upworthy

same sex couples

More

She gave up on finding a forever home — until she found her dads.

With tears collecting in her eyes, Lupe Ortiz-Tovar explained why she always felt different from the other kids.

Lupe went into foster care when she was 5 years old and lived in more than 18 homes across multiple states throughout her childhood. She learned not to get her hopes up thinking the next family would be her last.

"I think you remember the honeymoon phase of going into a family, but it’s never yours," she explained in a video by the Human Rights Campaign. "It’s really like you’re a visitor in someone else’s home and you don’t know how long that's going to last."

GIF via Human Rights Campaign.

Lupe's experience being shuffled around the foster care system is one that's shared by far too many children. A point-in-time survey found more than 420,000 kids were in foster care in the U.S. in September 2015 — up from 2011, when it stood at just over 397,000.

While there are various reasons why kids are placed into care and many children are in the system only temporarily, thousands share Lupe's story. She transferred from home to home until she aged out of the system.

Finding a real home to call her own just wasn't meant to be.

GIF via Human Rights Campaign.

Or so she thought.

In 2005, two terrific guys came into Lupe's life.

"Little did I know that I would meet Clay and Bryan," Lupe said. "And my dads would find me."

GIF via Human Rights Campaign.

Lupe met Clay and Bryan, a same-gender couple, while completing a summer internship with Foster Club, a nonprofit aimed at helping kids in foster care.

In the decade after that, Clay and Bryan became close mentors to Lupe, she says over email. And finally, in 2015 — after Clay and Bryan's marriage could be legally recognized — the couple adopted Lupe in Oklahoma when she was in her early 30s.

"There is no such thing as too late to find your forever families," Lupe said. "There are no term limits on the love that families can provide each other!"

"We all added something to each other's lives," Lupe said in the video by HRC. "It was like a puzzle that was just waiting — we were all waiting for each other."

GIF via Human Rights Campaign.

The Human Rights Campaign is using Lupe's story to illustrate how crucial it is to allow LGBTQ couples to have the ability to adopt.

"Kids shouldn't have to wait to find their forever families because of discrimination," HRC states in the video.

And discrimination is very much on the table as Oklahoma Senate Bill 1140 hangs in the balance. The bill would allow certain faith-based child welfare agencies to deny adoption opportunities to kids in need based on the potential guardians' sexual orientations or gender identities.

HRC, which is strongly against the legislation, is urging Oklahomans to text "FAMILY" to 30644 or call 405-521-2711 to connect with a state House representative to demand the bill be defeated.

It's not just about ensuring equality for queer couples, the organization argues. Having the option also allows many children in need — like Lupe had been — to find loving parents.

"I've never had or thought about what a great father is — I've never had that picture in my life," Lupe says in the video below. "And so [Clay and Bryan] have really completed many empty pictures and have given me lots to dream about and hope for in my own life."

Watch Lupe's story by the Human Rights Campaign, an Upworthy Handpicked video:

More

Watch LGBTQ couples explain why they got married right after the Orlando tragedy.

"We're not afraid."

True
Modern Love

Many of us hugged our loved ones a little bit tighter on June 12, 2016. That was especially true for LGBTQ people.

After a gunman opened fire in a queer Orlando nightclub, we were reminded yet again that being part of the LGBTQ community still means living on the receiving end of discriminatory violence. That — even as we celebrate the one-year anniversary of national marriage equality — being LGBTQ can still mean being treated as less than.

The bigotry that spilled over on June 12 also reminded us of one very powerful thing: that love is love is love is love. If any one thing can triumph over the hate that exists in one man's heart, it's the resiliency that exists in our own.

Just ask Marko Jovanov and Mario Rodriguez, who tied the knot in NYC soon after 49 victims — many of them queer people of color — lost their lives in Orlando.

"It was important to still go through with our wedding, despite what happened," Jovanov explained to Upworthy.

Now, Jovanov and Rodriquez's marriage means something so much more.

"It is a sort of tribute to make sure that we are still visible, we are going on the way that we want to be," Jovanov said. "We're not afraid."

Watch Jovanov and Rodriguez and another same-sex couple explain in their own words why they decided to get married in the wake of tragedy:

More

Harris Wofford has had two great loves: his wife of 48 years and his soon-to-be husband.

"At age 70, I did not imagine that I would fall in love again and remarry."

So begins an emotional and poignant personal essay from former U.S. Senator Harris Wofford published in The New York Times on Sunday.

The story Wofford tells is one of two loves, growing old, history, and a changing of tides.

Wofford campaigning for Barack Obama in 2008. Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images.

On Jan. 3, 1996, Harris Wofford lost his wife, Clare, to leukemia.

They had been married 48 years; "a lifetime together," he wrote. When Clare died, Wofford felt lucky to be alive and grateful to have a job where he could serve his country, but understandably, he felt lost as well.

Wofford and Usher (!!!) at a hearing on improving America's commitment to service and volunteerism. Photo by Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images.

"I wondered what it would be like living by myself for the rest of my life. I was sure I would never again feel the kind of love Clare and I shared," Wofford wrote.

Yet, at age 75, Wofford found love again.

According to Wofford, he was standing alone on a beach in Florida when he was approached by two men who came over to say hello. That was when he met then-25-year-old Matthew Charlton.

"As we talked, I was struck by Matthew’s inquisitive and thoughtful manner and his charm," wrote Wofford. "I knew he was somebody I would enjoy getting to know. We were decades apart in age with far different professional interests, yet we clicked."

Pretty soon, the two were touring Europe together and meeting each other's families. In time, Wofford's children welcomed Charlton as part of their family, and Charlton's family did the same for Wofford.


Wofford was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2012 for his service to the country. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

As of Sunday, Wofford and Charlton have been together for 15 years. Soon, they'll be getting married.

"On April 30, at ages 90 and 40, we will join hands, vowing to be bound together: to have and to hold, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part."

There are many reasons why Wofford's story about his second great love is so notable: his age, his history, his career in politics, his romance-novel courtship of Matthew — to name a few.

Perhaps the most remarkable part of this story, however, is the fact that Wofford was born in 1926, long before there was an active LGBT rights movement and a time when doctors still treated homosexuality as a mental illness.

Despite decades of socially-constructed ideas about gender and sexuality, Wofford has embraced love for what it is: something beautiful, something unpredictable, and something that is for everyone.


Wofford was 89 when the Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage the law of the land. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

Wofford knows that something as simple and as complicated as love can't be put in a box and labeled.

For 48 years, he loved a woman, and now he loves a man. It doesn't mean he's a different person or that his 48-year marriage to Clare wasn't special. It simply means he's not afraid to love who he loves.

"I had a half-century of marriage with a wonderful woman and now am lucky for a second time to have found happiness."

Frankly, we should all be so lucky.

Same-sex couples are particularly awesome at communication, according to new research.

There's a lot to learn about same-sex relationships. So why is there almost no research?

One of the most important elements of a healthy relationship is the ability to communicate well.

It's hard to have a happy long-term relationship without figuring out how to talk (and, yes, fight) in productive, healthy ways. In fact, research has shown that communicating effectively and openly is one of the key determinants of a stable, satisfying relationship. Almost half of divorced people say they plan to change how they communicate with their partner in their next relationship.

Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images.

Some research shows that same-sex couples are particularly awesome at talking it out.

That's something that Dr. Megan Robins picked up on when she was doing her dissertation research on couples coping with breast cancer diagnoses. Most of the couples in her study were heterosexual and of mixed genders, but the study also included seven lesbian couples.

"They [the same-sex couples] had this qualitatively more positive feel to them than the opposite-sex couples," Dr. Robbins said in an interview. "It was only my impression, so I wasn't coming to any scientific conclusion, but they did seem to laugh together more, to be a little bit closer and more positive."

There was a problem, though: Robbins couldn't find much other research on same-sex marriages.

"When I looked for background literature on same-sex couples, I came up really short. There was almost nothing there," Dr. Robbins said. "There are certainly notable studies on same-sex couples out there, but we're talking thousands of articles on opposite-sex couples compared to a handful on same-sex couples."

Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images.

One of those "notable" studies she's talking about is one of the only other studies out there on same-sex relationships and happiness. It's a survey conducted by the Families and Work Institute and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which found that gay couples don't really pay attention to gender roles when they're splitting up chores, and they're better at communicating openly.

According to the study, people in same-sex relationships also tend to be better at fighting fair and at resolving conflicts well. They have more positive relationships, on average, likely because they treat each other more like equals and care less about adhering to gender stereotypes.

Researchers drew these important conclusions from a really small body of evidence, so there's a lot more to learn.

That's where Dr. Robbins' new project comes into play. She's launching a study that looks at LGBTQ and straight couples and their day-to-day interactions.

"The focus of this study is how these couples can support — and maybe in some cases hinder — each other's health behaviors, things like smoking, drinking, and exercising. We know a lot about how heterosexual couples do this and what strategies work for them, but we know very little about how this information applies to same-sex couples," she said.

I'm hoping this study is one of many more to come because it's hugely important.

Often doctors and public health professionals aren't trained to address the health issues of the LGBTQ demographic; they may ask the wrong questions, give bad advice, or say really insensitive things.

Photo by Ty Wright/Getty Images.

"LGBTQ people are at-risk [health-wise] in the first place, and we don't know how to target them better, as far as couples go. I'm hoping that this information will help people to tailor interventions geared at improving health behaviors down the line," Dr. Robbins said.

From Your Site Articles
Trending Stories