% Oregon 2 30% Pennsylvania* 16 27% Texas 1 31% Virginia* 2 25% Vermont 1 24% Washington* 3 29% Wisconsin* 1 18%

*=states with interview participant

3.3 Interviewees

Of the 73 interested respondents I contacted, 20 participated in semi-structured interviews, with me, from March to June 2018. Although many initially expressed interest, not all followed through with the second interview. Once respondents scheduled an interview, I sent them my

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demographic survey. The demographic questions from the pre-interview survey are listed in Appendix D.

All but two of these interviews took place virtually and my respondents scheduled interviews using the online scheduling tool Calendly. I had two "crossover" cases where I was able to interview a family and their care worker. I am unsure if all parties knew I was speaking to both and in order to protect confidentiality, I did not reveal the crossover occurrence to participants. Within these two cases, I found interesting data in regards to disclosure and roles. I will expand on this more in my analysis. Overall, I am grateful for the unique perspective these cases contributed.

While I conducted these interviews on Facetime or Google Hangouts, I used a voice recorder application on my iPad "VoiceRecordPro" and uploaded the files directly to my personal, secure Dropbox. I included virtual interviews on programs like Skype, as an option for research to increase the accessibility of my research to all queer families. After researching into some views on the ethics and reliability of Skype, I agree with Hanna (2012) that in some situations it, like my context, the benefits outweigh concerns in regards to digital interactions. In this case, the accessibility of Skype for parents and care workers greatly increased my ability to include families outside of major

metropolitan centers. At the beginning of every interview I obtained participation consent and consent to record the interviews for transcription.

My interviews began with asking a narrative question encouraging my participants to tell me more about their experience of care and who is in their family. I discourage from directing the flow of conversation explicitly and instead ask open-ended questions that address specific domains not already spoken about in there survey responses. These domains included family formation,

community experiences, role defining, and their experiences and interactions with external systems. Originally, my semi-structured interview guide was very similar for both care workers and parents. These original questions can be found in Appendix E. During interviews, I focused my questions on the relationship dynamics between the two populations (parents/ caregivers) and the other members of their family unit. When interviewing parents, I focused on yielding information about factors they believed influence their personal parenting and childcare management style. All respondents were asked what type of childcare structure they used and how this was agreed upon. I asked all participants about their experiences with disclosure, as a queer family and if/how this status affected their screening process.

In interviews with care workers, my questions focused on their observations of family systems and personal interactions with parent-employers and children which as: what strategies and resources they integrate into their work and how involved they are in "typical parenting" activities. Questions focused on their relationship with their employers and if/where they feel they are positioned within the family system. I prompted respondents to expand on what dynamics and experiences were most relevant and interesting to them personally.

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While in the process of interviewing, I added several questions including, “Who took care of you growing up?” This was a good way to get participants thinking about their own experience with care and how that affected their choices as an adult. None of the participants shared that their families had used full time In-HCW and most reported that they had been in the care of family as young children. Upon completion of each interview, I asked all of my interviewees if it was possible to follow up with them later. Everyone agreed. I wanted to keep lines of communication open as I completed the analysis and transcription of my qualitative data.

After the interviews were completed they were transcribed without names or any other information that could be used to identify the subjects so as to best preserve confidentiality. During the transcription process, in order to preserve confidentiality I double locked the information collected on my personal hard drive and dropbox. After each transcription was completed, I listened one final time and then deleted the original audio file from my local computer.

3.4 Data Analysis

I used my topic list and interview guide to help identify common themes and strategies used to combat stigma and queering types of care (Hennink et al., 2011: 218). Although some sociologists recommended coding when data collection and interviewing is completed, I coded while in the process of researching. I used my personal lived experiences as a queer woman and care worker, as well as the experiences shared with me to develop over 400 codes on Atlas.ti. My professional experience as a care worker and queer activist was absolutely an asset to developing deductive codes. This helped me to identify important experiences relevant to queer and intersectional theory (Hennink et al., 2011:128).

First, the interviews were open-coded inductively in the tradition of grounded theory; that is, codes were formed through the reading and analyzing process Then, in the second phase, the codes were structured with specific attention to protective strategies, risk factors and stigma experiences, and both intentional & unintentional ruptures

I correctly predicted that my experience as a care worker help me create codes thematic codes about parent-care worker relationships. However, my experience was limited in regards to family planning, which ultimately drew out my analysis process. Still, I was privileged as a care worker and did not come into contact with many LGBTQ people who became parents through foster/adoption. I spent a lot of time learning about different pathways to parenthood and their influence on the day-to-day lives of queer families. I then coded these experiences as protective strategies, stigmatization experiences, and risk factors on an individual, community, and family level.

Due to the nature of queer parenthood and adoption rights, I tracked the ever-changing political climate in America, during the process of coding. This was especially relevant because policies about anti-discrimination, family migration, so called “religious liberty” bills, affect all of the

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families in my study. These types of policies changed on a daily or weekly basis. I remained engaged with my some of the participants in my Unicorn Families Facebook group. Within the group, I shared resources and articles as I discovered them. This helped me explore both the academic and emotional side to conducting this research in this particular climate. For example, I posted resources such as a new public awareness campaign regarding the lack of anti-discrimination laws (www.beyondido.org) and even made an attempt at public sociology by recording a Facebook live reaction hours after the Alderholt Amendement passed out of committee in Congress.

3.5 Limitations & Sample Bias

I’m unable to do a true mixed-methods statistical analysis of families because I do not have consistent response rates or demographic information for each survey respondent. In hindsight, I wish that I had understood the potential of completing a mixed methods analysis of who took the time to answer my survey. A quantitative analysis about the varying protection strategies parents use based on differing risk factors in these geographic areas would have been a great contribution to the current LGBTQ family studies field.

Despite my small sample size, I believe my research is generalizable to other diverse family experiences. Intersectional scholars like Mohanty, introduced me to micro-contexts and their generalizability potential that seems in contradiction to classic sociological understanding of limitations (Chevrette, 2013: 182). Intersectionality pedagogy centers on the needs of marginalized groups and explores how localized data can illuminate universals. This is done through research methodologies that "read up the ladder of privilege" and have inspired my work out operationalization and analysis (Chevrette, 2013: 182). Small says that validity is determined by how developed an analysis is, not how representative the study is of society at large (2009). My main generalizability concerns have to do with the informal nature of in-home care. There are no clear statistics of how many queer families or care workers work together, so I relied on direct contact through the internet.

However, I believe that these limitations on my data are not debilitating and that my research will still contribute new and important information to a multidisciplinary group of social science research such as family studies and queer theory. My research will contribute to family studies and benefit queer families due to its uniqueness in relation to other approaches and frameworks. Previous work explores parenting outcomes within queer families and children's well-being. I want to focus on personal experiences. First, my research is not a comparison of queer families and straight families, an approach that I found extremely common in prior literature. These comparative studies often

pathologize differences and similarities of queer families and reinforce heteronormative

understandings of what a "normal" family is (Chevrette, 2013: 175). Another blind spot that I believe my research into childcare experiences might help resolve, is the popularity of macro-level research

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that focus on the structures of queer families and parental relationships but not the micro-level processes within families (Oakley et al., 2017: 58).

It goes without saying that this is sincerely troubling, as the saying goes ‘you can’t be what you cannot see.’ If queer stories are not a part of the history of childcare and domestic care work how will future queer parents learn the experiences and lessons learned by those who came before them? What happens when well-meaning care providers confront family structures and identities that are unfamiliar to them?

3.6 Interview Participants

In total, I completed 20 interviews with parents and care workers. Four of my parent participants were co-parents with another participant, but their interviews took place individually.

My research found a diverse population of care workers and parents who identified in many ways. Findings are only intersectional if they include the most vulnerable or least researched groups in past scholarship, which is why I obtained a diverse geographically and SES selection of

participants.

In all cases of queer parenting, there are local, state, and federal policy implications and I am interested in the ways parents have to deal with a patchwork of legal and societal constraints. This patchwork means that an LGBTQ participant might be recognized as a full parent in one state, but a simple drive over a state line can legally transform their child into a stranger (Harris, 2017). This is further complicated by the lack of federal level clarity or protections for legal parenthood. The localities of my participants and their family choices of pathways of family formation were predictors of access to care work arrangements and how they defined their care roles and ideas of family.

In order to maintain confidentiality instead of listing exact states I will identify my interviewees by region and their legal context based on Baumle & Compton's three classification categories from their book, Legalizing LGBT Families (2015). The three classifications are legally positive, legally negative, and legally neutral (Baumle & Compton, 2015:33). In Appendix, I have broken down the interviewees by the region of the US that the respondents identified as their location. The five geographic regions I am using are Northeastern/Mid-Atlantic, Mid-Western, Southern, Mountain West, and Pacific West.

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Figure 2: Participant Breakdown By Geographic Region

Northeast US Participants

Name* Participant

Type Sexual Orientation Gender Identity/Expression Age Race Type of State AFI

Elizabeth Queer Parent Lesbian (Cis)Female White Positive $125k Jordan Queer Parent Lesbian,

Queer

(Cis)Female 30 Mixed, Black

Positive $100k

Sarah Queer Parent

& CW Lesbian GNC, AFAB 29 White Positive, Rural Locality

$25k

Michelle Queer Parent Lesbian,

Queer (Cis)Female 38 White Positive, Metro Locality

$100k Amy Care Worker Queer (Cis)Female 26 White Positive,

Metro Locality

$40k

Olivia Care Worker Gay (Cis)Female 33 White Positive, Metro Locality

$75k

Trish Queer Parent Lesbian (Cis)Female 37 White Positive, Metro Locality

$125k Britt Care Worker Queer (Cis)Female 29 White Positive,

Metro Locality

$25k

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Queering Care Hinchey-Wise 29 Name* Participant Type Sexual Orientation Gender Identity/ Expression

Age Race Type of State AFI

Becky Queer Parent &

CW Lesbian (Cis)Female 41 White Positive, Metro Locality $70k Jack Queer Parent Queer, Bisexual (Trans)Male 30 White Positive, Suburban

Locality $65k

Mountain West US Participants

Type Sexual Orientation Gender Identity/Expression Age _{Race Type of State AFI}

Paige Queer Parent Lesbian (Cis)Female 40

White Positive, Suburban

Locality $190k Scarlet Queer Parent Pansexual (Trans) Female 41

White

Positive, Metro

Locality $38k Samantha Care Worker Straight (Cis) Female 40 White Positive, _{Rural Locality} $75k

South US Participants

Type Sexual Orientation Gender Identity/Expression Age Race Type of State AFI

Belle Queer Parent Lesbian (Cis)Female 40 White Neutral, Rural Locality

$55k

Michaela Care Worker Straight (Cis) Female 32 White Neutral, Suburban Locality