Family Equality: A Conversation with Jaymes Black Transcript

More Elephant Intro

[00:00:38] Jason Rudman: Welcome to the latest More Elephant Podcast. And as I've said frequently we, about once a quarter, step away from what we normally do and we invite a powerful leader to talk about powerful things that you may not know much about. Generally in the nonprofit space, and more so in the spirit of seeing around corners and entering spaces and places that might not be part of our normal every day.

So I'm delighted to welcome a personal friend to the podcast, Jaymes Black, the CEO of Family Equality. 

Family Equality is fighting to protect and support LGBTQ families for more than 40 years. They've been fighting the fight, providing resources, and access to key information about laws and policies to help LGBTQ parents and families through the joys and challenges of parenthood.

So, as a parent of, to a parent of, welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:41] Jaymes Black: Thank you for having me, Jason. 

[00:01:43] Jason Rudman: Thrilled that you're here. We're going to get into a lot of things as you and I prepped for this. We're going to talk about the state of America, in terms of the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills that were introduced into state legislatures in 2023. But, I did want to start with your origin story. So, before people find out more about Family Equality, let's understand a little bit more about Jaymes Black and what your journey was to embracing the opportunity of Family Equality because I don't know that it was a traditional nonprofit journey.

[00:02:18] Jaymes Black: No, it was not a traditional non-profit journey. It was a pivot from corporate America to non-profit. And journey begins - I’m going to go just a little further back because it all sort of connects to where I am today, being a queer black child in South Texas. What people described as a weird black girl.

I always had this feeling of being different, and I didn't know what that was. I say queer now, I didn't know I was queer then. And you fast forward to all of the trials that most of us go through as we are becoming teenagers and coming into our own and finally finding out that maybe this thing I feel, this difference that I feel, is that I like girls or I like boys or whatever it may be. And for me, what that ended up being is this discovery that I did like girls.

And then, once I made that discovery and I was trying to become okay with it, my school found out. And so, as I'm going through self-discovery and saying, wow, I really like girls, my school finds out that I like girls.

And because of the bullying, can you believe that still happens today? This is in 1990s Texas - still happens today - I left school. I call it this kind of cataclysmic shift in my life trajectory. If I did not leave school, I would not be talking with you today.

 That led to a life of poverty working dead-end jobs and trying to make ends meet after dropping out of high school. And then you fast forward to finding myself in corporate America. I had a 20-plus year career there…started as a call center representative.

My last position was a managing director at a large financial institution. So when you think about - I tell you the origin story from the perspective of dropping out of high school to then becoming an executive in corporate America and then deciding to leave that life and pivot to non-profit. And I thought for a while that I was going through some type of midlife crisis. I'm like, do I really want to leave this because I believe that I was never supposed to be there. I was never supposed to be in corporate America so how could you leave this career? How could you leave this 20-plus-year career? You weren't supposed to be here. You better hold on to it. How could you want to go do something different? You better hold on to it.

But I knew that something deeper was calling me, Jason, and it happened during COVID, which I think a lot of us had shifts - trajectory shifts, mind shifts, life shifts - during COVID. I had a moment where I knew that I needed to do something bigger.  And I think even the pandemic, had that not happened, I don't think I would have left corporate America.

So, I made the pivot and decided that I needed to do something more significant for our community, specifically our families.

[00:04:57] Jason Rudman: Significant for our community, dare I say, significant for you as well.

[00:05:02] Jaymes Black: Yes, yes. 

[00:05:03] Jason Rudman: Let's pull that thread if we can, right? That's a More Elephant moment for sure. The combination of the origin story of being seen and rejected in a school environment because you were seen, and South Texas said not on our watch.

You started as a customer service representative and through resilience and preparedness and working hard, you get to this seeming pinnacle of, my goodness, I've worked so hard. And then you say, but I know this is not what I'm supposed to do.

And, sure, we'll put the pandemic over that, which I think we've shared, you know this, right, Alvin and I had our on-the-beach moment where Alvin said there is something I'm supposed to be doing, which is not this. And we realized that, so you realize that.

So could you go a little deeper then that it's the pandemic, we're rethinking, reframing what we were supposed to do on this earth. You mentioned that this was something that “I felt compelled to do for our families.” I countered with yes and something you needed to do for you. So could you open up that Pandora's box of goodness?

[00:06:11] Jaymes Black: Yeah, and I believe what you're referring to is my own family and our family creation story.

And so, my lived experience is a reason why the work of Family Equality is so significant to me, so important to me. My own journey, for my wife and me, as we were building our family, was not one that was easy. It was over an eight-year journey, over time trying our best to have children, to build a family in one way or another, and roadblock after roadblock.

We experienced a roadblock of an adoption agency going bankrupt on us. And we had a roadblock of an agency in Texas telling us that women would never place their children with lesbian women. We had the roadblock of a fertility doctor saying, you know what, I can do the fertility clinic, but you're gonna have to have the baby somewhere else should you get pregnant, because this is a religiously-affiliated hospital.

Roadblock after roadblock we experienced, year-over-year, and we wanted to have a family so badly. And this is not something that is uncommon for LGBTQ+ people who are trying to create families.

But that heartbreak of wanting to become a parent and not being able to and then having people tell you that you're not worthy, that you are not good enough, that you don't belong in this kind of parenting club that we have in America. Parents are highly respected, and highly regarded usually. Not you, because you're a lesbian.

And that was heartbreaking for us. And I'll tell you, we almost gave up on becoming parents. And we were finally matched with the birth mother of our wonderful twins. And it was such a joyous moment for us.

We were thinking, finally, we're finally going to be parents; then we had the challenge of that birth mother pulling the rug from under us and changing her mind days before the boys were to be born. She changed her mind. And that was such a gut punch, Jason.

It was like, we've waited all this time, and we’ve finally found someone who is willing to work with us, we're going to have these twins and she's going to place them for adoption. And then she changed her mind and we were just gut-punched.

Thankfully, through the work of the universe, she came back around and asked us to adopt the boys after six weeks. And we've been on the twin journey ever since. They're nine years old now. 

[00:08:31] Jason Rudman: Having met the twins, you are on the twin journey, and we love them much.

I think it's worth pointing out - you share your story, I've shared my story - I think our journeys, particularly Jaymes, are such teachable moments. And I think so many times, I don't know if this has been your experience, I've been met with ignorance, not ignorant but ignorance, right, which is, oh, well, how did the kids get here? Oh, you had to do that.

The reason I bring that up is because, to this day, I still surprise many, largely straight couples when I say, oh yes, as part of the journey, we went through surrogacy, our kids are biologically Alvin's and mine. And yet, the surrogate mother, who is not the biological DNA connection (and her husband) of Roman, had to sign away the parental rights, of which they had no connection to, because the way the law works for families like ours is you're actually not the parent, even if you have DNA connection in the eyes of the law and the surrogate mother and her husband, actually, in the eyes of the law, the parent, until they sign away.

Now, I will say that our surrogate's husband could not sign that quickly enough and said, okay, where do I sign because I'm not raising another kid. But I think it's those dynamics and the work that you do to shine a light on - here are the extra hurdles, the emotional hurdles, beyond just trying to have a kid and what that brings, that we have to go through in order to bring our kids into the world.

[00:10:05] Jaymes Black: Absolutely. And folks believe that if you are a queer person with means, that means that your journey is going to be easier. It does not matter if you are someone who makes 50,000 dollars a year, or someone who makes triple that. If you are an LGBTQ+ person, there are going to be barriers to your family creation journey, as you said, because of the way that the laws work.

And, that is why Family Equality still exists. And many people are surprised. They'll say, well, you can get married now, right? Because you can get married now, doesn't that make everything easier? No, it doesn't make anything easier, because you can get married on a Saturday and then you can be denied to adopt a child the next day.

I always say that freedom to marry does not mean freedom from discrimination. Freedom to marry does not mean that we are absolutely free in all the laws and the ways that things work. We are still not seen equal in the eyes of the law and I don't think we're still seen equal in the eyes of society either.

[00:11:05] Jason Rudman: We have work to do and we can break that down because I think there's even levels of equality within the community that we can talk about as well in terms of access to and visibility of.

So why did you take the call for Family Equality? I get the connection to the personal, and then you've got, hey, I'm not supposed to be here, but I'm here, and it's paying the bills, right?

And, you’ve got these two beautiful boys that we're raising, and there's a familiarity of such to where you were, which is Texas because you knew Texas, even though we could argue that there are challenges of being a queer couple with two kids in Texas.

So why take the call for Family Equality? What were you walking into in terms of the organization at that level? And then why was it a yes?

[00:11:57] Jaymes Black: Yeah. It's funny. I'm chuckling because I remember having the conversation with my wife about coming to Family Equality and let's just be honest. Charles Schwab, my former employer, and a non-profit are very different in a lot of ways.

And those differences meant that we were going to have to shift things. We were going to have to look at life a little bit differently than we had. And I remember having a conversation with my wife about it, and this is sort of why it was the yes. And we both said this is bigger than us. This is bigger than the fancy job. This is bigger than just our family.

This is bigger than Jaymes, you were someone who was pulled out of the closet in high school. This is bigger than us, and it's going to have a larger impact, and it needs to have a larger impact. And you stepping into this role, especially as the first, if you're selected - because this is when we were just saying, yes, I'm going to apply - selected as the first African American person to lead the organization. So really, it was about that we felt that it was bigger than just even this job. We were hoping that the impact could be magnified by stepping into this role. 

And we talked about equal access; that more LGBTQ+ people who look like my family could be seen within this organization,  could be accepted, could be embraced. 

[00:13:11] Jason Rudman: You represent something for the LGBTQ community, and then there's the elevation of what you represent for families of color, right? And so how does that show up in who Family Equality is today?

[00:13:28] Jaymes Black: Yeah. Well, in several ways.

I believe that one, being at the helm of the organization is a way that signals to people, to families who look like ours, that the organization is a place for you too. I remember asking a friend about Family Equality when I was in the interview process, and she said very clearly, ‘I don't feel like that's the place for me because I don't see myself represented when I go to the website or when I hear about the events.’ And so the way it shows up is I think having a person of color at the helm. The other way that it shows up is that our Board has to reflect the communities that we serve, and the staff that we hire have to reflect the communities that we serve.

And when I say communities that we serve, I don't mean community that we serve in this present tense, because that didn't look like me. I mean, when we think about the community at large, that's what Family Equality needed to represent.

So it's showing up on our Board of Directors, in the way that we select Board members, and that demographic and composition are showing up in our staff, it's showing up in our programming. We have a program called the Family Equity and Justice Project, and that program is specifically designed to ensure that LGBTQ+ families of color have a voice. Specifically, those living in rural areas, specifically those who are at or below the poverty line, that we are surveying those folks, that we are understanding that our programs today probably do not resonate with some of those folks.

And then how do we take that data and do something with it. Make it actionable, create better programs, create more access, and have people understand that this is a place for all families, not just the families who can afford surrogacy. It's for the lesbian Black, single mother in Louisiana. It's for everybody. And so it's showing up in our programming. It's showing up even in places like Family Week, which I know your family has attended, and we're beginning to see more families of color attend Family Week.

[00:15:18] Jason Rudman: I think it's purposeful, right? That's the word that I would use. You're right, before you became CEO of Family Equality, Alvin and I attended Family Week, where Roman probably had just turned two.

And so what I think I shared with you when I got to know you is Family Equality felt very regional and very homogenous, and that's the white guy talking. Very regional, very homogenous.

And so your point is you've actually had to not only pivot your career and how you think about yourself in that space, first African American CEO of the organization, but dare I say there's a regional to national way that you've had to do that and you've had to do that as a non-profit. It's not like you're sitting on a billion dollars of endowment and a hundred million dollars of marketing money.

So, could you just color the work of the work? You've got this mandate, that you're hiring was conscious, very, very conscious, both for you and the organization. And then you've just painted a picture of moving from regionalized, more homogenous than we would like, to a national, inclusive, diverse, more equitable space to both represent and advocate on behalf of.

It's 2024, you joined in 2021. What does that look like? What's the top line of what you've taken this organization through to realize a more equitable, inclusive approach to Family Equality?

[00:16:50] Jaymes Black: Yeah. First, I'm going to say that we had to confront some truths as an organization. You know this, Jason. We all love Family Equality. It's so near and dear to all us, especially those of us who have families. And at the same time we had to confront some truths.

And the truth of the matter is, who has not been at the table? Who have we forgotten? Whether purposely or inadvertently, who's been left behind? And confronting that truth is not always easy for an institution that is four decades old.

So, one of the activities that we've had to undertake with the Board is confronting those truths and having very clear and frank conversations around equity and access, what the past has looked like, and what we want the present and the future to look like.

I think sort of the top line is that it's transformation or catalyst. We want to be catalysts. We want to shift the narrative for LGBTQ+ families. And what I mean by that is that when people need to understand what makes our families tick, how do we operate, what are our needs and wants, and desires, that they look to Family Equality

We couldn't do that until we had a more holistic and inclusive view of all of our families. But we are in a transformative season, I'll say, for Family Equality. That's what we've been in for the last three years, and that transformation has meant the transformation of our policy work. It's meant the transformation of our anti-racist work, which is now in our strategic plan. Rather than being a statement on a website, it is embedded. The DNA of the organization is in the plan.

That transformation has been in the way that we talk about Family Equality and our families. It's redefining families. We were looking at families from the perspective of a family is two folks, a same-sex couple who has a child. And now we're saying family is broader than that. You could be two, LGBTQ+ folks with no kids yet, and you're still a family.

What about when you're an empty nester? Does that mean Family Equality is not for you? You're still a family.

So this redefining and this transformation has allowed us to be a voice for LGBTQ+ families. And I believe even though we're a small organization still, as you know, our aspiration is to be a large organization.

What I appreciate is that over the last three years, we've become a ‘go-to’ and we've become a voice, and we've become a sought-after resource for our policy work, which is great. We're at the tables, Jason, with some of these 30-, 40-million-dollar organizations, providing our perspective on LGBTQ+ families. 

And that perspective was not really included for far too long, or maybe it was even sort of a second thought.

[00:19:19] Jason Rudman: And if it was included, it was done, well-meaning but by organizations that didn't have their finger as much on the pulse of what you were saying, right? So, it’s bullet point number five because there are four other things that are more important. And if we get to number five, and you and I know that rarely do you get to number five because you get immersed in the first three.

So, I think that's the other point. You are driving relevance and amplification in a way that well-meaning, often sister-and-brother organizations in the LGBTQ space or even the family-first space were not able to drive awareness, consideration, and message at a level that the organization Family Equality is able to do.

[00:20:04] Jaymes Black: That is exactly right. And here's the thing. This is our jam. This is what we do. We have been in this work for forty-four years. So who best for you to turn to from a family perspective?

But if you do not have the voice, if you do not have the amplification, we won't be at the table. And so, now we are at the table because here's the thing. I remember when I first arrived at Family Equality and I was getting more familiar with our policy work and I thought to myself, this work is important. This is something that we can actually communicate to people if given the chance, and this is critical. This is not work that we're doing because we don't have anything better to do and, oh the work of queer families is just something that's kind of a sidebar. This is critical work.

Now, how do we get it into the right ears, into the right hearts, the right minds? That was a challenge because what we do, when I say we shifted our policy work, it was about getting more focused. But it wasn't about changing family creation or child welfare. It wasn't about that. It was about getting more focused.

And also what do our families need from an end-to-end lifecycle from the time that I say I am thinking about having a child, so I need resources, to the time that I'm saying, now, I know that I want to have a child. What are my options and what are the ways in which we create our families? And until the time that the child is here, now what laws do I need to know about, what are the parentage laws, etc?

It's about the time that kid goes to school. It's about looking at our families as a whole and saying, does our policy work represent that? Who do we need to get in front of? And that was one of the challenges because a lot of times people would say, well, who are you? Family who? Family Equality. We already support the other organizations. So thank you. Have a nice day. 

[00:21:39] Jason Rudman: To your point, forty-four years of being on a frontline. I would argue with your leadership, three plus years of being on the right line and being present.

So you and I have talked about this, right? 2023, state legislatures introduced - we'll go with 550 plus, because who's counting, right - but we'll go with 550 plus anti-LGBTQIA bills. Many targeting LGBTQ+ youth and families especially.

It amazes me when I have an opportunity to give that number over, and people are like, huh, really? it's almost as if there's so much noise in the system, but nobody's really paying attention.

Can you showcase for our listeners the types of anti-LGBTQ bills that we're talking about in that 550? Just a flavor of what that means, for LGBTQ youth, and families especially, that are facing what I'm going to call this onslaught of anti-us legislation.

[00:22:48] Jaymes Black: Yeah. What I'll say, first of all, is to put things in context. I believe it was maybe 2018, there were under 100 bills. So think about that and then fast forward to 2022 and I believe that maybe that broke over 400, 2023 over 550. So, think about that growth and the way that these bills are being introduced at this rapid rate.

The majority of those bills do attack our queer youth in terms of access to life-affirming care, equal access to sports, and whether or not our families or our kids can talk about their families in schools.

Now, only seven ‘Don't Say Gay’ bills, I believe, have been passed but the discussion of it and the talk of it is also impactful even though these others have not been passed. So, it's really about this attack on our queer youth, and it's pitiful because it's like 40 percent of our youth have considered suicide, yet the majority of those bills are attacking them.

So, when you put those things in perspective, I think it's like over 70 percent of those bills are around life-affirming access, sports for queer youth.

And then we go down to the ‘Don't Say Gay’ bills around education. And there are also some bills around what we call these personhood bills where they want to identify an embryo as a person. These folks know full well that IVF is one of the ways in which LGBTQ+ people create their families. So, I think a lot of that is purposeful.

And so we have this onslaught of bills that are attacking the future of America, which is our youth. Queer youth are our future too.

And not only the creation of families but the ability for our families to exist safely because what is also happening is that legislation be damned, like the conversations are happening, and these conversations cause hate. These hateful conversations are being had and have a downstream effect on the people who are living in these states. And so what we're also seeing due to this legislation are people fleeing their home states, and that's how it's affecting people, right?

So whether it's a straight parent who has a queer child and they want to go find life-affirming care or if it's an LGBTQ+ family who doesn't feel safe in Texas or whatever state that they live in, and now they want to go find another place to live.

And I say find because that sounds like it's easy. It's not easy because everyone who is affected, they do not have the means to leave yet. They are trying to find resources in communities that are safer. So we have an issue, right?

And, we are also understaffed, underfunded, and overwhelmed across the board from an LGBTQ+ movement perspective. How do you combat all these, right? All of the bills, all the noise, right? I also feel that a lot of the introduction of these bills is a strategy. It overwhelms us. Let's just keep introducing these things. I know it's not going to pass and it really doesn't matter if it passes or not, there's still an impact.

[00:25:32] Jason Rudman: Yeah, you know, our family is one of relative privilege. I know some of the stories of the people, the families that Family Equality has helped flee - I'm going to use the word flee - states that are unwelcoming.

I think it's worth saying that Alvin and I made a very conscious decision, not because we had to flee, but we chose to leave Texas because that was not a place where we felt, as two dads raising two kids of color, that they would have the joys and the access and indeed I think, the freedom and the opportunity to be who they wanted to be and that we could celebrate them on a daily basis. That's actually real.

And that is very different than saying, hey, I need to flee because I feel unsafe. I'm not equating the two, but I am putting those two thoughts together in terms of where you feel you can ultimately live and create a sense of family with your family. And for us, you know, Jaymes, Texas was not a place we felt we could do that.

[00:26:39] Jaymes Black: Exactly.

[00:26:40] Jason Rudman: You mentioned gender-affirming care. Could you explain that again? I'm going to assume some people who are listening hear that and say, Okay, what is that? And why should I care about that?

[00:26:55] Jaymes Black: Well, what I'll say is I'm not the expert on it, but what I will say is that there are trans youth who need care that allows them to feel like themselves, to feel like the person who they believe that they are.

And sometimes, that care is medical. And, we call it gender-affirming care or even life-affirming care because there are studies that tell us that providing that gender-affirming care, that life-affirming care, can save a life.

And so, without getting into too much of the medical parts of it that I can't really speak to, but it really is around what type of medical intervention or therapy or care does that child need to make that child feel whole. If that child was born as a girl and now identifies as a boy, what affirming care does that child need to feel whole?

And that's, I think, the rub with some people that they don't understand that it's not about someone who just, I was born a girl, now I just want to be a boy. This is about what that child needs to feel whole and to feel themselves and to survive and thrive in this world.

And, I think if we look at it from that perspective, I hope that clears any barriers up or misconceptions because it's not about just a sort of…

I think people make it look very flippant and that it's something that's very easy and that the parents don't go through these challenges of trying to help their child get to a place where this child wants to live and be on this earth. But that is exactly what it is. And those medical interventions, they're putting barriers up or being prevented in some states.

[00:28:30 Jason Rudman: Right. So first off, thank you for taking the audience through at a very high level what we're talking about there.

So, a couple of points, you mentioned a high incidence of suicide. When the world is not listening to what you're telling the world you innately believe you are, and that there's no avenue to self-expression, you can connect the ‘I'm not being listened to’ with the only way out is for me not to be here. because the world also is saying that you don't want me here, right? 

[00:28:59] Jaymes Black: Correct. 

[00:28:59] Jason Rudman: I think the other thing that we should point out, and again, we're not going to go on a whole legal minefield here, but many of the state, the anti-LGBTQ bills that are up in this domain, are effectively saying that the government should choose what the decision is. 

[00:29:18] Jaymes Black: Not the parent.

[00:29:19] Jason Rudman: Or even prevent a decision from being made versus the parent owning that decision with their child and their doctor in terms of what's right.

And we should also say because we talk truth to power here on this podcast, we're not talking about six, seven, eight year old kids having, and that's the other thing, Jaymes, you and I know this. It gets so mixed up in this whole conversation. We are not talking about six, seven, eight, or nine-year-olds having gender reassignment surgery or anything like that.

So, I just think that when we talk more, and we learn more about the space and have a dialogue about it, we've got to take on some of the mistruths and also acknowledge that we're in an environment where we are saying that government knows best.

[00:30:13] Jaymes Black: Right. And, in any case would anyone want the government telling them if they should have children or not, right? Just think about a straight couple, right?

And I think if we put it in that perspective, we could gain more understanding. I think about when Roe was overturned and Justice Thomas wrote in his opinion something along the lines of that we need to revisit these landmark cases, one of them being Obergefell v Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage. But another one was Griswold (v Connecticut), which is around contraception. And so if you think about folks in your audience who may not be LGBTQ+ and think about if that was overturned, which is around contraception for straight couples, would you want the government dictating whether you should have children or not? That is a personal decision.

So we need to trust that parents know what's best for their children. Parents know what's best for their children, not the government. And these parents, I feel for them, because it's already a journey to help your child understand who they are and now you have legislators who are saying that your child does not deserve to exist.

I mean if legislators see data from The Trevor Project saying that 40-something percent of our youth want to attempt suicide, if that does not change your heart or your mind, I don't know what is. This is our youth. 

[00:31:26] Jason Rudman: Hey, I think you hit on something. The very fact that you have to question whether, when you see that data, and if you are here to support the best of human beings, and the human condition and that data doesn't move you, then I think, I don't know that you ever can win the heart and mind of that person. 

[00:31:49] Jaymes Black: That's true. 

[00:31:49] Jason Rudman: I'm not sure., right? But there are enough people out there that, with the facts and the conversation, to your point, can appreciate that what they initially thought to be true is very, very different than what actually happens. And I think that's the work of Family Equality and what you do every day in order to elevate the stories and the joy of LGBTQ+ families.

[00:32:14] Jaymes Black: The joy is important. 

[00:32:15] Jason Rudman: The joy is important, right? I mean, we just went down a narrative that wasn't particularly joyful, but the joy is important.

So let's go there. How does joy get represented in the work, in the programming, in the celebration of the stories of what you're working on, maybe even in the spaces. I mean, a little birdie might've told me that you might've been at the White House one or two times. I'm just saying, right.

But, that's real work, right? That's joy work because, from a More Elephant perspective, somebody's listening, and inviting you into a space to say, teach us. 

[00:32:45] Jaymes Black: Absolutely. 

[00:32:47] Jason Rudman: So how does the joy show up?

[00:32:48] Jaymes Black: Yeah. And so you mentioned the White House. I always have to point to my picture with President Biden in the back where I'm feeling very joyful back there.

[00:32:55] Jason Rudman: Yes.

[00:32:56] Jaymes Black: And in a moment that I met him where I was able to talk about our families and not so much the challenges, but also the joy about our families.

And so, how joy shows up in the work, it's really around the storytelling. And we are undertaking many avenues of storytelling, whether it's audio, video, or in print. How do we tell the stories of our families?

Because what you were saying before is, like, we went down this road that was kind of dark, because this is, like, kind state of the world but a shift that we're making at Family Equality is that we know that's happening, and we know that we're going to fight the good fight on the policy front.

But we need to start talking about hope and we need to start talking about joy. And how do we shift our narrative as an organization around the way that we talk about these things?

Well, let's tell more stories about our families because I've been around your family, you've been around my family. What did we do the whole time that the kids were at the house? We're cutting up, and we're laughing, and our kids are in the pool doing their things. Those are the stories that we need to be telling.

So we are telling more stories about our families' happiness, how happy these kids are to have their parents, the joy that comes along with raising children, and how joyful these kids are to have two Moms or two Dads. We're telling those stories.

The joy is Family Equality being invited to the White House Easter Egg Roll and having these joyful times with other families who are invited and having the ability to say, Oh my God, our families are on the White House lawn doing the Easter Egg Hunt while the president addresses us. That's joy in telling those stories.

Joy is when I talk about the work that I don't forget, that although we know that we are under attack, there is still so much hope. We need to be talking about, even though we know there are 62 million what we call HRC equality voters - 62 million voters prioritize LGBTQ+ rights when deciding on who to vote for. That makes me joyful. That makes me hopeful. 

So, the joy shows up in the work and the way that we're starting to intentionally talk about that joy should be a part of our strategies, that hope should be a part of our strategies. But it also talks about ensuring that our families have a voice because our families are also like, you know what, I'm afraid, but I'm tired of hearing about all this negative stuff. I want to talk about some happy stuff.

I told someone in the meeting today, I'm like, I want to find the light…where is the light? I want to talk about the light. And there's still light. So how do we as an organization give voice to the light and to those families?

And we have the mic. We have the national mic. So what we're going to do, we're going to give the mic to our families and say, talk about the joy. Talk about love. Talk about your families.

[00:35:29] Jason Rudman: Look, you put us to work 'cause you know that's easy for us, right? That's easy for Alvin and me to do that. You mentioned something, so let's take the White House piece on the joy because I think that you and a few new leaders in the LGBTQ space are also challenging the prior experience where the community would go at this siloed. Or even not at all.

So there's a camaraderie and a partnership, I think, across organizations that I'm not too sure that we've seen before in the LGBTQIA community. Is that fair? And if yes, what should we know about how that's impacting positively and leading us to light and joy not only just families but the community at large?

[00:36:19] Jaymes Black: That's a fair statement. You said something about how the community is siloed and I'd say the community at large, I believe, has been largely siloed, but also the LGBTQ+ organizations have largely been siloed.

And look, I'm new to the movement, but I had a history of the movement, and I've done my homework. And so there were large silos and what we've done now is that we are cross-collaboration across the movement leaders is phenomenal.

We have an event coming up in a couple of weeks where four of us are going to be with Olivia Cruise Lines talking about the work. And each leader is represented based on their subject matter expertise. We are doing more about being intentional about not stepping on each other's toes and trying to do someone else's work. We're saying, I honor the work that you do, HRC [Human Rights Campaign], and I honor the work that you do NCLR [National Center for Lesbian Rights], and I want you to come speak to it.

And how do we work together for collective equality, what I call an abundance mindset for the movement rather than the scarcity mindset for the movement. And so, these leaders are working together, and we work together very well. Are there still kinks to work out? Absolutely, but I can see it in the room. We're called to meetings to have conversations.

I can see how we're honoring each other's work. I can see how this new generation of leaders is coming in to the work very differently than say maybe our predecessors. And I honor the work that they've all done because it was important and I stand on their shoulders in a whole lot of ways. And I think we see that there's a better way to do it if we want to be on this road to equality. We can't do it separately. We can't. Or stepping on each other's toes. We can't do it.

[00:37:50] Jason Rudman: Right, I think two key words you use there - and. Everything was and, not or. And I think there's power in numbers. There's absolute power in numbers. So, when you get a force multiplier effect of four or five like-minded organizations that each have a narrative within a much larger story, which is about community, and a community where everyone is seen, not just a few people are seen, that's what it is. That's the work.

[00:38:22] Jaymes Black: Yeah, you know, there's a quote in our strategic plan, Jason, that I thought was critical to have in this plan, and it says something along the lines of, ‘as a community, we have no time or tolerance for injustices against each other.’ We don't. I can't get free If you and I are fighting, right? 

[00:38:42] Jason Rudman: Right. 

[00:38:43] Jaymes Black: And we tend to do that as a community sometimes too. And I even go down to the movement level, our own community who are discriminating against trans folks. Like, what are y'all doing? We can't do that.

I felt that was something that we needed to intentionally remind ourselves of this because sometimes discrimination and inequality happens within the community. And if we're going to be free,  to get free together, we can't have tolerance for that. We have to say enough is enough.

[00:39:10] Jason Rudman: Yeah, I love the quote. Look, I am not free until we're all free.

I think what I like about that is, having an honest conversation about acknowledging what it took to get this, you know, we're past 50 years from Stonewall, 50 years of LGBTQ rights. We celebrate marriage equality. And then when you said earlier that you have marriage equality, it's fine, right? No.

And we should be honest. The ability to walk in the spaces and places for our Black and Brown brothers and sisters and our trans brothers and sisters has not always been there. There has not always been a seat at the table. And indeed, even the progress that we've seen has not always been equitable in terms of what it is we've been striving for and who we've been trying to impact. 

[00:40:01] Jaymes Black: Absolutely. 

[00:40:02] Jason Rudman: It is better to have that conversation than to try to sweep it under the rug.

[00:40:06] Jaymes Black: I agree. And so, you know, I have experienced discrimination, and racism in a gay club. What's that? Why is that happening to your point?

Why is our family equity and justice project needed? Because what we've heard from those folks, Jason, is that, as a contingent of BIPOC folks living in rural areas, they have largely felt left behind by us. They've largely felt left behind by the movement.

We have not prioritized their experiences or their issues. So you're absolutely spot on. And it's time to have a truthful like we got to tell the truth. Let's tell the truth, a truthful conversation about it.

[00:40:41] Jason Rudman: Yeah, I remember we talked with Emil Wilbekin, founder and CEO of Native Son. We had this whole conversation about access to health for Black queer men in Alabama and Mississippi and where the incidence of HIV, while on an aggregate level down, it overindexes in the South. And it overindexes in places and spaces where we have not taken the conversation. 

We've not invested in those places and spaces because the movement said, again, it's number ninety-seven on the list, and I'm never going to get to number 97. 

[00:41:17] Jaymes Black: So it's important that we prioritize and have those conversations. And it's not going to take Family Equality - we're just one organization, we're small.

I love that Native Son is looking at health equity and we just all should have it as part of our priorities because what does worry me is that, as we move into this presidential election and we don't know what's going to happen and we're hoping obviously for the best, is leaving behind those folks again.

…is as queer children feel isolated, what about the queer children in the rural areas? Do they know that there's a suicide hotline? Do they know what's happening?

And so I worry that if we don't collectively sort of understand that this should be a part of our strategies, we will do more leaving behind because one or two organizations can't do it alone.

[00:42:00] Jason Rudman: What did the kids think of Mom's work?

[00:42:05] Jaymes Black: What do they think of my work? You know what's interesting is that it's so integrated into who they are and they talk about the work of Family Equality at school. 

They talk about when Mama has a gala or when they're going to a gala. And someone said this to me after a New York gala last year, she said, your boys sat there - they were eight at the time, they hadn't turned nine yet. Your boys sat there so intently listening to the program and listening to you. Why?

And I said, I think it's because they know the importance of the work to not our family, to all families, because we've talked about it. Our boys know that they're adopted. And they know that through the work of Family Equality is why they have a Mama and Mommy and why this family unit exists.

And then London, as you know, London is our talkative one. He has spoken on the steps of the Supreme Court, and he keeps saying, I want the mic again, Mama. And I'm like, all right well you came unscripted. I gotta script you. 

[00:43:00] Jason Rudman: Well, not within an inch of his life though, Mama. Because I think that's the joy and the beauty of London.

[00:43:06] Jaymes Black: That is true. 

[00:43:07] Jason Rudman: What I love about that is your boys are a testimony to the art of the possible, and you are working on creating as many pathways, such that their experience becomes the experience of other little brown, black, white, however you want to call it, boys and girls that simply need to be loved. 

[00:43:34] Jaymes Black: Simply need to be loved

[00:43:35] Jason Rudman: Simply need to be loved. 

[00:43:37] Jaymes Black: Languishing in the child welfare system and something that we need to fix and the majority of those are black and brown children, black and brown boys in particular.

[00:43:46] Jason Rudman: How do people find out more about Family Equality?

[00:43:50] Jaymes Black: So you can go to familyequality.org, and you can also find us on Instagram and Facebook.

Go to our website, we have a ton of resources around family creation, the laws that we're working to pass, the ways in which we create our families and resources.

We have our Family Week coming up, which we're really excited about. It is the largest single gathering of LGBTQ+ families in the world, and it is at the end of July. 

[00:44:15] Jason Rudman: And we have some LA Impact coming up as well I'm sure. 

[00:44:18] Jaymes Black: In October. 

[00:44:19] Jason Rudman: We do. And for all of our allies that are listening on this call, go to the site and become even more educated about this space so that you can help us and help Family Equality continue this fight to protect and support LGBTQ+ families because again, we're looking for the light and the joy. We are in a fight. And we should not lose sight of that.

Jaymes, you are the best. I love you dearly. Thank you for taking time out of this amazing, amazing, amazing work that you do and that the organization does to spend some time with the audience, helping us understand why this work matters.

So really, really appreciate it.

[00:45:01] Jaymes Black: Thank you for having me.

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