425 - Polyamorous Legal Rights: The Fight for Equality with Diana Adams Esq. and Dr. Heath Schechinger

Full transcript available

Ethical Non-monogamy and Legal Rights

On this episode, Dr. Heath Schechinger and Diana Adams, Esq. shed light on the current legal and political landscape for polyamorous individuals and non-traditional families. As advocates for relationship structure diversity, both guests share their insights on the challenges faced by polyamorous people and the progress being made in achieving legal rights for these families.

Dr. Heath Schechinger

Dr. Heath Schechinger is a distinguished psychologist, scholar, and educator specializing in relationship structure diversity. He is a founding Co-chair of the American Psychological Association Division 44 Committee on Consensual Non-monogamy, a Co-founder of the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition, and actively involved in supporting polyamorous individuals through consultation services and private practice.

Diana Adams, Esquire

Diana Adams Esq., the Executive Director of the Chosen Family Law Center, is an international legal leader in advocating for diverse family structures beyond the romantic dyad. They run a boutique law firm providing mediation services nationwide and emphasize the need for expanded legal recognition of non-traditional families.

Welcome Diana and Heath!

Heath and Diana discuss the progress that has been made in achieving certain rights for polyamorous individuals and families. Notably, the first plural domestic partnership and non-discrimination ordinances have been passed, recognizing the need to redefine what constitutes a modern family.

While significant progress has been made, there is still work to be done. The rights that have already been achieved, such as domestic partnerships, allow individuals to be married to one person and domestically partnered to another. However, concerns persist regarding child custody cases and subjective standards. Advocacy efforts are ongoing to ensure non-traditional families receive equal legal recognition and protection.

Throughout this episode, Heath and Diana discuss the following points:

• The work they’ve been doing on passing legal rights for polyamorous people, such as what it consists of and where the current legal landscape stands on non-monogamous relationships and legal protections.

• The rights non-monogamous people are currently actively fighting for.

• What they see as the future of the modern families/polyamorous legal rights movement.

• Coming out and why they think it’s important to do if one has adequate privilege and feels safe to do so.

Sharing is caring

Both Heath and Diana stress the importance of coming out and sharing one's relationship structure with others. By coming out, polyamorous individuals can challenge stereotypes, create awareness, and foster understanding among their friends, families, and communities. Coming out also plays a role in the larger social and legal acceptance of diverse family structures.

Additionally, it’s vital to engage in discussions with individuals holding different beliefs and perspectives. The concept of inter-group contact theory suggests that exposure to marginalized groups helps foster understanding and empathy. While navigating political divides may be challenging, open dialogue can contribute to progress and social acceptance.

Find Heath on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn at @DrSchechinger, and Diana at @DianaAdamsEsq on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Diana’s law firm, the Chosen Family Law Center, is also on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Transcript

This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.

Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about the current legal and political landscape for polyamorous people, and we are joined by two guests who are experts on this very subject. Dr. Heath Schechinger is a distinguished psychologist, scholar, and educator in the field of relationship structure diversity. Over the past 15 years, his work has delved into the challenges of monogamy, infidelity, and the emergence of diverse family and relationship configurations. He's a founding co-chair of the American Psychological Association Division 44 Committee on Consensual Non-Monogamy and is a co-founder of the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition.

In addition to all of those roles, he offers consultation services and maintains a private practice in the San Francisco Bay area. Then we're also joined by Diana Adams, Esquire, who was last on our show in 2017, which is, I can't even believe it's been long.

On Episode 134. Wow. Diana Adams is an international legal leader in advocacy for queer family forms beyond the romantic dyad. Diana is the executive director of the Chosen Family Law Center, a nonprofit advocating for diverse family structures, and they run a boutique law firm providing mediation services nationwide for those hoping to negotiate intentional or polyamorous families. Heath and Diana, thank you so much for joining us.

Diana: Thank you. It's great to be here.

Heath: Thanks for having us. Quite a mouthful.

Dedeker: Well, such accolades, so impressive.

Emily: Indeed.

Dedeker: I'm so excited to delve into so many questions to ask the two of you today.

Emily: First off, the two of you actually contacted us. First you, Heath, and then Diana got roped in as well. You wanted to discuss some of the work that you've both been doing on passing legal rights for polyamorous people, so can you first just talk about that, what that work consisted of, and also just what the legal landscape is currently for people in polyamorous relationships?

Heath: Sure, yes, I can talk a little bit about-- We're excited to share. I think a number of your guests may already know, but we were excited to share a bit about some of the progress that we've seen really in the past two-plus years, starting within the city of Somerville in 2021. The first plural domestic partnership ordinance passed, which is the first time in history that people are allowed to get in a domestic partnership with more than one person. Diana and I and our colleagues at the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition were excited to jump in and to offer support in legislative drafting and reviewing and updating that legislation. Then also offering support in passing the first plural domestic partnership ordinances in the cities of Cambridge as well as Arlington.

Then here just recently, we also collaborated with our colleagues at the organization for polyamory and ethical non-monogamy, as well as a couple of other local groups, including Diana's law firm, the Chosen Family Law Center, in passing the first non-discrimination ordinance in the history of the United States, supporting plural relationships, but not just non-monogamous relationships where we were intentionally inclusive to include blended families, chosen families by choice, as well as ace and asexual-identified individuals.

Dedeker: Wow. I want to roll back a little bit, and it's so funny because maybe our listeners may have spotted that there was just a big feature in the New York Times all about Somerville specifically, which is really interesting to read. I want to roll back to the domestic partnership thing, and Diana, maybe you can weigh in on this a little bit. I want to go back to one on one. Now it's legal in this particular area for people to have a domestic partnership with more than one person. What does that offer? What does that not offer? What does it protect? What does it not protect? How is it different from a classic traditional legal marriage?

Diana: I'm happy to share some more information as a lawyer on the team here. Domestic partnership is a legal family institution that started with same-sex partnership in the '90s and was a powerful institution for giving people an alternative to marriage. With that, it ended up having a lot of creativity about people who were beyond same-sex couples who entered into domestic partnerships. We ended up seeing, inadvertently, cities passing domestic partnerships and then also welcoming two best friends or widows to get domestic partnered.

We realized that there were a tremendous number of people who were basically in caregiving relationships and partnerships that wanted to be able to have legal status with one another. I think that's something that's really powerful about the institution of a domestic partnership. What it really means is that you are each other's special legal someone but unlike marriage, domestic partnership doesn't mean that you're becoming a social welfare state of two, which I rail on and on about as a feminist and queer legal theory person that basically, we're privatizing a lot of what in Europe and in other places would be social welfare state kinds of needs of financial dependency into the institution of marriage.

That's something people need to realize, and I think it makes marriage actually stronger to have a second option of domestic partnership. That with domestic partnership you could cross a border in a pandemic to be together or visit each other in the hospital, have a formalized legal status as a close family member, but not necessarily take on each other's debts and not necessarily, if one of you buys a house, you co-own it by default, which is what marriage law would suggest. I think it's a really powerful institution with quite a bit of creativity.

Heath: One thing to add with that as well is that there's not a residence requirement. I think it's important for the listeners to know, who may be in a different city in the United States as well, that there's nothing stopping them from taking their polycule. As long as there's the consent of everyone involved, you too can formalize your domestic partnership with any of your partners and then head back to your city. We're curious to see what might unfold legally in the years to come when people then might take up arguments with their workplace, et cetera, or in their cities that they're in down the road.

Jase: Yes, that's something I was curious about too, and maybe you're going to speak to that, Diana, but just that question of how does that work with states honoring marriages and partnerships from other states that might have different laws around that?

Diana: This is one piece I want to make a note on, which is that some domestic partnerships are city-specific, but Heath and I and a team of six people actually drafted these domestic partnership ordinances through Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition. We made sure to draft them without a residency requirement and also a number of features that would make them open to platonic partners, open to people who are partners who don't necessarily live in the same household, because that's the reality of polyamorous relationships and caregiving relationships, that people don't necessarily live in the same household.

It's really powerful that because there isn't a residency requirement, then anywhere else in the US you can go. I've had clients do this to Cambridge or to Somerville in Massachusetts and get domestic partnered and then go back to your home state. A reason that can be helpful is that one of the primary functions of domestic partnership is to be able to share health insurance. It's absolutely bogus that we have different levels of health insurance care and coverage in this country. The reality is that we do, and that sometimes one partner might have that great tech job health insurance or great large company health insurance and then want to be able to share that with a partner.

Something that's really special about this ordinance too, which is really revolutionary, is that you could be married to one person and domestic partnered to another. This has never happened anywhere else.

Dedeker: Wow.

Diana: That also represents the reality of the way poly people often live. I had a specific situation with a polycule on the West Coast. It was a married couple, and then there was a serious boyfriend who developed a serious health condition. One of the partners said, "My husband doesn't need my health insurance anymore. My boyfriend really needs my good health insurance. Can we still go? We want to stay married, but we want to go and get domestic partnered and then go back and tell my company we want to switch. I still only want to cover one partner right now, but I would like to switch which one," and that worked.

That is the reason that people want sometimes to be able to show that they have this formalized legal status. As somebody who is stuck in Germany during the pandemic away from close people in the US, it's also really powerful that you could potentially cross a border in a pandemic to be together or have that close relationship so that you could visit somebody in the hospital in that kind of crisis moment.

Dedeker: I want to ask more about the health care policy part of this as well. Again, I just want to reiterate that, so you're saying that we can put together a polycule tourism package to Somerville to be like, "Let's all go get our domestic partnership, stay in a cute local bed and breakfast, support the queer café or whatever, and then we bring it back to wherever it is that we're living."

It sounds like, Heath, you were implying and then we just see what the domino effect of that is when we start running into things like trying to switch up health care or trying to switch up who's on the health insurance or running into workplace protections and things like that.

Heath: That's right. There's nothing stopping your employer from honoring more than one person being on health care. There are certainly parameters in particular cases, but there's nothing stopping you from asking. At the very least, it gives you that option of choosing which person or, in the cases where you are limited to one person, who you want on your health care. We at least see it as a significant step forward that people are granted that option of getting to choose.

Diana: Absolutely. Ultimately, if we are still in this bogus game of health insurance based on a breadwinner model, I would make the argument that if I could have five children to put them on my health insurance, why couldn't I have two partners on my health insurance? Ultimately, I would love universal health care, but until then we're going to be pushing for people to get the care that they deserve and that they need.

It's really going to be up to that particular employer that you work with to see whether they're willing to cover more than one partner, for example. I think that's something that will be there. If you have a progressive employer, it's more likely to work, and also, advocates like us are here if you need some advocacy.

Heath: One other point with that, I'm really curious about this idea that I've heard that's catching a lot of attention called a lifestyle wallet. In essence, in this idea, if you have a certain amount of money that is dedicated towards a particular employee, there's more and more employers that are wanting to give employees the opportunity to bring more of themselves to work.

Essentially, let's say that's capped at 100K that what's keeping you if you want to add a second person to your health insurance and that has a given amount that you just take less in your comp, and then you can choose ala carte style which benefits that you want to opt-in on. I know there's an increasing number of employers that are looking into those options because then that creates more options for groups like the polyamorous groups that are interested in that, but also multi-generational households or the millions of Americans who just want more flexibility and choosing who they put on their health care.

Jase: Yes, it's interesting. Now, I'm thinking like, "Okay, I want to try this with my employer. Let's all go and just see how it works." Something I've run into a lot with benefits, I think that's always the initial objection, is the wait. Now you want your employer to pay for a bunch more people. Then when I think about my health insurance, Dedeker is on my health insurance because I have a tech job, like you were talking about, and they don't cover any of her coverage anyway. I just get to have her on that plan, which is still better than if she bought it as a individual. We're paying for it. Why not be able to add more people? Now I really want to try it and see what they would say.

Dedeker: Yes. With the lifestyle wallet thing, so would it work in the sense, so it's like if the employer's thinking about it, we're allocating a certain amount of money to each employee, but if there's an employee who knows, "I'm not going to be taking maternity leave, maybe I'm not going to have children or I can't have children," the idea that you could change the arrangement of what you take from the buffet as far as not only the type of benefits, but how many people and which people you would extend that to?

Heath: Yes. Offering more flexibility in which benefits that you are opting in and out of based on your particular situation.

Dedeker: There's actually a good segue to also talk about things like non-discrimination clauses and workplace protections. What's the current status of that and what are we seeing?

Diana: In terms of non-discrimination, we just passed the first non-discrimination ordinance in Somerville that we based on being polyamorous or whatever your family structure is, and there's a lot of symbolic weight there. In the specific city of Somerville, are people as concerned about non-discrimination? Perhaps not. That also comes with intersectional privilege issues.

While I might not feel uncomfortable as somebody that is a white professional owning my own business, there are many people where class and race are also going to be playing in to discrimination factors. The non-discrimination ordinance was also related to policing, also related to healthcare, as well as employment situations, and housing, and not being denied an apartment, for example.

I think it's really important that we realize that this has an impact beyond Somerville because just as passing these domestic partnership laws that were for multi-partner in Massachusetts had these ripple effects, for example, that in New York City they expanded the definition of family for passing on your rent-stabilized apartment, and specifically referenced what had happened in Massachusetts, that there was a basis in law that this is what the modern family is, especially in a progressive place like New York.

Once we also then passed on discrimination laws, that is a seed that helps remind us of just how many people may not be going to get registered as multi-partner domestic partners because they don't feel safe doing so because this is something that we still don't have non-discrimination protections for. This is something that with my law firm since 2007, I've been getting calls regularly from people like us who might assume that they're protected.

People like Jase who work at a tech company and might contact me and say, "Hey, my employer said I can't march with the polyamory contingent of the pride parade. That seems like that's obviously not acceptable. I want to make some complaint." I have to let them know they can actually do that. People, even in progressive cities and progressive companies, have been told that they can't mention being polyamorous, that it makes other people uncomfortable, that they have a photo with two other partners on their desk that they had their picture taken at a poly pride event.

It's important that we recognize that discrimination is real, and in order to access the benefits of domestic partnership, you need to feel that you're going to be safe, that you can't go get registered as domestic partners and then lose your job about it on Monday at work. I think that it's important to recognize that, and this is a hope that this is something that will then impact not just other cities but workplaces, because progressive workplaces have an opportunity to take leadership here just as they did with same-sex couples, just as they've done with trans, healthcare support.

There's a real opportunity for employees that work at progressive companies that want to keep courting those progressive employees that want to work there to show just how open they are by adopting these kinds of policies of non-discrimination, which is something that Heath and I work on and are available to support with.

Jase: Yes. I actually had a question about that. This has come up for me in a few different conversations specifically around the wrongful termination thing. It sounds like from what you're saying, there's actually a lot of other areas that are maybe more likely to show up, like you were mentioning of saying you shouldn't march in the pride parade or don't have pictures of you with multiple partners, or you need to remove this from your website or something like that.

That those maybe are more likely than getting fired over it exactly. My understanding of it is that even if you are in a protected category, that wrongful termination can be a challenging thing to fight and win. What I was curious about though is in the case of it being related to non-monogamy, if that's also tied in with other parts of your identity. Like you mentioned, you're marching in the polyamory float at the pride parade if you also are claiming a queer identity that has to do with being at pride, does that help your case at all?

I'm confused about the legal ramifications of when you have these intersecting identities of queerness or gender identity along with non-monogamy.

Diana: Absolutely. I would say that first, as you said, proving wrongful termination is incredibly difficult.

Emily: Especially in California, or right-to-work states specifically. Am I correct on that? I've heard that from my employers who when people say, "Oh, I was wrongfully terminated," my employer's saying this is a right-to-work state, and so that'll never work, that's never going to be a thing that they can actually claim.

Diana: It's generally really common that most employees are employment at will and they don't necessarily have a contract. You can be fired at any moment and they don't have to tell you why. Does anybody ever get fired and do they say it's because you got pregnant and we don't want to pay for it? Hopefully, they're smart enough not to do that. We hope that they are stupid enough to say it so that we can get support for the person.

This is one of the reasons I'm not a corporate lawyer, is that frankly, what they do at large law firms is that they blanket them, somebody who's fired, and they say, "I think it's because I'm Black and they think it's because I'm queer, but they didn't actually say that. I just think." Then they blanket them with motions and look through every time in their email that they did a social email and work time and try to argue that there wa11s a reason they fired them that was not that protected class.

I think it's really difficult to prove because most of the time if you're denied an apartment or wrongfully terminated, they're not going to tell you why. I applied for 50 apartments in New York City this past year before I was able to get one as an appearing different sex successful 40-something White couple. Was that because I'm a non-binary and polyamory activist? Probably, at least some of them, and they didn't say that.

What's more common in these kinds of employment situations is actually being told something related to you can't mention that you're polyamorous on your social media profiles, you can't have your picture taken in a public event related to this, and being told that, that something about your polyamorous identity is making people uncomfortable. I think if we are going to in future extend into non-discrimination with this, having it be part of your queer identity, part of a pride parade event, something that you think of as an orientation is definitely going to be helpful, but right now we need to make sure that we have the laws and policies in place to start that kind of protection.

Emily: I'm curious in talking about all of this. First, what are some of those more progressive companies that are out there that are okay with this? Second, if your company isn't progressive, is there anything you can do in instances like this? We all live in super progressive places, all five of us, and yet there's so much of the world that doesn't or so much of this country specifically that doesn't. I just wonder, is there anything that they can do?

Heath: I think that to start, we've started conversations. It's a very nascent conversation, I would say. This is really one of those things that many orgs don't want to be the first domino to fall. This is even why it's so significant that Somerville passed, because now once that's happened, we can start going back and having these conversations with these organizations and saying, "Hey, look, now you're not that first domino. Let's go back and let's have that conversation about what this would look like."

Diane and I are in the process of creating resources as well that will help employers that want to go to their employee and say, "Hey, look, here is an overview of why this is important and what the potential concerns are so that we can have that conversation upfront and really try to open that path for an additional organizations to start adopting inclusive policies."

I think it's important to note that it's not just non-discrimination, but there's also, training is incredibly important, having representation. Having representation on your advisory committee, your employee resource groups. Benefits is certainly a more complicated one, but there's also self-identification. Simply having and and supporting these organizations and using language where they can start collecting data.

Or if you're a client, going in to see a patient at a hospital that your therapist or your provider is asking you and collecting data about your identity so that we can get feedback as well. There's a number of things that organizations can do. I think non-discrimination is one of the most important ones, but there are many really easy steps that employers can take that are really low to no cost for them that might mean a lot in terms of attracting, retaining non-monogamous talent.

Diana: What can somebody do if they live in a conservative place as a polyamorous person to protect themselves? I think that's a really difficult question because I have had legal consults with people all over the US, and sometimes, this is related to child custody cases. I've been involved with hundreds of child custody cases across the country in which people sometimes lose custody of their kids because polyamory is being used against them.

Which is why the research that Heath is doing and that we're partnering on is so critically important, that we can demonstrate in a way now that we couldn't when I started doing that work 16 years ago, that there's nothing non-normative, that there's no about being polyamorous, that this is actually very much within the realm of adult healthy relationships. There's no reason to think that somebody is a sex addict, or shouldn't be around children, or might make bad parenting choices if they're polyamorous.

However, the standards for these kinds of situations are incredibly subjective, and so no matter how many studies I can present now more than we did before, and we still need more, but no matter how many studies I present, you're still going to be before, in a child custody case, a judge whose standard is the best interest of the child, which is incredibly subjective.

I've had New York judges decided the best interest of a child is to live in a lesbian collective, and I've had conservative judges tell me it's in the best interest of the child that they go to church every Sunday and live with the parent that does that. Living in a conservative place is something that can be really dangerous for people, particularly if they're parents, or if they might face something related to employment and polyamory.

I've had legal consultations with people where one of the things we discuss is whether they have the means to move. Frankly, right now in this current climate, I wouldn't want to be trans or polyamorous and live in a red state. Many of us don't have the privilege to move, but if you do, I would consider that. Frankly then, then there's the question of deciding when you have the safety and privilege to feel like you can come out. I have a helpful document about that on my website that I'd be happy to share on safety and coming out as polyamorous.

If people like us that do live in a situation of safety in which, for example, I'm not going to lose custody of a kid because I'm not having anybody that I'm having a former partner who's a co-parent that I'm having dispute with, and I run my own business, I'm not going to get fired, and I live in a progressive place, and I have the privilege of being a white legal professional, I feel like I have a responsibility to come out because people like us can then raise awareness with that and don't face as many of the risks that many of us would with being out.

Jase: That's actually a great segue to something else that we wanted to ask you about. We recently did an episode about some of the benefits and challenges of coming out. It was a little more focused on the social and emotional ramifications of that, although we did deal a little bit with some of the legal concerns or at least to be aware of that. I actually think it could be really helpful to expand on that, I guess from both sides, in terms of what are some of the benefits from a legal standpoint in terms of moving things forward or the visibility that Heath was mentioning, as well as what are, I guess, realistic examples of some of the risks that people should be looking at? I think sometimes when we just say evaluate the risks for yourself, it's like, "Well, where should I look? What are the key areas?" It seems like you have a lot of experience with that, both of you.

Heath: I can start. I think, one, it's important, to note that to Diana's point, that this is only if people have the privilege. I think it's important that we acknowledge that many people are not in a position to come out. I draw a lot of inspiration from the LGBT movement and I think that really a key turning point of what helped progress the LGBT movement was people like Harvey Milk inviting or asking people that had the privilege to start coming out.

We're in a situation where there's so many people that are non-monogamous. Up to one in five people have engaged in non-monogamy at one point in their life. 1/3 of Americans in a recent poll indicated that their ideal relationship structure is something other than monogamy. There's this concept of the contact hypothesis or intergroup contact theory that really demonstrates that the most impactful factor for people changing their attitudes towards being more accepting of a marginalized identity is exposure.

Right now we're in a situation where, really, we're out of precipice. I really think non-monogamy has entered into the Overton window, which is a concept to talk about how policy think is actually possible now in a way that it never has been, that it's really important for those people that do have that privilege to lean in to take that step of coming out to more people because I think that it is one of the most important linchpins of this movement progressing and moving forward.

Diana: Yes. Socially, it makes a tremendous amount of social difference in terms of opening minds when somebody is known personally. We saw this also with the LGBTQ movement, people sometimes describe it as the will and grace effect, that even when MTV shows with LGBTQ characters, or Will & Grace, were aired in other countries, it changed the polling on the status of LGBTQ people and whether you thought same-sex marriage could be valid.

Really even seeing the media images is very helpful, but then more so, we saw a tremendous shift in mindset in the US related to the AIDS era and understanding gayness because people had to come out because AIDS was something that was then happening throughout the country and throughout communities and people were finding out that their nephew or that nice man from church were gay.

We saw with that tremendous changes in social attitudes. Legally, they say that sometimes law is about 15 years behind what's happening socially. Right now we're seeing that tremendous shift toward openness around polyamory. In terms of evaluating, if you really do have the privilege to come out, there are a few things to think about. Number one, if you have any contested child custody situation with a former partner who would be disapproving, that's your most dangerous risk factor. Or if you have very disapproving grandparents and live in a state in which at some point grandparents can intercede and try to get custody from a parent, and that has happened related to polyamory.

Do you have a co-parent or grandparents that would get involved in a child custody case is factor number one. Factor number two is who your employer is and whether you work for a progressive company. That whether you live in a conservative place or not, if you work for a national company that has progressive cities as bases, they may not want to take a controversial stance about being negative toward being polyamorous, for example, versus if you work for a smaller operation that has conservative values.

Then a third factor would be if you have any work related to working with children that could put you under heightened scrutiny about some of the concerns about people who are sexualized with working with children. You're even more likely, if you're a daycare worker, if you are an elementary school teacher, to feel like there could be some stress because there might be some backlash from community and parents.

Then moreover, the general city and the climate that you live in, if you have children who might face harassment at school if you live in a conservative area, I would think then, I always say as parents, we need to put our kids first. Whether you live in a community where that's going to be a factor and not wanting kids to have to keep secrets. I think those are some of the factors. Then, of course, the intersectional race and class issues that people will face in addition to living in a conservative area.

With those benchmarks, I think that many of the people listening might realize, actually, some of my fear that I have about coming out isn't being reality tested against that. If you are a white professional living in a blue dot city, you probably should think about coming out because you probably have some privilege here and need to be doing that if you feel like you can with safety to help the rest of the community.

Jase: On this show we're often talking about things generally, or we're talking about the internal relationship communication side of things, but it's really valuable to have the perspective that the two of you bring from what's actually going on in terms of legal fights or the progress that we're making, hopefully as a culture and politically and legally.

We're really excited to keep going with this, but we're going to take a quick break right now to talk about how people can support this show. If you appreciate getting this information and you value the fact that this is available to everybody out there in the world for free, it really goes a long way. If you take a moment to check out our sponsors, if any seem interesting to you, go check them out, but even just listening to them does directly support our show, so thank you so much.

Dedeker: You're both talking about feeling into this tipping point. Actually having a sense of there being a sea change happening. I know it's something that I've loved about the fact that we've been running this show for like almost a decade now is getting to look back, and see these turning points and be like, "Oh yes, things are different now than it was back in 2014."

I had this funny moment literally just a couple weeks ago when Jase and I were on vacation, and we went to a spa and there was a Cosmo magazine in the spa, and it was the Couples (& Throuples) edition, where they had all of the beautiful photography spreads of couples and some throuples and some non-monogamy couples and things like that.

I remember thinking back to when I first started writing my book in 2015, that one of the pieces of my inspiration that got me really fired up to write a book about non-monogamy was the fact that I picked a Picasso and the relationship advice made me sick to my stomach.

Then having this moment 10 years later being like, "Wow." Like a tangible change. I'm curious to hear from the two of you. I know the two of you are on the forefront of things politically, legally, really making change happen. I'm curious if you have any personal moments like that that come to mind where you have this sense of like, "Oh yes. There's been a change that I can notice here."

Diana: I've really been struck, actually, recently. Heath and I were just in the New York Times related to the work that we've been doing, and it's an overwhelmingly positive article in the New York Times about places you could move to that are polyamory-friendly. I believe that the article that I was in in 2008 was the first mention of polyamory in the New York Times.

In that article, it was in the style section, and it was my partner, Ed, and I, we're still together, to some of the doubters in that particular article. It was a generally positive article for 2008. It included lots of elements that were conveying just how much it was a very edgy topic that they didn't want to take too much of an affirmatively positive stance on. They found a random Podunk psychologist that was like, "Random psychologist on the street says, this will probably never work. They probably just haven't met someone special yet," which isn't even a psychologist's opinion particularly, right?

They're just like, "We have to include the other side," which is like some random guy says this is a dumb idea. Then throughout the article made reference to seeming like there was an unspoken undercurrent that I was jealous. Not my male partner, which I hadn't said, but I think it was because they couldn't imagine that I wasn't jealous. Just feeling like the media was pretty negative then. I've had a long journey since 2008 of doing media. I was on The View and I think 2013, and Dr. Drew and Jenny McCarthy were really slut-shaming toward me. Although I think it's an accomplishment to get slut-shamed by Jenny McCarthy. It was acceptable on The View. When I was there as an attorney, I was asked by Jenny McCarthy if I asked men's names before they had sex with me.

Dedeker: Woah.

Emily: I'm sorry. Jesus Christ.

Diana: I was there to talk about my law firm. "Hi, I'm arguing federal court cases related to this topic, and I'm admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court on this topic. Why would you ask me that question on television in front of a live studio audience?" It was acceptable for this to be treated as an absolute mockery. That's what most of the media was up until, I would say, the past seven years, we've just really been seeing this shift. This gradual shift that I think is accelerated. Now we're seeing fewer of these sensationalized articles, we're seeing more positive media depictions, we're seeing situations in which sometimes the person is polyamorous on a TV show, and that's not the focus. That's, I think, really exciting.

Heath: In terms of my story, I ended up leaving my master's of ministry program to pursue a PhD in Counseling Psychology because it felt like that there was a suppression toward people that experienced same-sex attraction. I started actually fell in love with my best guy friend, and I was like, "Okay, maybe I need to go a different direction with my career." When I got into my PhD program in counseling, I noticed that it felt like a very similar oppression when I started having conversations about the capacity to be drawn to loving more than one person. That's what launched me on this journey of starting to research around non-monogamy.

Then in 2014, my colleague, Dr. Amy Moors, who we co-found the first task force on consensual non-monogamy, we wrote a paper essentially calling for the American Psychological Association to do something to address this issue. Little did we expect in 2018, shortly after we graduated and finished our postdocs, that we would be the ones that were taking up that charge.

Really, it was a turnkey moment for us as well of, "Oh my gosh, we can actually do something about this." Really being grateful for standing on the strollers of giants and all the people that really laid the groundwork. It really shifted our perspective and really is a sign of how things were starting to change when we received a unanimous support from all 13 executive board members of the LGBT division of the American Psychological Association for us to start the first task force.

Then three years later, we were approved to be a permanent committee within that subdivision of the American Psychological Association incurring ongoing representation within that subdivision of the American Psychological Association. Then since then, it's just really been different. As Diana said, we're not being laughed at when we're having these conversations. When we are being reached out to, for example, we just did a talk with the LGBT subdivision of the American Bar Association.

We're also in the process of, there's a lot of support to where it seems like that there's a high possibility in the next year or two to pass the first resolution or position statement within the American Psychological Association demonstrating support for consensual non-monogamy. It's not the same as back when being gay was removed from the DSM, but there's a lot of parallels to us in this movement, and that's why I'm really excited and passionate about continuing, in addition to on the municipal front, but also doing a lot of work in healthcare as well.

Dedeker: Can you talk a little bit more specifically? I know that it seems like the APA, this particular task force is doing a lot from what I can see, but can you just give at least a sprinkling to our listeners of what you're working on?

Heath: Sure. Amy and I have been really ambitious, and we're really excited. Back in 2018, we put together a think tank. Again, it was referred to as a task force because they start with the temporary task force for three years. That we established a group of 40 psychologists, educators, lawyers, and graduate students that focused on supporting research, education, and clinical practice regarding consensual non-monogamy. Then we've done quite a bit. In addition to establishing a permanent committee, we created empirical resources for medical and mental health providers that are the first of their kind.

If you want a resource or help talking to your medical provider or your psychotherapist to normalize non-monogamy, we created these resources that you can utilize in that situation. Also, we helped Psychology Today and other therapist directories add non-monogamy to their therapist directory, so it makes it easier to find a therapist who has experience in this area.

In addition, we've also created a hub for different resources and are continuing to add and work on that. If you're a professor in Nebraska and are wanting support creating a talk on non-monogamy, that you have access to those resources. We also passed or wrote the first guideline in support of consensual non-monogamy in these practice guidelines that are designed for same-sex relationships. We passed the first guideline in support of non-monogamy in that as well.

Dedeker: Yes. I'm curious about-- because I think what we see in the landscape now, specifically within healthcare and mental healthcare is, at least my perspective, is this slow snowballing of more and more professionals who are maybe open to taking on non-monogamous clients. I think that for myself, working with my own clients, I go through swaths of clients who come to me who've had a bad experience with a different professional, but that I have noticed that changing over the years from, I think even just as recently as five years ago, it was, "Oh yes, we tried to go to a couple's therapist or I tried to talk to my therapist about it.

They were very negative. They really discouraged me. They were very judgy," to, it started to shift to maybe something slightly more neutral of like, "Okay, they're not judgy, but they're asking a lot of questions. I'm spending a lot of my therapy time that I'm paying for just teaching them about how my relationships work," to, what I've noticed more now is more, "No, my therapist is supportive. They're just afraid to talk about it because they don't know much." When you look at the landscape of professionals out there right now, professionals entering the field, what do you think is needed right now? In your ideal world, is it about every professional being able to get a certain amount of training? What are your thoughts?

Heath: We looked into the possibility of there being standards that required therapists who receive training. There's nothing like that. There's even no standards for psychotherapists to receive training on LGBTQ issues. This is why I think it's so important that we are working on in the professional associations that oversee the mental health spaces. Especially, we thought it was important to strategically work within the American Psychological Association to pass policies that indicate support for consensual non-monogamy, because we therapists, just as everyone else is, is subject to what are the societal perceptions of this issue?

As this starts gaining attention and more so the support that progress that we're going to see that you reference is going to happen. We still think that it is incredibly important to work from the top, if you will, and have these professional associations that oversee the field, take ethical positions and acknowledge the now mountains of data and research demonstrating that there's clear stigma, that there's impact of that stigma, and that there's tangible steps that we can do at the very least by passing non-discrimination policies encouraging psychotherapists to be non-stigmatizing and open-minded, but also that we're following it up with real clear and tangible forms of data collection as well.

Even encouraging the field to gather data is another thing because one of the top microaggressions that people experience when going into opto-therapists is a therapist simply assuming that they are monogamous. I really think the most-- and really where we're directing our attention is focusing on policy reform.

Emily: Diana, you not only work in the US but you work in other places as well in Europe. Do you happen to know if there's any differences in terms of what the legal rights are of people in other countries versus here?

Diana: Yes, and the polyamory legal movement and the polyamory cultural movement is way further along in the United States than it is anywhere else. One of the reasons that there's more of an emphasis in the US on needing rights as same-sex couples or rights as polyamorous people is that social welfare state issue that many people in other places and our colleagues in Europe are not necessarily needing to find a marriage or domestic partnership type institution in order to get their benefits or to feel like they've got financial security that they need with their partners.

In the US we see a much more robust community, but at the same time, there is a really vibrant community in Germany, for example, where I lived for almost seven years, and Germany actually has a national proposal for something called an extraordinarily long word almost as long as my polycule stacked end to end is basically a responsibility community is the general meeting.

With that, that would be that you could go get registered with any two, three, or four people and get rights that are really similar to marriage throughout all of Germany. That's being proposed by a major political party in Germany and is likely to pass the next year. That is absolutely world-changing. One thing I thought was really interesting was that they used the same definition that Heath and I and our colleagues at Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition used in our plural domestic partnership laws.

That really brings together polyamory with this larger movement, and I think that's what's essential, that we realize that polyamorous people might feel like a marginalized community in some ways, but then if we add up that community with the 38% of American adults who are single and might want to form partnership kinds of relationships, platonically with their best friend and with the fact that more than half of American kids and many kids across the world are living in stepparent and blended families, that we realize that with all of those different communities when we add them up, we're not in the minority. We're actually the vast majority of American adults.

That gives us political power when we think about how we can really push forward this idea of valuing all families and allowing people to make the caretaking relationships that they want and desire. That is a movement that I think is really worldwide. We've seen that in South America. We've been seeing that with laws in Cuba that have passed. We're seeing that with this movement in Germany.

While there isn't as much of an organized explicitly polyamorous movement, there are movements for being able to define family differently because as there's less of a coercion from church and capitalism to be in a particular kind of family institution, more and more of us are doing something beyond the nuclear family. I think that's a really important worldwide movement.

Dedeker: Thank you so much for saying that. I do think such an important part of this is the expansion of it. That these things are not just for this little collection of weirdos over in the corner that I think sometimes people who maybe are more mainstream can perceive it as, but like so much of this expands to all of us. So much of us, like you were saying, don't necessarily want to receive just the handed-down state-sponsored form of relationship or family or whatever. It seems to not work for so many of us. I really appreciate you saying that.

Heath: I think it's-- and a potentially interesting point to talk about how fast support for this movement might go, right? We know with the LGBT movement, support for non-monogamy or for support for LGBT relationships increase about 1% per year. Looking at the numbers in terms of the support for non-monogamy, it looks like we're approximately the late 90s compared to the LGBT movement to where there's about just under 30% of people who indicate that they're supportive of non-monogamous relationships.

I think it's incredibly important that there's this latent interest gap where 1/3 of Americans indicate that their preferred relationship structure is something other than strict monogamy and only 5% of people are currently engaging in non-monogamy. It's really interesting to me to think how this might be similar to the same-sex marriage movement and the progress that we saw there and if this will be faster or if it'll be similar. I think it's really interesting.

Jase: As we're coming toward the end and we're going to talk a little bit about how people can get involved, but first I wanted to check in, Diana, with something we mentioned back at the beginning that you are the executive director of the Chosen Family Law Center, which is a nonprofit that helps advocate for diverse family structures. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that means? What are you doing with that? What's going on and how can that help people?

Diana: Thank you so much. I started my law firm in New York City in 2007, and that was a boutique law firm for LGBTQ people and polyamorous people and people in non-nuclear family structures like platonic partnership. I started it partly because I saw a need in the legal community and I was already active in the polyamory community and a family lawyer in legal services.

People would come to me and say, "I'm getting sued to for custody of my kid because I'm polyamorous. Who's the lawyer to talk to about that?" and there wasn't one. I started my law practice to provide that kind of defensive support for polyamorous parents, and particularly with child custody cases and do consulting on that nationwide, but then also helping people with the family formation pieces to give them stability that they deserve with, for example, co-parenting agreements for three people or more.

Making really clear distinctions about is your boyfriend is moving in a co-parent or a special uncle. Let's be really clear when we're making agreements about children or money or what it is that we're creating here, or the alternative vows that we're creating. Then since that 2007 time, there wasn't also a legal services free office for people who couldn't afford to hire me. I had a really extreme sliding scale, and that became unwieldy because there was more pro bono demand than I could possibly handle.

The pro bono department of my law firm became Chosen Family Law Center about five years ago. With that, we're the first organization in the US that provides actually direct free legal services at this point only in New York State to polyamorous families who may want to make a co-parenting agreement or share, make a financial agreement, as well as other kinds of collective living groups, platonic co-parents. We work with trans people and LGBTQ asylees fleeing persecution from other countries to get them green cards.

We do a lot of direct legal services within New York State and then also are involved with the legislative advocacy and creating resources as we're doing with Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition. Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition is actually a project of Chosen Family Law Center as well as Harvard's LGBTQ Advocacy Clinic. That is one of the kinds of pieces of my work at Chosen Family Law Center, is looking at that bigger legislative approach as well as trying to create more resources for lawyers as Heath has been working with the APA on resources for making sure that psychologists are more culturally competent.

I'm involved with doing trainings for lawyers and trying to create resources so that it isn't just that you need to be able to afford to hire me for a consultation if you're having a child custody case for me to get involved, but to make that sustainable by making sure that we have the funding so that that's a resource that should be available to everyone nationwide and that we can have some open source materials because it's actually a crisis that I think is the biggest issue of discrimination facing polyamorous people that I've seen in my practice.

Everyone deserves to get that kind of support in that moment of need. As a parent, that's something that I would want and want for everyone. That's the kind of work that we're doing at Chosen Family Law Center, and I'm really passionate about being able to do this kind of advocacy work that I didn't see out there in the world and that my community needs.

Emily: That's phenomenal.

Diana: Thank you.

Emily: Just to close out, I'm really interested and I know that our listeners are going to want to get involved, so what are some ways that people can get involved in all of these movements? What can people be doing on the ground?

Heath: Sure. There's thankfully an increasing number of opportunities now. In addition to the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition, people can go on to Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition's website and their steps for how to donate resources to our colleagues to support the legislative drafting. We work hand in hand with the organization for polyamory and ethical non-monogamy. They offer support around grassroots organizing, coordination with local organizers, so either of those groups in addition to the Chosen Family Law Center, if you're interested in supporting the municipal policy work that's being done.

Also, Diana mentioned that in terms of workplace policy and resources, Diana and I are also working with the organization for polyamory and ethical non-monogamy to create resources as we mentioned, and the organization for polyamory, ethical non-monogamy also provides Discord servers for people to develop community. There's one specifically for inclusive workplaces as well that people can dive into.

If people are interested in supporting healthcare policy, there's certainly you can follow the APA Division 44 Committee on Consensual Non-monogamy and all socials, but also if you are really interested in healthcare and the research component of it, please feel free to reach out to me if you're especially around financial support because there's a number of projects that are launching or in the nascent stages around this.

One that I'm excited to share about is that I've been given permission from UC Berkeley to launch what would be the first-ever institute focusing on consensual non-monogamy or inclusive family and relationship diversity. We need $200,000 to launch that project. That's another tangible way that listeners that might be interested in directly supporting work around healthcare and research.

Dedeker: Wonderful. This has been so inspiring to talk to the two of you. It's so inspiring to, I don't know, for all of us to be a part of this growing wave, and thank you so much for the work that you're doing.

Diana: Yes, absolutely. In terms of a way people can get involved, for people to follow along with Chosen Family Law Center, and I think it's important to think about how as polyamorous people, we want to make sure our rates are protected. Doing whatever you can to boost these small scrappy organizations is always really helpful. We need financial support, of course, and tax-deductible donations, but also just following along and boosting our online campaigns, sharing our pride messaging on social media.

If you live in a city that has a progressive city council and you'd be willing to be an activist in your local area, you can get in touch with us about us trying to pass municipal policies in your city. If you'll be involved in trying to let your city council members know that that's important to you. As Heath mentioned, the workplace consulting and DEI training that we do can be really helpful.

If you do work at a progressive employer, then you have the privilege of potentially being able to work at the kind of place that would be willing to make those kinds of changes. As we saw with trans healthcare and the rights of same-sex partners, sometimes the progressive employers adopt those first and then once one or two do, then they all feel like they need to. Then that becomes something that can become more normalized for more and more employees. As an employee, you may have the privilege to be able to push your employer and we're happy to help you do that.

Emily: Thank you so much, everyone. This has been a really, really amazing conversation. Where can people find more of your work as well, and things like social media if you have them? Just let our listeners know.

Diana: Absolutely. I'm at @DianaAdamsEsq, as in Esquire, on all social media, and welcome you to be part of the conversation and join the movement there.

Heath: You can find me @DrSchechinger on all socials and I certainly welcome you finding me there.

Emily: Excellent. Thank you so much.

Diana: Thanks for this wonderful conversation. This is a lot of fun.