How to Protect LGBTQ+ Families in 2025 with Darra Gordon

Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel

Careers, Business

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Pride is more than a celebration, it’s a call to action, especially for queer families navigating today’s uncertain political landscape. This week on Hello Monday, Jessi Hempel sits down with Darra Gordon, CEO of Family Equality, to talk about protecting LGBTQ+ families, raising resilient kids, and why visibility and community are more vital than ever. Darra is a longtime advocate and nonprofit leader who works every day to ensure all families, especially those with LGBTQ+ parents, have equal rights and protections. She’s also a working mom, navigating the same daily chaos as many of us: career, childcare, dinner plans, and existential anxiety about the future. Jessi and Darra discuss: • How LGBTQ+ families can stay safe and visible in uncertain times • How to raise kids who are proud of their identity and inclusive of others • The joy and strength of queer families, and the role of community in liberation • Why allyship is more than a rainbow flag during June • How everyone, queer or not, can support family equality year-round Whether you're part of the LGBTQ+ community, love someone who is, or just want to build a more inclusive world — this episode is for you. Join us for Hello Monday Office Hours, live on the LinkedIn News page this Wednesday at 3PM ET. It’s a welcoming space to keep the conversation going.

Transcript

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0:00.0	What has been difficult is also to talk about their kids, though, the hate and the discrimination that is out there and what they hear.
0:15.1	They're getting older. They do see the news, you know, and so being able to talk to them about that and consistently share
0:25.3	with them that differences should be celebrated and diversity should be celebrated and we should
0:32.3	always use our voices.
0:36.7	From the news team at LinkedIn, I'm Jesse Hempel and this is Hello Monday.
0:44.5	Happy pride, everyone.
0:46.1	It is June and it's a big June.
0:48.6	This year marks 10 years since marriage equality became a reality.
0:54.9	And I really can't tell you how significant this has been for my family personally.
0:59.8	You know, I'm part of a two-mom family.
1:02.3	Francis and I have two little kids.
1:04.4	They're four and six, and they do the things that kids do.
1:08.6	Like not so long ago, my son, we were walking to the park and he wiped out on the
1:13.9	sidewalk. He cut his head and it was gushing blood and we knew immediately he needed stitches.
1:19.8	So I ran to the hospital and Francis met me and they ushered us right back to the ER and a very
1:24.9	nice doctor gave him three little stitches right across his forehead.
1:29.5	And I took it for granted in that moment that I didn't need to tell anyone, to prove to anyone
1:34.7	that I was his mom. Now even if someone had asked me, I could have produced that proof.
1:40.4	In the form of a legal document that said I was married to Francis or the birth certificate in which my name is listed as the second parent.
1:49.0	Folks, that is revolutionary if you grew up when I did, which wasn't that long ago.
1:56.0	You know, when I was 19 and just coming out of the closet, marriage equality felt like a dream. So far off,
2:02.6	it wouldn't happen in my lifetime. Fast forward all these years and I have so many protections
	...

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