Every month, Amberly Bean, 30, leads the Lift and Love youth support group on Zoom. She opens each session of new attendees with the same introductory joke, “I identify as lesbian but I’m married to a man but we’re not going to get into that tonight, it’s a long story.” Amberly and her husband Kendall have known each other since childhood. In fact, he was the name she’d throw out every time her middle school friends talked about the boys they liked, feeling he was a “safe crush because nothing would ever happen.” She laughs that, “Even when Kendall would hear that, there were no moves made—which felt really safe for me.”
Read MoreAMY GADBERRY
Amy Gadberry, 29, has spent much of her life navigating the complexities of her identity, faith, and mental health. Recently, the West Jordan, UT resident has come to fully embrace her identity as a cisgender bisexual woman, a realization that has profoundly shaped her ability to finally feel self-acceptance. Newlywed life has also brought a new form of happiness, as Amy and her wife Emily Tucker, just celebrated six months of marriage. But while her path has ultimately led her to a life she once only dreamed was possible, not much of Amy’s path to this point has been straightforward.
Read MoreMONICA, HORACIO, & CAYLIN
Monica Bousfield met her husband Horacio Frey in the fortuitous aisles of Babies R Us, where they both worked in the early 2000s. At first, they were just friends. Then best friends. Then after about a year of hanging out constantly, they surmised they must be dating. A year later, Monica nudged Horacio that it was probably time for them to go ahead and get married. After an eight-month engagement, they did, and while they eventually both left Babies R Us, their commitment to each other later resulted in two babies they would together raise. Through all this, Monica kept her maiden name—primarily because she’d never known of another couple like her and Horacio to last, and she didn’t want to complicate legal paperwork around having to undergo name changes twice. Monica had never heard of a woman marrying a gay man and having it not end in divorce. While she’d known Horacio was gay from their early days of hanging out, there were two other things she knew about Horacio: he was her best friend, and she wanted to marry him. Over two decades later, the couple is still making it work in Westminster, Colorado, where they have two children—Caylin, who is 17 and also identifies as queer, and Dominic—13.
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