I married my wife last October at a backyard wedding my parents threw for $5,000. My wife’s mother gave us an equivalent honeymoon fund to fly us to France, and our guests were generous too, giving us—to our surprise—a few thousand dollars to start our new lives.
Of course I knew people got money for their marriages, but that seemed like an abstract heterosexual concept to me: free money to love someone? In my experience, there was nothing about being a lesbian without at least a metaphorical price tag.
But that’s just my experience. During June, Pride Month, many people celebrate the history, struggles and joys of LGBTQ people. It’s also a time to celebrate the way we are different and how we interact with the world around us – which got me thinking about money.
LGBTQ individuals face many systemic disadvantages: disproportionate student loan debt, an asset and savings gap, poorer access to the generational wealth of our blood relatives, food insecurity, and incalculable losses related to housing, hiring, and discrimination in the workplace. Marginalized identities such as race, immigration status, and disability compound financial disadvantage.
Financial planners are predominantly older, white males who may not be able to engage with the concerns of LGBTQ people. A legal name is required for most bank accounts, which can be difficult for LGBTQ people who have a variety of freely chosen names.
I wanted to find out how other LGBTQ people felt about personal finance. Money can be volatile, communal, and scarce in the queer community, which can impact our financial planning decisions.
Carla and Claire Sherman
Carla and Claire Sherman live in St. Louis with their 4-year-old son Linus. Carla, 49, works in a warehouse and makes $34 an hour, and Claire, 37, works in fundraising for nonprofits and makes $52,000 a year. Both spouses feel they should have more savings, but despite high inflation and the monthly cost of $1,200 for the mortgage, $1,400 for tuition on Linus’ Montessori program, $400 the family barely survives on two leased cars and $600 for groceries.
Carla, who is already working six days a week, is considering taking on a second job to pay off her credit card. “But the thought of her working the third shift six days a week and then taking care of Linus part of the day and then doing another job just strikes me as crazy,” Claire said.
Financial support for the family comes from Claire’s parents, who helped cover living expenses when Carla took a year and a half off to look after Linus during the pandemic. They also helped pay off Carla’s student loans. Carla had a different experience with her parents. They haven’t given her the same level of support and she believes they singled her out because she’s a lesbian.
“It was very different in the ’90s when I came out and it still felt like it was okay if you didn’t agree to having a gay kid,” Carla said, adding, “They didn’t even offer to give me money for our wedding.”
Linus was born in 2018, and the couple estimate they spent $7,000 on six bottles of sperm, a few hundred dollars on fertility tests, and $250 to $500 (with insurance) on each of their three pregnancy attempts. They couldn’t save up front and used credit cards throughout the process.
Still, the Shermans got pregnant relatively cheaply through intrauterine insemination, which is usually the first and least expensive step in assisted reproduction. With insurance, the cost of the birth was an additional $12,000.
While she was in the hospital, Claire, who was carrying her child, was offered papers where there was no option for same-sex partners. On the form, she crossed out “father” and wrote “second mother” in pencil before writing their names.
Yassin Adams
“My grandma used to tell me that me and my father had holes in our palms,” said Yassin Adams, 36. Growing up in Egypt, he watched his father, whom his mother called “the poor millionaire,” move around Family, friends and neighbors took care. Mr Adams took care of his father and made sure the people in his life were taken care of.
“It doesn’t matter if we’re friend or foe, this is community work,” he said.
Mr. Adams graduated from an Egyptian medical school in 2010 before moving to Ohio in 2015. A former Muslim and queer person, he applied for political asylum in the United States, but then came out as transmasculine and non-binary and began his medical conversion.
Mr. Adams now resides in San Diego and earns $90,000 a year as a clinical research associate for a private company. Despite this, he lives from paycheck to paycheck.
“Because I’m earning this salary, I feel a moral responsibility to care for other people in my life, who are basically my family of choice,” he said.
Four members of his desired family (close relationships that LGBTQ people form alongside their birth relatives) are currently dependent on him, Mr Adams said. It can be difficult for his friends to accept help—they don’t want to receive handouts or feel like a burden—so he invites them to help him with small household chores for money.
But Mr. Adams is also struggling. In addition to typical expenses such as $1,500 in rent and $500 on car loan payments, he owes tens of thousands of dollars to a rehabilitation facility he attended for addiction problems, has $5,000 in credit card debt and $4,000 in debt for medical reasons. Mr. Adams also pays $5,000 every three months for hormone treatment.
Healthcare is a high-cost issue for everyone, but it can be particularly challenging for the LGBTQ community, said Josh Andreasen, director of financial planning at Edelman Financial Engines.
“With such a patchwork of laws from state to state regarding healthcare, it can be extremely difficult to find and pay for the services you may need,” Mr Andreasen said in an email. “Gender-affirming surgeries for trans people can be extraordinarily expensive, costing upwards of $100,000.”
“I would pay all the money to be a transqueer person,” he said. “I have time to spend, you know what I mean?”
There’s a communal management of money and a responsibility to make it happen, which Adams says is common in queer and transgender circles. It’s an inside joke, a little superficial, but it reflects great pride: queer and trans people keep giving the same few dollars back and forth to help each other. Because, as Mr. Adams put it, who will fund transgender people if not them?
Bex Mui and Cheryna Guzman
Bex Mui and her fiancée, Cheryna Guzman, are a lesbian couple living in Oakland, California. Ms Mui, 38, is a self-employed equity advisor and advocate for LGBTQ inclusion, while Ms Guzman, 31, works as an event producer and video technician. Together they earn about $155,000 a year and want to start a family, but the financial hurdles seem significant.
The couple are struggling to find a realistic time frame for parenthood, Ms Mui said. They are mentally and emotionally ready for children, “but we can’t bring a baby into the world like this,” she said.
Ms. Mui often thinks about how much easier it is for heterosexual couples to have children. Instead, for her and Ms. Guzman, the attempt looks like endless appointments and strategic planning: finding a sperm donor, dealing with legal fees and parental rights, fertility testing and in vitro fertilization.
It’s a frustrating challenge, Ms. Mui said, because the two believe they make less money as women of color. The couple has no savings for family planning as they are saving for a wedding.
On average, intrauterine insemination can cost $300 to $1,000 per cycle, and in vitro fertilization costs an average of $12,400 per cycle; For drugs, the cost can go up to $25,000. With either option, most people require multiple courses of treatment, and it’s not uncommon for families to spend tens of thousands of dollars.
At worst, Ms. Mui said, these financial hurdles could prevent her from having a child.
Access to clinics and doctors experienced in LGBTQ health also plays a role in the couple’s financial situation. “We are very fortunate to live in California,” Ms. Mui said. Despite the West Coast cost of living — the couple pays $2,200 for their apartment and estimates another $1,000 a month for groceries, gas and other bills — family planning feels easier in a liberal state.
Mike Amani
Mikah Amani, 22, is a Miami-based singer-songwriter. His rent is only $500 a month, mostly because he lives in a queer house with four roommates. Mr. Amani had a full-time job as a barista, making $13 an hour plus tips, but he quit last month because he said customers were constantly misrepresenting him and he had a racist encounter with a co-worker.
Black transgender people like Mr. Amani are particularly vulnerable to workplace harassment and economic insecurity. A report by the National LGBTQ Task Force, an advocacy group, found that the unemployment rate for black transgender people is 26 percent, four times the national rate and twice the rate for the general transgender population.
It was a relief to quit his job, but Mr. Amani had no income from it. He depends on the support of his parents and grandparents.
Financial precariousness has hampered Mr. Amani’s access to gender-responsive care. He had scheduled an appointment for a top surgery this month, but knew even before he quit that he couldn’t afford it. Through crowdfunding — a strategy many LGBTQ people employ while relying on their community — he raised about $1,400, but that money was diverted to immediate expenses. With his old job insured, the surgery would have cost about $5,600 out of pocket.
“Being in survival mode right now is kind of my focus,” he said. “I can’t come to terms with the fact that I can’t have upper surgery right now because that’s just not practical.”
Noelle Soncrant, financial advisor at Northwestern Mutual, said in an email that “financial planning is a critical component to bridging the financial gap facing the LGBTQ+ community.” But until homophobia and transphobia are systematically tackled, it is unlikely that financial skill alone will ever close the gap.
Transphobia has had a far-reaching impact on Mr. Amani — it’s why he quit his barista job, lost his health insurance and why he’s had to give up other opportunities. Mr. Amani was offered a paid gig as an elementary school musician, but declined due to Florida’s anti-LGBTQ legislation.
While Mr. Amani goes to his mother, a midwife, and father, a private equity advisor, for financial advice, he would also like to see a financial advisor who can relate to his experience. He hopes a financial advisor can help him build the life he wants: filled with music, gender euphoria, travel and being able to support his younger siblings.
“I would like to see someone who is trans, someone who is black and someone who might have been in a similar situation to me,” he said.