Leaving Our Children Behind : Welfare Reform and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community

S. Cahill, K. Jones

This report offers a comprehensive overview of welfare reform, and explains why this issue should concern all GLBT people - not just those of us on limited incomes. Even if fatherhood initiatives, (heterosexual) marriage initiatives, abstinence-only-until-marriage education, and charitable choice stem from good intentions (a debatable premise), they make for bad public policy. They pose particular threats to our community, and demand a response. In this report, Sean Cahill and Kenneth Jones articulate the response of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Leaving Our Children Behind is the first comprehensive report of its kind to look at the particular impacts of welfare reform on poor GLBT people, as well as ways in which the entire GLBT community could be affected. We encourage GLBT activists and other fair-minded people to read it, and will work with grassroots activists over the next year to organize around the concerns it raises. We also call on anti-poverty activists and policy makers to consider the impact of often heterosexist welfare reform initiatives on lesbians and other members of our community who find themselves in need.