When politicians debate families like mine, our kids are suffering

Late one Thursday night, my partner and I were sitting on the bathroom floor with our teenager.

She had a stomach bug and was throwing up every hour or so, the kind of long, miserable night most parents recognize immediately. We rotated laundry loads, checked her temperature, and tried to convince her to sip water between waves of nausea. By morning, we were exhausted but relieved she was starting to feel a little better.

It was an entirely ordinary night of parenting. Families like mine spend most of our time doing exactly what other families do. We help with homework, shuttle kids to activities, argue about screen time, worry about grades, and hope we are raising someone who will grow into a thoughtful and decent adult.

But in my state, and increasingly across the country, families like mine are also something lawmakers debate. I am a queer mom, and my partner is a transgender dad. And we are raising a teenager in Iowa.

Across dozens of state legislatures this year, including my home state, lawmakers have proposed bills that restrict how LGBTQ+ parents and families like ours are acknowledged in schools, libraries, foster care systems, healthcare settings, and more.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, more than 600 bills affecting LGBTQ+ people were introduced in state legislatures last year alone, many focused on schools, curriculum, books, and whether LGBTQ+ folks can be openly acknowledged.

Yet behind those debates are real families.

An estimated 2.57 million LGBTQ+ adults in the United States are raising 5 million children. Even when many of these bills fail, the message has already landed. Children listen for months while adults argue on a local, state, and national stage about whether families like theirs should be openly acknowledged, quietly ignored, or erased from the places where they spend most of their time. Families like mine watch our humanity become a political talking point.

At home, we try to keep life grounded and normal. We make dinner together, talk about college plans, and remind our teenager to take out the trash. But when the news cycle is filled with lawmakers talking about families like ours, it becomes impossible to pretend that politics stays neatly contained inside the Capitol building.

It follows our kids into their classrooms and hallways, and it shows up in the questions they begin to ask.At one point, our child looked at us and asked a question no parent ever wants to hear: "Why do they hate us so much?"

LGBTQ+ families are not trying to be symbols in someone else’s culture war. We are parents trying to raise our kids and build stable lives in the communities we call home. Yet the current political climate is forcing many LGBTQ+ families to confront questions we never expected to face.

Questions like my child’s. Questions like, “Do we need to move?” or “Does our child feel safe at school?”

In recent months, Family Equality, the leading national nonprofit for current and future LGBTQ+ families, has heard from several families relocating to states where they believe their families will be safer and more accepted. Some, including many in my home state of Iowa, are moving across state lines. Others are weighing whether leaving the country is the only way to escape the relentless political targeting.

For many communities, that should be a sobering reality.

Across much of the United States, leaders talk about the need to attract new residents, retain young families, and strengthen local workforces. Many regions, including my home state of Iowa, are trying to reverse population decline and build communities where families want to stay.

But policies and political rhetoric that target LGBTQ+ people send the opposite message. They signal to families like mine that we are tolerated at best and unwelcome at worst. And our children are perceptive enough to hear that message clearly. What makes this moment particularly painful is how ordinary our lives really are. And how much we are woven into the fabric of our communities.

We are neighbors, parents, volunteers, taxpayers, business owners, lawmakers, and community members who want the same things most families want: safe schools, stable communities, and a future where our children feel they belong. Our child exists. Our family exists. And no law will change that.

The real question lawmakers should consider is much simpler than the bills they keep introducing: do we want to pass laws and policies that protect and support the real families who live here, or do we want some children to grow up feeling that their family must remain hidden?

And as you ask yourself this question, remember: Our children are listening.

Bethany Snyder is a Family Equality board member and queer mom. Learn more about the organization’s work supporting LGBTQ+ families at familyequality.org.

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