Polyamory's maturing position in American life. "Why Gen Z are Ditching Monogamy" while others are hot for celibacy. Advice columns, doctor training, and other poly in the news.

First,

●  Tonight (Friday July 19) through Sunday bring the final events for the Week of Visibility for Non-monogamy. The schedule of events, both virtual and in-person, worldwide. 

Many of the 18 virtual events have already happened. But of the 29 in-person events, 21 happen tonight, Saturday, or Sunday. Check for any near you.

The annual Week of Visibility project is coordinated by the ambitious activists at OPEN, the Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy, now two years old.

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●  Polyamory's maturing position in American life. Newspaper advice columnists have reflected and shaped mass attitudes for at least 140 years. My current favorite is Carolyn Hax at the Washington Post. She just fielded a mother's anxious question about her daughter getting into a fraught polyfamily mess if she adopts the future baby of her two partners as a legal third parent/guardian.

Hax treats this situation as ordinary, as if everyone knows that polyfamilies are what some people do. Mom worries about daughter’s family plans with polyamorous couple (June 23).

....Your daughter’s domestic arrangements are not for you (or me) to fix for her, and your feelings are not for your daughter to fix for you.

...Your responses so far to her news have blurred these lines. (In a food-processor kind of way.) Unless she asked your opinion, your warnings and concerns were incursions into her business. ... A would-be grandmother is no more entitled to weigh in on an adult’s family planning than anyone else.

Plus, um, the thing you carefully composed as, “Are you sure you’re ready for the big life changes?” always comes out as, “You shouldn’t have a baby!” Always. Ask anyone who has been on the receiving end.

...You were right to make one point, even if she already knew it: lawyer. Laws and families are evolving. Plus, the wise leave neither their hearts nor their children’s custody to chance.

Last thing, for you: If you ever think there’s no place for you amid younger generations because they’ve changed too much, then the mistake is yours. Adapt, or don’t; not one digit of that math has changed.

●  Another advice column dealing with conflict between adult generations, in Slate's "Care and Feeding": My Child Just Told Me They’re in an Open Relationship. I’m Disgusted (June 16). "They’re making a mockery of my marriage."

Michelle Herman explains some realities and closes, 

"Your kid’s life—all of your [adult] kids’ lives—are theirs to make of what they wish; their choices are not a referendum on yours. I think coming to see that is how you get to be “a parent of 2024.”

●  Media don't get more mass-market than People magazine. From its website: Mom Opens Up About Realities of Raising Kids While in Open Marriage with Husband of 14 Years (July 3). Danielle and her husband have experimented with monogamy a couple of times, but only as a passing phase.  For instance,

..."I was dating three people at once, which is way too many, because that's essentially four relationships, plus the relationships that I have with my two kids and family and friends," she recalls. "Dating that many people in that phase of my life took away from my other relationships ... and that was a lesson learned. It is not something I will repeat."

...But no matter the state or phase of her marriage, Danielle maintains that their two children — ages 7 and 10 — always come first: "If my dating life is impacting the time that I spend with my kids when my kids need me, then I don't date," she says.

Danielle of @OpenlyCommitted

..."I think the main way that non-monogamy impacts me as a parent is other people's perceptions of my relationship, not my actual relationship," she says.

Overall, she feels that non-monogamy makes her a "more energetic, positive parent."

"I feel like dating gives me energy. It gives me a lot of joy. I'm an extrovert. I love meeting people. Dates are really fun," the author tells PEOPLE. "I'm so fortunate that I still have wonderful dates with my husband, and I also get to have fun dates with other people too."

...Non-monogamy also allows Danielle space to explore interests that she doesn't share with her husband, like her more outdoorsy inclinations. "I was recently dating someone who absolutely adores going on a 12-hour hike with me," she says. "That gives me energy. That gives me joy. And I get to bring that energy home into my family."

She posts as OpenlyCommitted on TikTik, where she has 200,000 followers.

 

● The trans/nonbinary romance author TJ Alexander hits the bigtime, if getting interviewed for The Today Show's website qualifies:  ‘Triple Sec’ is one of romance's 1st polyamorous rom-coms. Its author hopes it's not the last. (July 8) (I have no financial interest in this or any other product.)

T. J. Alexander wanted to write a "fun, flirty and funny" version of polyamory, not "an angsty portrayal of how difficult it is."

 

By Elena Nicolaou

Mel, a tattooed bartender nursing her wounds from a divorce, finds love again with Bebe, an employment lawyer. The catch? Bebe is already married, and has an open relationship with her spouse, Kade, a nonbinary artist.

Alexander, who uses they/them pronouns, is a rising star in the contemporary romance world, writing books that center queer characters.

...While there are are polyamorous configurations in romance and erotica novels, “Triple Sec” is notable in that it’s one of the first, if not the first, in the contemporary romance space. Alexander hopes “Triple Sec” is a joyful, and not vexed, look at polyamory.

Today:  What was your intention with this book?

TJ:  I was aware that this was going to be, in a lot of ways, the first kind of romance of its kind traditionally published here. I was like, ‘We have a responsibility. We do not have the narrative plentitude to fall back on.’ I had to make sure that it’s not this lurid, scandalous kind of portrayal (of polyamory), or an angsty portrayal of how difficult it is. I wanted it to be a fun, flirty and funny, more of a gentle take. Most of the real life poly people I know are just normal people eating chips, not angsting over their relationship 24/7.

It’s like a love triangle but the opposite. 

When I pitched this book, I was like, “Here’s what this book isn’t going to be. It’s not going to be a bunch of love triangles. It’s not going to be about cheating. It’s not going to be a big bummer.”

...There’s a narrative device in the book that we were all very proud of. Communication is such a big component of polyamory. How are we going to show them communicating in a way that’s not, like, a total slog? I landed on the contract that these characters had that gets updated every time the relationship changes or evolves. I don’t think most people need a contract in real life, but for the purposes of this book, we needed it just to, like, keep things moving along.

A lot of times, it seems like when polyamory is mentioned, it’s in the context of relationships being destroyed.

I was very naively unaware. I think because I’m queer, I don’t know what straight people are doing. And so, I remember when I was first drafting out the outline, both my agent and my editor were like, “There have to be points, especially at the start of the book, to show that Bebe and Kate like each other and that polyamory isn’t something that like they’re they’re doing to try and get away from each other.”

And I was like, “What are you talking about? Why would someone do that?” They explained it to me. The guy opens up the relationship, and then the woman actually gets more attention,  and he gets all upset. This was fascinating to me. I, again, very naively, didn’t understand that. Oh, that’s what a lot of straight people experience with polyamory. Hilarious. I was like, “Oh, they’re doing it wrong.” I will make it very, very clear that these people actually like each other. I was so blown away by that.

...It’s not my job to hold everybody’s hand and explain the facts of life to them. But I do think I have a responsibility to readers who are coming to something for the first time. The best way to do that, and the funniest way as well, is to do it through the point of view of a main character who isn’t as experienced. I wanted her to be kind of our tour guide through this. ...

BTW, although Alexander says "Triple Sec is one of the first, if not the first [poly novel] in the contemporary romance space," and Today repeats this, Goodreads lists 205 "polyamorous romance books" on its site alone, and Alibris offers 525 "romance polyamory fiction books". So I suspect the romance industry's use of "polyamory" is untrustworthy SEO bait. The word isn't supposed to include  stupid old love triangles!

●  Medical Xpress covers research and health news for doctors and other health-care professionals, med students, and patients. It has republished (from The Conversation) 'It made me feel judged': Why it's harder to get sexual health care if you practice consensual non-monogamy (June 18)

By Ryan Scoats and Christine Campbell

Consensual non-monogamy is a surprisingly popular relationship style. ... But many continue to face barriers when accessing sexual health services, our research has shown.

In line with other research, we found stereotypes, myths and a general lack of understanding about consensual non-monogamy all act as potential barriers to health care.

For instance, when they go to their GP or clinic for testing, it's not unusual for them to be met by doctors and nurses who either don't understand their relationships or who actively stigmatize them. Approximately a third of our participants either never, or only sometimes, revealed their relationship style to medical professionals.

...Or they might be treated with outright hostility, with another participant sharing, "One [doctor] considered it a form of cheating and intimate partner violence."

...To our knowledge, no medical students are being trained on how to work with consensually non-monogamous patients.

This has serious implications, as a lack of understanding around consensual non-monogamy can create barriers to patients receiving appropriate health care and building trust with their providers.

Many patients told us about the frustrating interactions they'd had as a result of this lack of knowledge and understanding. ... It's not surprising that participants had significantly lower trust in health care providers than the general population. Nor is it surprising that consensually non-monogamous people are often quite picky about where they seek out sexual health care, as we found in our most recent study.

...To remove these barriers, it's vital doctors and nurses develop a better understanding of consensual non-monogamy and the unique health care needs this group has. But this change needs to come from within institutions. Many who are consensually non-monogamous do not wish to take on the role of relationship educators—especially given the potential risks for stigma. ...

●  From HuffPost UK: We're Love Experts, This Is Why Gen Z Are Ditching Monogamy (July 14)

...Dina Mohammad-Laity [VP of Data at Feeld] revealed that in-house research found that Gen Z tend to be more non-monogamous and single compared to Millennials and Gen X. With 48% of Gen Z identifying as LGBT and non-cisgender [!?!? –Ed.] they are also the most fluid generation on Feeld.

She added: “They are much more open to relationship structures outside monogamy, which has come as a lot more socially embedded for previous generations.”

[Dr Natasha] McKeever and [Dr Luke] Brunning [who direct the the Centre for Love, Sex and Relationships] ...highlighted that with more fluid patterns of working and living in general, it makes sense that younger people are more open to changing norms... they’re more used to trying and doing new things.

They added: “Also, they may have watched their boomer parents’ relationships fail or run into difficulty, and learned that existing relationship norms and practices are not adequate.”

Mohammad-Laity: “The notion that Gen Z is ‘puritanical’ is challenged by the significant interest in non-monogamous relationships within this cohort.... Our introduction of the Celibacy Desire tag, which sparked a 175% increase in social media engagement, further illustrates the wide range of desires and the fluidity that appeals to Gen Z members.”

...The experts highlighted that it is possible to be non-monogamous but still have less sex overall, especially if nonmonogamy facilitates other kinds of intimacy that people value.

And for HuffPost's more conventional readers,

Mohammad-Laity: ...“Monogamous couples can learn from non-monogamous relationships by fostering open and honest communication and vulnerability. By asking questions and staying curious about what moves and affects each other, couples can maintain a deep, adaptive, and resilient bond.”

McKeever and Brunning said [mono couples can learn from ENMers]

– Honest and open communication, and that there are various ways to show love and commitment

– Being open about life complexity and relationship goals

– The need to question received social norms and understand their impact on our states of mind and emotional skills.

– That a decision to be monogamous should be a decision made consciously and reflectively, not just as the default option

– Being flexible with domestic and practical arrangements, being more creative around care labour and childrearing

– Not taking sexual and emotional health for granted

– Distinguishing between disappointment and feeling wronged in a relationship.

●  A bit of blunt dating advice, from a Los Angeles MFM triad, that we need to hear more often: 'We're in a polyamorous relationship - here's the one bit of advice we'd give people' (in the UK's tabloid Mirror, July 15).

Felix, Shannon and Brett (Soft White Underbelly/YouTube)

[When meeting a supposedly open couple,] "make sure they both want it, because I had many, many relationships [say] ‘oh we both want it’. [But] she didn’t want it; she was lying on her husband’s behalf."

As in Polyamory Under Pressure, that sick PUPpy fouling the scene.

Other blunt advice they offer: If you're an MF couple opening up, accept the likelihood that the man gets no online dates while the woman gets lots. The article cites data:

Statistics from Tinder show 75% of its users are men, reports Statista. It says women match with 10% of the people they like, while men match with just 0.6%.

...That's 17 times worse.

● A different bad-poly warning in the UK papers: There’s a new kind of ‘softboi’ in town (The Independent, July 15). A "softboi" is described as a certain very casual hipster dater of any gender, characterized by super-low commitment and an interest in natural wines.

By Lauren Bulla

...This “new look” softboi often has a primary partner that they use as a safety net – yet they still trawl the apps... with little (if any) proper accountability. And in my opinion, this is where we’re going wrong with modern dating. Poly connections should operate in a similar manner to monogamous connections, with the same requirements: communication, directness and honesty.

...I was once on a date with someone who confessed that until they meet a “match” in real life, they don’t see them as an “actual person”. I type this sighing over my keyboard….

...Once, I was on a date and it wasn’t until the end of a bottle of orange wine (of course) that I discovered the person already had a “primary partner”. Oh, but not to worry! She explained they had a loophole: “We could go to a sex party together” and “that would be OK”.

...Our individual choices are our own. The thing I take issue with is those who omit the truth, or who cherry-pick parts of a connection in order to solely benefit them. Here, we see the “trendy” version of polyamory, which doesn’t do this type of relationship justice.

...There’s a difference between really loving and embracing a lifestyle, and co-opting certain parts of it for your own gain. Whatever your life (and love) choices, be upfront. 

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Meanwhile... and not unrelated...

    

Here is why I've been ending posts to this polyamory news site with Ukraine: I've seen too many progressive movements die out, or get wiped out, because they failed to scan the wider world accurately and understand their position in it strategically.

We polyamorous people are a small, weird minority of social-rule breakers. Increasingly powerful people call us a threat to society — because by living successfully outside of their worldview, we expose its incompleteness.

Our freedom to choose our relationship structures, and to speak up for ourselves about the truth of ourselves, is just one way we depend on a free and pluralistic society that respects people's dignity to create their own lives, to access facts, and to speak of what they know.

Such a society is possible only where people have reasonably good power to govern themselves, combined with legal structures that are at least supposed to guarantee the rights of all.

Innovative people, communities, and societies who create their own lives, and who insist on the democratic structures and legal rights that enable them to do so safely, infuriate and terrify the authoritarians who are growing in power around the world and in our own United States. Now with direct mutual support that is increasingly stated out loud.

Such rulers and would-be rulers seek to stamp out other people's freedom to choose their lives — by intimidation, repressive laws, inflammatory disinformation and public incitement, weaponizing police abuse, stacking courts, and sometimes, eventually, artillery.

For what it's worth, Polyamory in the News received more pagereads from pre-invasion Ukraine over the years (56,400) than from any other country in eastern Europe.

For those of us born since World War II, this is the most consequential war of our lifetime. Because we have entered another time when calculating fascism, linking up at home and abroad, is rising and sees freedom and liberalism and social tolerance as weak, degenerate, delusional — inviting easy pushovers. As Russia thought it saw in Ukraine. The whole world is watching what we will do about it. Starting with China, with its eyes on Taiwan.

Background: "The United States has a much higher stake in Russia's war on Ukraine than most people think."  More: "If we stop supporting Ukraine, then everything gets worse, all of a sudden, and no one will be talking about “fatigue” because we will all be talking about disaster."

The coming times may require hard things of us. We don't get to choose the time and place in history we find ourselves born into. We do get to choose how we respond to it. 

Need a little help bucking up? Play this. Another version. More? Some people on the eastern front trying to hold onto an open society. (TW: war is awful.) Maybe your own granddad did this from a trench facing Hitler's tanks — for you, and us, because a world fascist movement was successfully defeated that time, opening the way for the rest of the 20th century.

But the outcome didn't look good for a couple of years then, either. Popular history remembers the 1945 victory over the Nazis and the joyous homecoming. Less remembered are the defeats and grim prospects from 1941 through early 1943.

Remember, these people say they are doing it for us too. They are correct. The global struggle between a free, open future and a fearful revival of the dark past that's shaping up, including in our own country, is still in its early stages. It's likely to get worse before it gets better. The outcome is again uncertain, and it will determine the 21st century and the handling of all its other problems.

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PS: Ukraine should not be idealized as the paragon of an open democratic society. For instance, ‘A Big Step Back’: In Ukraine, Concerns Mount Over Narrowing Press Freedoms (New York Times, June 18, 2024). And it has quite the history of being run by corrupt oligarchs — leading to the Maidan Uprising of 2013, the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, and Zelensky's overwhelming election in 2019 as the anti-corruption candidate. So they're working on that. And they're stamping hard on the old culture of everyday, petty corruption.  More on that.  More; "Ukraine shows that real development happens when people believe they have an ownership stake in their own societies."

Writes US war correspondent George Packer in The Atlantic, 

Here was a country with a tragic history that had at last begun to build, with great effort, a better society. What made Ukraine different from any other country I had ever seen—certainly from my own—was its spirit of constant self-improvement, which included frank self-criticism. For example, there’s no cult of Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine—a number of Ukrainians told me that he had made mistakes, that they’d vote against him after the war was won. Maxim Prykupenko, a hospital director in Lviv, called Ukraine “a free country aspiring to be better all the time.” The Russians, he added, “are destroying a beautiful country for no logical reason to do it. Maybe they are destroying us just because we have a better life.”

They have a word there, with a deep history, for the horizontal, self-organized, mutual get-it-done that grows from community social trust: hromada. It's been keeping them going  to the extent they've been able. We polyfolks often dream of creating something like that community spirit in miniature, in our polycules and networks. Occasionally we succeed.

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Social attitudes in Ukraine are mostly traditional, rooted in a thousand years of the Orthodox Church. But in the last generation the ideal of modern European civil society has become widely treasured. The status of women has fast advanced, especially post-invasion. More than 43,000 women volunteer in the armed forces, flooding traditionally male bastions — including as combat officers, artillery gunners, tankers, battlefield medics, snipers, and infantry. Some LGBT folx in the armed forces display symbols of LGBT pride on their uniforms, with official approval, whereas in Russia it's a prison-worthy crime for even a civilian to show a rainbow pin or "say gay." A report on Ukraine's LGBT+ and feminist acceptance revolutions. Another. Another. Another. War changes things.

Polyfolks are like one ten-thousandth of what's at stake globally. Ukraine must have our full material backing for as long as it takes them to win their security, freedom, and future. Continue to speak up for it.

                                     

A Russian writer grieves: "My country has fallen out of time."

Women defenders on the world's eastern front

PPS:  U.S. authori-tarians, such as Sen. Ted Cruz, say that allowing women in front-line roles is a woke plot to weaken America's armed forces. Ukraine puts that shit to bed. Do you have a relative who talks like that? Send them this video link to Vidma, who commands a mortar platoon, recounting the story of one of their battles near Bakhmut.

Update June 17, 2024: Almost two years later Vidma is still alive, still with her mortar unit, and posting TikToks. They are now at the front in, it looks like, the battle to hold Chasiv Yar, an afternoon's hike east of Bakhmut. A young girl who looks high-school age showed up to join them. Another vid. Their lives, and their promising society, depend on us. 

And maybe our own? Says Maine's independent Senator Angus King (Jan. 31, 2024),

Whenever people write to my office [asking why we are supporting Ukraine,] I answer, 'Google Sudetenland, 1938.' We could have stopped a murderous dictator who was bent on geographic expansion…at a relatively low cost. The result of not doing so was 55 million deaths.

[Permalink]

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And another city! Berkeley just banned discrimination for "family or relationship structure"

Berkeley City Hall (City of Berkeley photo)

Last night Berkeley, California, prohibited  landlords,  schools, businesses serving the public, city officials, or "any person or agent or employee thereof" from discriminating "against an individual on the basis of that individual’s family or relationship structure."

The Berkeley law applies to, and defines, four areas for this protection: housing, educational institutions, city and city-supported facilities and services, and use of business establishments. It also specifies some exceptions. Here is the law's full text (starts on page 6).

For decades this kind of discrimination has plagued people in polyamorous relationships, costing them their homes, jobs, and other things as found in surveys of the poly community. Two-thirds of polyamorous people say they have experienced discrimination because of their relationships.

Berkeley joins neighboring Oakland as well as Somerville and Cambridge, Massachusetts, in enacting similar measures in the last 14 months. 

The Berkeley group PolyActive had tried to pass something like this starting seven years ago. City Council member Terry Taplin, the bill's author, said PolyActive "played a pivotal role in the advocacy for the initial 2017 bill and continued to support the current efforts. Their local insight and community mobilization efforts underscored the immediate need for legal protections within Berkeley."

Members of PolyActive on July 15, 2023, OPEN's first international Day of Visibility

But the big credit goes to the legal and policy whizzes at the national Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition (PLAC), who crafted the law. In addition, the international Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy OPEN) helped PolyActive mobilize the local community. The groups worked proactively with the Berkeley City Attorney's office to ensure that there were no legal glitches in the legislation. The City Council approved the bill unanimously on "first reading" May 7th, then again on "second reading" May 21st, thereby enacting it into law.

In December 2017 PolyActive got a similar measure past first reading in Berkeley — it would have been the first in the country — but that one didn't make it to second reading. This time, with experience and PLAC's expert legal work, the ducks were in a row.

Where will be next? Contact PLAC if you'd like to try to get this measure or something like it passed in your city or town.

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As it happens, Sparkle Moose and I attended a reception put on by PLAC at the Harvard Law School last Saturday evening. The six PLAC principals were just off their second annual high-intensity, in-person planning retreat, hosted by Harvard Law's LGBTQ+ Legal Advocacy Clinic. They were full of plans and ideas — for non-discrimination ordinances in more cities, involvement in other areas of the legal system, recruiting more lawyers and volunteers for various projects, building out their anemic social media presence and website, and hiring office staff. They are beating the bushes trying to fundraise for all this.

Five PLAC principals celebrating outside the Somerville, MA, City Council chamber
on March 23, 2023. From left: Kimberly Rhoten, Heath Schechinger, Alexander
Chen, Diana Adams, and Andy Izenson.  (Matthew J. Lee/ Boston Globe)

The larger picture here goes beyond polyamory and non-monogamy. The ordinances also protect traditional multigenerational families living under one roof, single-parent families, platonic co-op households of mutual support, and others. With housing in cities becoming ever pricier and in shorter supply, and with the isolated husband-wife-kids home becoming an ever smaller fraction of reality, alternatives must be allowed to grow. Polyfolks have kick-started these legal initiatives but will be a minority of those who benefit.

A new force in this direction will be the Modern Family Institute, a project of Heath Schechinger and others that seeks to raise $5 million for research and policy efforts over the next three years. It is explicitly about this larger picture:

MFI logo

Families and relationships come in all shapes and sizes.

But our society is not designed to support how people are structuring their families and relationships today. 

Our laws, built environment, and cultural norms were established to support a monogamous nuclear family structure that does not reflect the needs of families and relationships today. Families that don’t center two married adults often face significant infrastructural, legal, and financial hurdles, as well as stigma and discrimination.

The Modern Family Institute seeks to bring about a world where families and relationships are defined by their function, not their form. 

Our vision is to improve relational, mental, and physical wellbeing by ensuring everyone has access to resources and systems of care supporting their unique family and relationship structures. Our research drives systemic changes in legal, financial, housing, and social systems through supporting media representation, policy reform, and professional practices that help people build and sustain flourishing communities of care. 

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●  OPEN just put out a press release:

The good news just keeps coming! ...

Our gratitude to Berkeley Councilmember Terry Taplin, who sponsored the bill, and to our friends at the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition, which drafted the ordinance. Coalition partners also included PolyActive... The Modern Family Institute, Chosen Family Law Center, Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Legal Advocacy Clinic, and Asexuality Visibility and Education Network, and the many community members who added their voice.

...There can be no doubt that this is our moment, and that the future of this growing movement is bright.

But let's be clear: the population of these four cities represent a fraction of a percent of the total US population. The unfortunate fact is that most people are still not protected from stigma and discrimination on the basis of their non-monogamous identity or their family structure. There is much more work to do...

And we're here to do that work. OPEN is collaborating with coalition partners to develop new tools and resources to help community members like you bring these protections to your city or town. We're speaking with community leaders and elected officials in multiple cities to keep the momentum going. We're talking with the media to spotlight this issue and the growing power of our movement.  ...

And, they too need money.

●  The local Berkeleyside published a long article on the measure's passage, highlighting an eight-person co-op family that, with multiple incomes, can afford a house in the pricy Berkeley Hills neighborhood, ranked as one of the most desirable locales in the state: Berkeley law extends legal protections to polyamorous people and non-nuclear families (May 22)

Housemates Steph Tranovich (left), Lily Lamboy, Alexei Savtchenko and Kmo Mogg
chat in their co-op kitchen before dinner. (Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight)

By Ally Markovich

...Dave Doleshal... began organizing conferences on polyamory in Berkeley at a time when it was less accepted than it is today. ... Being open about his polyamorous identity, he was often turned down by landlords. At conferences, he heard stories of people being evicted, fired or passed up for promotions at work based on their relationship structure. With other polyamorous people, he considered advocating for a law to protect their rights, but didn’t get far.

Over time, Doleshal has seen polyamory and other diverse relationships become more accepted in Berkeley. “People who were polyamorous a long time ago, just gradually have started talking about it and being more visible,” said Doleshal, who has lived in Berkeley since the 1990s. He said the ordinance was a major step forward, making other legal protections possible. ...

...The Berkeley law has limited purview. It doesn’t extend to other areas where polyamorous people face discrimination, including the workplace and courts, which would need to be addressed at the state or county level.

...Advocates behind the new law said they hope it starts conversations about the way that monogamy and the nuclear family structure are baked into the legal and social fabric, from healthcare benefits to hospital rules. Eventually, they aim to bring a nondiscrimination bill to the California state legislature.

●  Slate, in anticipation of the Berkeley law passing, published a look at the larger polylegal picture:  L G B T… P?  (May 6)

Polyamory is everywhere these days—except protected under the law. But some advocates have an idea about how to change that.

 Slate/ Tingey Injury Law Firm/Unsplash/ Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty

By Abigail Moss

In case you hadn’t noticed, polyamory is all the rage right now. ... And, lest you think all this hubbub is some ginned-up PR campaign, consider that 4 to 5 percent of people in the U.S. are in consensually nonmonogamous relationships (not always the same thing as polyamory, but pointing in a similar direction), which is comparable to the number that identify as LGBTQ+. Research from the Kinsey Institute shows that as many as 1 in 6 people are interested in exploring polyamory.

For polyamorous folks like myself (I’m in a throuple), there’s definitely a feeling that the tide is changing. ...

Yet, despite all this social progress, the law hasn’t been as quick to catch up with the rise of these kinds of “nontraditional” relationships. And that’s a big problem, because major, negative misconceptions persist among the non-poly public, most of them stemming from the reduction of these relationships to a sexual kink. This, in turn, leads to the belief, for example, that a polyamorous environment is not a safe one for a child, or that a poly relationship is not a serious or valid family structure. For those on the outside, polyamory can still seem like a wild and irresponsible lifestyle—and unfortunately, it’s people on the outside who are making laws and policy for the rest of us.

Indeed, legally, we polyamorous people find ourselves on very shaky ground. ... Depending on where they live, a polyamorous person could be evicted from their home or denied housing because of their relationship style—I know firsthand that private landlords may be less likely to want to rent to a throuple, for example, than a monogamous married couple because of false assumptions that a polyamorous group will be inherently unstable and unreliable. And a poly person could be fired or denied promotions at work due to bias against polyamory (whether that’s the stated reason or not) —without the company facing the same legal ramifications they likely would if they terminated someone’s employment on, say, the basis of sexuality.

Which raises an interesting question: Should polyamory be recognized as a sexuality under the law? And what might be gained, or lost, by such a recognition? There is a lot of debate in the polyamorous and LGBTQAI+ community as to whether poly should “count” in this way. But with so many poly folks believing that their polyamory is not something they chose, but rather an innate part of themselves, running a legal gauntlet on an everyday basis can feel exhausting and more than a little censorious. 

...Dr. Eli Sheff is a sociologist and expert witness on cases involving families who have unconventional setups, including polyamorous ones. She explains that while the legal changes happening at a local level are an important step in the right direction, there are limits to how much they’re impacting polyamorous people’s lives nationally:  “The changes in Somerville, for example, only apply to city employees. Somerville can’t legislate that a national corporation must recognize your polyamorous relationship. So poly people remain extremely vulnerable.... On the national level, it’s wholly inadequate.”

Andy Izenson knows firsthand how this feels. “It’s been an expensive year,” they say, referencing medical bills that they and their two partners have all had to deal with after suffering different illnesses. They faced limitations on how much they could claim from their insurance companies because they are not in a more traditional relationship. Izenson, the senior legal director at the Chosen Family Law Center, is an attorney and mediator specializing in representing queer families, including polyamorous ones, and transgender people. I asked how polyamorous people might begin to advocate for themselves. Izenson explains that often, dealing with situations in a personal, one-to-one way is best. “For example, if three parents need to be able to pick their kid up from school, going to the school, speaking to the principal, trying to work things out that way is sometimes the best. You have to think about what systems in society you really need to be interacting with.”

...[In states ] such as Florida and Alabama, polyamory is effectively criminalized through bigamy statutes. And considering cases of parents losing custody battles because of their polyamorous relationships, a person might rightly think very carefully before coming out to a school principal, boss, or co-worker.

This is a shame, because we really don’t have anything to hide. Dr. Heath Schechinger, co-founder of the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition... [asked] 175 people engaged in nonmonogamous relationships to list the benefits of their relationship structure. Responses included gaining a greater social and support network, fostering greater honesty in their relationships, and having greater autonomy and independence in their lives. Sex-related benefits ranked as only the eighth most-cited reason. Polyamorous people such as myself already know this—my partners and I argue over what to watch on Netflix and remind each other to feed our cats, just like any married couple. But while these misconceptions persist, they’re a major blocker to legal reform.

Schechinger says that although it may not be possible for everyone, visibility is a vital first step in improving rights for polyamorous people: “I think if you have the privilege of being able to come out as polyamorous, it’s important to consider doing so,” he says. “We are in an era where we’re on a precipice of significant change.”

...Schechinger feels that the dam is about to break. “We are putting together a packet that people can take to their city councilperson and advocate for similar policies to be taken up in their city,” he said. These materials will form a toolkit that will be available in the coming months, and have been created in collaboration with the Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy, Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition, Harvard Law LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic, and the Chosen Family Law Center. The toolkit will include relevant research and educational information, case examples, legal insights, and advocacy strategies.

...“It’s comparable to where LGBTQ advocacy was in perhaps the early ’90s,” says Schechinger. And people are getting behind this advocacy in droves.

“One of the problems, one of the beautiful problems, that my colleagues and I have right now is that there are countless numbers of people reaching out and asking how they can get involved and asking how they can offer support. Up until now, a huge part of their lives and their identities was going unrecognized. Finally, now there’s hope for progress. It’s only a matter of time before we see this start to scale.” And after all, what is poly if not the belief that things like understanding and love are capable of growth?

●  Also in anticipation, Yahoo News 360 rounded up opinions pro and con: Should the law recognize polyamorous relationships? (last updated May 20)

(Cute graphic, but how does this thing work?)

By Mike Bebernes

People in polyamorous relationships could soon have new legal protections in the San Francisco Bay Area if a bill currently under consideration by the city council in Berkeley, Calif. is passed. ...

Why there’s debate

The words “family” or “partnership” can mean myriad things to people colloquially, but when it comes to the law, they have very specific definitions that typically only allow for two adults in a relationship.

Poly advocates argue that laws limiting a family or domestic partnership in this way leaves those outside that mold vulnerable to discrimination. Nearly everywhere in America right now, there's nothing to stop a polyamorous person from being fired, denied housing, or blocked from receiving certain benefits — like health care — because of their relationship structure. There are also examples of poly people missing out on inheritance or even losing custody of children.

...Though public perception of polyamory does appear to be shifting, that same YouGov poll found that a majority of people still believe polyamory is morally wrong and oppose legal recognition for poly relationships. Opponents frequently suggest that poly relationships are inherently unstable and may be especially turbulent for children in multi-partner households. Many also argue that recognition of polyamorous relationships in things like housing law would be merely the first step of a larger campaign to expand marriage beyond two-person couples.

Perspectives

The question of poly rights is too important to be ignored

“Limited definitions of family are all over the legal system. Laws for domestic violence, rent control, insurance, and … inheritance rely on narrow understandings of the term, which often prioritize biological and marital relationships, and relegate other kinds of relationships.”  — Michael Waters, The Atlantic

The law is built around harmful misconceptions about how poly relationships actually work

“For those on the outside, polyamory can still seem like a wild and irresponsible lifestyle—and unfortunately, it’s people on the outside who are making laws and policy for the rest of us.”  — Abigail Moss, Slate

Society doesn’t have to legitimize every relationship style people conjure up

“Polyamory’s proponents censure those who remain unconvinced that mainstreaming such sexual perversions serves the public interest. We must celebrate each and every sexual aberration green-lighted by the academy, but condemn and exclude any whom the gatekeepers declare persona non grata for their sins against wokeness.”  — Casey Chalk, American Conservative

Denying poly people rights isn’t going to make them go away

“I think it's just important for mainstream audiences to recognize that just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There are people who are capable of having multiple romantic connections at the same time, and that is just a thing that is always going to exist, whether you like it or not.”  — Leanne Yau, polyamory educator, to USA Today

Polyamory poses a very real threat to traditional two-person relationships

“We are at risk — culturally and legally — of monogamy becoming a continuously negotiated agreement between partners rather than a universally understood axiom of marriage. When that happens, monogamy gets harder for everyone to ask for and expect; it gets easier to question and devalue. Marital monogamy will recede along with the benefits it offers families and society. That’s a price we don’t want to pay.”  — Alan Hawkins and Daniel Frost, Deseret News

All poly people want is to legitimize the commitments they’ve already made

“If people want to take legal responsibility for each other, that’s a good thing.”  — Alexander Chen, lecturer on LGBTQ+ civil rights at Harvard Law School, to Boston Globe

Without legal protections, polyamorous people have to hide who they really are

“This lack of social and legal acceptance has compelled many polyamorous people to hide their true identity from their coworkers, family, and even closest friends. The danger of living openly means that … polyamory hasn’t found a foothold in mainstream culture, which in turn has created a cascade of confusion about it that needs to be corrected.”  — Caroline Rose Giuliani, Vanity Fair

Poly relationships are fundamentally unstable

“Jealousy is not an emotion invented by men in the 1950s or 1800s to control women. Both men and women are jealous creatures, especially about romantic partners, and we have been since the beginning of recorded history. … This is why every polyamorous community throughout history … has failed. Polyamory just doesn’t work.” — Conn Carroll, Washington Examiner

●  Canada's national CBC News reports, Polyamorous relationships are on the rise in Canada. The law is still catching up (May 8).

"...In 2018, three unmarried adults in Newfoundland and Labrador were declared the legal parents of a child born within their polyamorous family — a legal first in Canada, CBC News reported. Then in 2021, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ordered that all three members of a polyamorous triad should be registered as parents of the boy they were raising together as a family.

"Put bluntly, the legislature did not contemplate polyamorous families [in designing current law]," Justice Sandra Wilkinson said in the decision. ..."

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