Meeting the needs of LGBTQ+ youth
According to Williams, LGBTQ+ individuals and couples can be uniquely equipped to meet the needs of foster children.
“Many of our LGBTQ+ foster and adoptive families can relate to a foster child’s feelings of being ostracized or marginalized,” she notes. “When we place foster children with parents who can relate to their challenges, they feel accepted, supported and affirmed.”
This is especially true for foster teens who identify as LGBTQ+. All foster teens need the support of loving, accepting parents to help them navigate their adolescent years and become secure, confident and well-adjusted adults.
But LGBTQ+ foster teens face challenges beyond the neglect or abuse that brought them into the foster care system. Many have experienced homophobia or transphobia, and some have been rejected by their biological or foster families after disclosing their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The problem is larger than one might think. According to the Human Rights Campaign, LGBTQ+ youth are overrepresented in the foster care system. While roughly five percent of the general population is estimated to be LGBTQ+, studies conducted in 2020 and 2021 found that more than 30 percent of all youth in foster care identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning.4 Although this statistic seems high, some researchers believe it may be low because LGBTQ+ foster teens often hide their sexual orientation or gender identity to avoid harassment and abuse.
For these teens, a placement with a welcoming and affirming foster family (LGBTQ+ or otherwise) is not only healing, but potentially lifesaving. The story of Hephzibah foster/adoptive parents Mark and Bryan Grayson is a case in point.
The Graysons’ fostering story started with a random act of kindness.
“When we first moved to Oak Park, we befriended Chris, a gay kid in his twenties who lived in the apartment building across the alley from our house,” says Mark Grayson today. “He had been kicked out of his family’s home at the age of 13 and passed from one relative home to another and then from boyfriend to boyfriend. He was being abused by his current boyfriend, and then he found out that he had full-blown AIDS. One day, he called us up and said that he was really sick and expected to die. We got him out of the situation with his abusive boyfriend and moved him into our house. Then Chris found a good doctor at the Howard Brown Memorial Clinic and got himself on the right meds.”
With a safe place to rest and heal, Chris slowly stabilized. The 11th-hour medical intervention had literally saved his life. With medication, his AIDS was no longer a death sentence, but a chronic condition that could be successfully managed.
“Soon, Chris was healthy,” says Mark. “He had a job and a bank account and he was living on his own again.”
But the Graysons barely had time to catch their breath before their friend, David Neubecker, called on behalf of another gay young person in need.
“David told us about Neal, an Oak Park teen in DCFS care who needed a home,” Mark explains. “Neal wanted to stay in Oak Park to finish high school and Hephzibah was looking for a local gay couple to provide a home for him.”
“I pleaded with Mark and Bryan to consider becoming Neal’s foster parents,” says David, who had met the couple when he sold them their Oak Park house. “I told them, ‘He needs a home and, as your realtor, I know that you have an extra bedroom!’ But seriously, I knew how much Mark and Bryan had helped Chris at a critical time in his life, and I felt that they could help Neal as well.”
It was a moment of reckoning for the Graysons.
“We didn’t start off on a journey to have kids,” Mark confides. “But when a young person needs help, it’s very difficult to say no. And we could relate to these kids because of our own struggles growing up gay.”
“When Chris came along, it was less about becoming parents and more about helping out a kid who reminded us of ourselves,” adds Bryan. “Then, when Neal came along, we thought, “this poor kid is going to be gay and homeless in Oak Park if we don’t take him in.”
So, the Graysons talked it over and said yes. By Summer 2010, with their Hephzibah foster-parent training completed and their foster-care license in hand, they welcomed the high school sophomore into their home.
Neal graduated from high school and left for college in 2013. But the Graysons’ journey as Hephzibah foster parents had just begun. That same year, they took in L.J., a rambunctious four-year-old. Two years later, Aiden was born—and Hephzibah called on the Graysons for their help once again.
“Aiden came to us straight from the hospital,” says Mark. “It was supposed to be a temporary placement. But Aiden had nowhere else safe to go, so we welcomed him into our family as well.”
Today, the family portraits on the walls of the Grayson home tell a story of love, commitment, diversity and, above all, acceptance. Two proud dads (now 48 and 53) with four sons aged 38, 27, 14 and 7. They are a blended family (black, brown, white, gay and straight) made possible by decades of LGBTQ+ activism—and the vision and flexibility of a small but mighty child welfare agency that always puts children and families first, regardless of race, sexual orientation or gender identity.
FOOTNOTE:
4 “Supporting LGBTQ+ Youth: A Guide for Foster Parents” (Child Welfare Information Gateway, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children’s Bureau. https://www. childwelfare.gov/pubs/LGBTQyouth/)
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