Welcoming LGBT Families into our communities

This article is specific to Jewish institutions, but I think it applies anywhere people work with families. Seemingly small things like language choices stand out to us, and language choices reveal to us whether you remembered that families like ours exist when you were making the form or the curriculum or speaking about your program.

To the recommendation about inclusiveness of family constellations, I would also add that it's important to make sure that language is inclusive of adoption, foster situations, living with a relative or with multiple extended family members. Oh, and also to remember that it's heterosexist to imply that it matters whether a couple (same-sex or different-sex) is legally married. When you ask about or point out that a long-term committed different-sex couple "isn't married," you're sending the message that it's somehow up to you to judge how valid their relationship is, and worse, you've just sent the message to LGBT families that their relationship doesn't even have a chance of being valid. Sure, of course talk about and celebrate the event of a wedding when they come up, but recognize that not everyone needs a ceremony, and that for 99% of people in your life, you don't actually know whether they're legally married because it doesn't affect you.