Contributors Bios for Parents booklet

Each coauthor and coeditor listed in their bios what they considered their primary social labels, locations, and characteristics of how they personally experience the world. This is to inform you and other readers about our potential prejudices, expertise, privileges, and disadvantages on the subject. We also hope it dismantles some stereotypes and expands your sense of community.

COAUTHORS

Susanna Gallor: I am a cisgender, white, Hispanic (Cuban), American, able-bodied, middle-class, Jewish, lesbian woman. I am a licensed psychologist who practiced primarily in college counseling settings for the first 10 years of my career. Currently, I am a professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston in the Psychology Department and a faculty member of the Clinical Psychology doctoral program. Across my clinical, teaching, and supervision roles, my philosophy and framework are multiculturally and social-justice-oriented. I believe strongly in intersectional awareness and sensitivity. What this means to me is that no person can be understood or appreciated without attention to all of their social identities, particularly in terms of how they intersect with each other. Further, I work across my personal and professional roles to develop deep understandings of the intersections of privilege and oppression within myself and others. For this chapter, my hope is to add perspectives on how intersectionality can move us beyond “boxes'' of identity and bridge gaps between the choices individuals and communities often feel they have to make among competing values, identities, and/or group memberships.

Iraklis Grigoropoulos: I am a white, cisgender, heterosexual man, married with two young children. I have a PhD in Social Psychology. I hold a master’s degree in developmental psychopathology and in counseling psychology and a degree in Psychology. Currently, I work as a laboratory teaching staff in the International Hellenic University, teaching psychology. I have worked as a psychologist in a psychiatric clinic of a public general hospital and in a public child psychiatric clinic. My publications include attitudes towards LGBTQIA+ individuals and their civil rights. I strongly support the LGBTQIA+ community. For this chapter, I added my ideas regarding LGBTQIA+ parented families' experiences with their school environment.

Mani B Mitchell, Pakeha, change agent, non binary, intersex and queer identifying person. Born in the shadows of the second world war, my parents, loving, remote rural conservative people were poorly equipped to deal with the reality my birth brought to their life. I did not deal with the trauma of my childhood until my 40’s - I had trained as an educator, gone onto local government emergency management, specialized in critical incident stress management, management and then psychotherapy. Once I started to ‘deal’ with my own birth realty, my own trauma, suicidal ideation, I made the decision - I could not change the past - I could, I concluded assist with changing the future. So I have used all my training, my lived experience, aroha, stubbornness, my pain, sadness to bring awareness - visibility of intersex realities and awareness to the world. Find people to collaborate with, work beside - inspire, by working locally, nationally and internationally. My dream is, we will as a global collective, achieve critical mass - change the model. That trauma, stigma, shame and secrecy will be relegated to history as a sad artifact of the past. That intersex persons will be free to be the magnificent humans we are all entitled to be.

Kia ora, I am Denise Steers and I believe the world wants to be more inclusive and accepting of difference. I have a partner of 25 years and a teenage son. I am a cis, white lesbian born in Aotearoa, New Zealand. I trained as a clinical psychologist and worked in the child, adolescent, and family mental health field for 20 years before turning to research in the past 10 years at the University of Otago. I had the good fortune to do my PhD by partnering with Mani Mitchell, founder of Intersex Trust Aotearoa New Zealand. We were able to collaborate with health professionals to try and understand the factors that influenced decision making for children born with a variation in sex characteristics (VSC, also known as intersex traits or differences in sex development ). I interviewed parents, and young people aged between 14-26 years who had lived experience of VSC, along with health professionals working in that area. The knowledge I gained from those 3 key perspectives are the foundations of the information we provide here in this chapter. We hope it helps you consider what truly matters, think more expansively, and remember that everyone is entitled to love and care even if they are different from what is considered the norm.

Jeannie D. DiClementi, PsyD: I earned my doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Denver. I am a licensed clinical psychologist and currently an Associate Professor of Psychology at Purdue University Fort Wayne campus, where I have a suicide prevention and mental health education and outreach program funded by SAMHSA. I started the campus Safe Zone program, the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, and most recently worked with a group of administrators to develop a policy change to add name options to student records plus convinced our Chancellor to charge a LGBTQ+ Task Force to address concerns, policy issues, etc., on our campus. I was recently honored by the University for my mental health and LGBTQ+ service to the campus community. I have worked in the LGBTQ+ community and the HIV/AIDS field, both as a clinician and as an activist since the mid-1980s. I also have a specialty in trauma and traumatization, having worked as a consultant for some police departments in their Victim Assistance programs. In fact, I was one of the mental health responders to Columbine High School in Colorado the morning after that mass shooting plus a less well-known Father’s Day massacre at a bank in Denver, to name two incidents. In addition to my current work for Purdue, I provide trainings at local and regional mental health agencies on clinical work with LGBTQIA+ persons, provide consultation to the county court system on families and domestic violence, trauma and traumatization, as well as provide mental health services to court officers, lawyers, judges, etc. who suffer the deleterious effects of working with victims of violence. My wife, who is a clinical social worker, and I have been together for over 30 years, and we have two daughters whom we adopted as infants and who are now teenagers, plus two grown children from my previous (heterosexual) marriage, and 13 (that’s not a typo) grandchildren.

A. Lee Beckstead (he/him), PhD: I am white-Peruvian, gay, cisgender, currently nondisabled, and spiritual. I was excommunicated in 2009 from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and have been in a primary relationship with a man since 1997. I have been a psychologist in private practice since 2003 in Salt Lake City, Utah. I tried to change my sexual orientation by myself in my teens and later with a few Latter-day Saint therapists during my early twenties. I attempted suicide at the age of 18 because I felt hopeless and ashamed about not being able to stop being attracted to guys. I conducted a qualitative study in graduate school from 1998 to 2001 on 50 individuals who tried to change their sexual orientation through psychotherapy. Half reported benefits, half reported harms, and many reported mixed results. Since 2005, I have co-facilitated weekend retreats for male survivors of sexual abuse (https://menhealing.org/). I served on the 2009 American Psychological Association task force making recommendations for those seeking therapy to change their sexual orientation. In 2012, I initiated the LGBTQ-affirmative Psychotherapist Guild of Utah to file ethical complaints against Utah clinicians providing sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE). In 2013, I shifted focus and organized a workshop to foster dialogue and understanding with these individuals. Since then, I’ve been meeting twice per month with therapists and educators holding differing views on sexual orientation, gender, and religion (https://reconciliationandgrowth.org/). I testified as an expert witness in a 2015 New Jersey legal case against a Jewish organization accused of consumer fraud due to offering SOCE. Since 2016, I’ve been part of a diverse research team studying the health and satisfaction of individuals who are single and celibate or noncelibate, in a same-sex/queer relationship, or a mixed-orientation relationship (https://www.4optionssurvey.com/). Since 2017, I have been the lead coeditor and organizer of the LGBTQIA+ Peacebuilding Book Project (https://findingcongruence.com).

Walter Schumm: I am a retired professor from Kansas State University. I got a B.S. in physics from William and Mary in Virginia in 1972, an M.S. in Family and Child Development from Kansas State in 1976, and Ph.D. in family studies from Purdue University in 1979. I have tended to risk publishing on controversial topics, from how the government caused Gulf War illness to fraud in medical and sociological research. My racial background is English/German/Italian. My immediate ancestors were atheist freethinkers. My grandfather did not believe in stop-lights and stop signs because he resented people being told what to do by machines. My father dropped out of high school as a junior but got into the Navy and served there for 36 years, with 15-18 battles in World War II in the Pacific. After retiring from the Navy, he later taught high school at an Episcopal School in Alexandria, VA, where I went to high school. Perhaps in contrast to some later ideas in this chapter, I believe and have evidence for the influence of parents on their children, through genetics or socialization. I have been married to my wife Kimberly since 1979 and we have 7 children, ages 25-40. Politically, I was a Democrat for 40 years but then switched to being a Republican, though I am basically a pragmatist, asking which policies will benefit the most at the least cost or the least waste of money in the long run. I was an Episcopalian, confirmed/baptized but became more or less general Protestant during college. Most churches I attend have reservations about my being there, mainly because I am willing to subject the doctrines of any church and/or practices to challenge on the basis of logic and other criteria. At the same time, I can write some interesting sermons such that I have been invited to preach at both unitarian and evangelical churches, on rare occasions. I served in the Army Reserve/Army National Guard for 30 years, retired in 2002. I think that much of the research and theory in the same-sex parenting area has been weak, though it’s getting better. I published a book on same-sex parenting research in 2018 and more recently two meta-analyses on same-sex parenting, as well as a number of other articles.

Jeni Wahlig: I am a cisgender presenting, genderqueer identifying, queer, white, PhD educated, able-bodied, polyamorous, middle-class human. I am a licensed Marriage and Family therapist specializing in working with the queer population in Seattle, WA, USA. I have a deep love and respect for the LGBTQIA+ community, as they are my community and my family. I am married to a woman with whom I have a biological child who we are trying to raise with gender fluidity. I live primarily with my partner, who is a trans man of color, and his three children. I believe it is important to bring critical consciousness to the way we, as parents, can sometimes box our children into limitations based on a gender binary for who they can become in this life. My hope is that by participating in writing this chapter I can help to support families and loved ones in making greater space in their hearts and minds for developing healthy and loving relationships with their loved ones and perhaps with all people.

Alejandro Gepp Torres: I'm a Chilean, able-bodied, cisgender gay man. I studied Medicine and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Universidad de Valparaíso, where I also currently work as a lecturer of developmental psychology and adolescent psychopathology. I'm currently training at Pink Therapy to become a gender, sex, and relationship diversity therapist. I've worked the last 4 years at the Gender Identity Program in Hospital Carlos van Buren, where I receive families with transgender and gender nonconforming children and adolescents and help them navigate through exploration and transition regarding gender from an affirmative approach. I also do activism and education through a local group of affirmative health professionals called Diversalud. I grew up in a catholic family and did all my education in catholic schools, so I'm no stranger to the concerns of religious people around sexual and gender diversity. I'm currently researching different models of care for gender diverse clients and hostile work environments amongst other topics. My research is very local as I usually try to focus it to respond to problems I encounter in my practice.

Amanda Veldorale-Griffin: Professionally, I am a Professor of Marriage and Family Sciences at National University. I hold a PhD in Family and Child Sciences and am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and AAMFT-approved supervisor in the state of Florida. I have been in practice for 15 years and specialize in working with transgender adults and youth and their families. My main area of research is on transgender parenting and the effects of parental gender transition on family functioning. Personally, I am a white, Jewish, middle-class, pansexual, cisgender woman. I am married to a white, straight, cisgender man and have two kids. I also am the proud daughter of a transgender lesbian woman and sister of a bisexual nonbinary person.

Dr. Brie Radis, LCSW, DSW: I am a licensed clinical social worker who has worked with LGBTQIA+ parented families, and also with adults and youth who identify as nonbinary, transgender, or queer in clinical practice. I have a Doctorate in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania and am an Associate Professor of Social Work at West Chester University who teaches from an anti-oppressive social work lens. I am also a LGBT health fellow. I completed a qualitative dissertation on lesbian parented Black mothers and their risk and resilience, from which I have published papers in peer-reviewed journals, Family Process and GLBT Family Studies. I focused on this population due to the dearth of research on Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC)--identifying families because much of the research has been on white middle-class lesbian and gay families. I also completed a study on drag queen story times as a psychoeducational tool for families and youth. I identify as a white queer partnered, cisgender mother with two children.

COEDITORS

A. Lee Beckstead (see bio above)

Sulaimon Giwa (he/him/his) is an associate professor and interim dean of social work at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada. Sulaimon is a scholar-activist who self-identifies as Black, Muslim, and gay. His intersectional identity adds depth to his contributions in the field of LGBTQ+ studies, demonstrating his unwavering commitment to fostering inclusive discourse from diverse perspectives. Through his academic and community pursuits, Sulaimon demonstrates his astute understanding of the intricacies surrounding identity and representation within the LGBTQ+ community, promoting crucial conversations on equity and social justice. He authored the 2022 book Racism and Gay Men of Color: Living and Coping with Discrimination.

Iva Žegura graduated from and specialized in clinical psychology at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, in Zagreb and is currently pursuing doctoral studies. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and is educated in gestalt integrative therapy, cybernetic psychotherapy, and sexual therapy. She introduced the concept of affirmative and sensitive LGBTAIQ+ mental health practice in Croatia and the Balkans. Also, she initiated and established the Section for Psychology of Sexuality and Psychology of Gender of the Croatian Psychological Association. In 2015, she helped in implementation of legalization and health care for trans people based on SOC WPATH within the Croatian health-care system. She works at the Vrapče Psychiatry Clinic and collaborates with several national universities and departments of psychology. She is a member of the national list of experts for transgender health care at the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Croatia. She is the president of the Section for Clinical Psychology, president of the Section for Psychology and Human Rights, and vice president of the Section for Psychology of Sexuality and Psychology of Gender. In 2021, she was elected to be a member of the board of directors of the European Professional Association for Transgender Health (EPATH) and now she is president-elect. She collaborates with the Global Education Institute of WPATH. She participated in starting the association. She was a member of the executive board of TransAid Croatia, now KolekTIRV, helping establish this nongovernment organization (NGO). She was also a cofounder of the association TransParent Croatia. She regularly collaborates with several Croatian and regional LGBTAIQ+ and human rights NGOs. She is a winner of several professional awards and has authored several books, chapters, and scientific papers. She is a member of several national, European, and international professional associations.