0:04

You're listening

0:06

to Sex and Politics at

0:09

Savage.love. We've

0:16

taken a lot of calls here over the

0:18

years from friends who are thinking about having

0:20

a baby together, a gay man and his

0:22

lesbian best friend, as well as

0:24

calls from people who are worried about being

0:26

outed as poly or kinky or who have

0:28

just been outed as poly or kinky and

0:30

have lost custody of their kids or might

0:33

lose custody of their kids or have already

0:35

lost their jobs, and also calls

0:37

from people who are wondering how they can protect their

0:39

secondary or even tertiary partners

0:41

in their wills. And my

0:43

go-to guest expert in all of these

0:45

cases, Diana Adams. They're an

0:47

attorney in New York who specializes in

0:49

protecting LGBTQ people and polyamorous

0:52

people and their partners. In

0:54

some cases, like the friends who want a

0:56

co-parent, Diana helps people create

0:58

and protect their families but also protect

1:01

themselves. They're the founder

1:03

of Diana Adams Law and Mediation, a

1:05

boutique law firm in New York City

1:07

specializing in same-sex couples, platonic co-parents, polyamorous

1:09

families, and also the executive

1:12

director of Chosen Family Law Center.

1:14

This is Sex and Politics, a

1:16

special bonus podcast we do at Savage. Lovecast

1:18

for our Magnum subscribers.

1:22

You can hear the sound of my

1:24

voice right now, are not yet a Magnum subscriber,

1:26

but we wanted to share some of my conversation

1:28

with Diana Adams with you to give you a

1:30

little taste of what sex and politics is

1:32

all about and to tempt you to become a Magnum

1:35

sub. Like I

1:37

said, Diana's been on the Lovecast a

1:39

lot because they're the perfect person to

1:41

turn to with questions about forming families

1:43

that fall outside the heteronormative

1:45

mold and the homonormative mold

1:48

too. But I wanted

1:50

to invite them on, Sex and Politics, because after

1:53

so many years of talking with Diana about

1:55

other people's problems, I was really curious about

1:57

their journey. What attracted them is

1:59

a working class kid to studying the law, how

2:02

they began to specialize in the particular kind

2:04

of legal work that they do, and

2:06

how they formed their own family. I

2:09

hope you enjoyed my conversation with Diana Adams.

2:12

Diana, thank you for coming back on the show. I

2:15

love being on the show, Dan. It's always an honor. You've

2:17

been on the love cast a few times, but

2:19

I wanted to have you on Sex and Politics

2:22

so we could have a more relaxed conversation because

2:24

I'm really interested in your history, your journey to

2:26

polyamory and the kind of advocacy and the work

2:28

that you do, and to do that, to really

2:30

get into it. The love cast,

2:32

it's a little tighter. The show's a little shorter, and

2:34

we've never really been able to have that kind of

2:36

conversation on the love cast, and I wanted to have

2:38

you on Sex and Politics to have that conversation. But

2:41

first, congrats are in order. A big win

2:43

today. Can you tell us about it? Thank

2:46

you. Yes, we just passed the first

2:48

West Coast relationship structure

2:50

and family status nondiscrimination law

2:52

in Oakland, California. So we've

2:54

already passed that in Somerville

2:56

and Cambridge, Massachusetts. It

2:58

was drafted by an organization. I co-founded

3:00

Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition through my work

3:02

at Chosen Family Law Center, my nonprofit.

3:06

And we worked together with a bunch of

3:08

legal academics and psychologists to draft this law

3:10

so that it would allow for

3:13

nondiscrimination based on whatever your family status

3:15

is, whatever your relationship status is,

3:17

because that way that would include people

3:19

who are polyamorous, but also people who

3:21

are in platonic partnerships, people who are

3:23

ace, people who do collective living, single

3:26

parents. The majority of kids in

3:28

this country don't live with a married mom and

3:31

dad and are in some other kind of family

3:33

configuration. The majority of American adults are in different

3:35

kinds of family configurations. And this

3:37

would allow for nondiscrimination in Oakland

3:40

for housing, for other kinds

3:42

of government services. But

3:45

moreover, every time we pass one

3:47

of these laws, it raises awareness. It

3:49

raises awareness about just how many of

3:51

us are in other kinds of family

3:53

structures and that our whole

3:55

system is set up revolving around

3:57

this idea of a different sex,

3:59

married, nuclear family instead of having

4:01

a social welfare state. But

4:04

only 18% of American adults are

4:06

married, and then how many of the rest of

4:08

us are polyamorous, like me, who are in some

4:10

other kind of family configuration that you can't see

4:12

on paper. And so I think it's really valuable

4:14

to be valuing the families that are out there, helping

4:16

us all work on our shame about it. And

4:18

also, this is part of not just doing

4:20

this work in Oakland, but raising awareness for

4:22

all of us of the fact that we

4:24

all deserve to be valued in whatever kinds

4:27

of caretaking relationships we're in, because in these

4:29

times we really need that caretaking. Okay,

4:31

so this new law that your

4:33

organization helped pass in Oakland is

4:36

going to protect people in polyamorous

4:38

relationships, other relationship structures from discrimination.

4:41

How often are people discriminated against

4:43

because of their, you

4:45

know, they're in a polyamorous triad or

4:48

they have a platonic triad

4:51

or quad partnership where they're home

4:53

sharing. The problem being addressed by

4:55

this legislation, how big a problem

4:57

is it? It's a

4:59

really good question because it's difficult for us to see.

5:02

This kind of discrimination often happens

5:04

in covert ways. When

5:07

I tried to rent an apartment most recently a few years

5:09

ago in New York City, I applied to

5:11

100 apartments and was only invited to

5:13

view 20, even though I have perfect

5:15

credit and was amply financially able to

5:17

afford the apartment. Is that because I'm

5:19

a non-binary transgender and polyamorous activist? Potentially.

5:22

That could have been part of it, but of course they don't say that when

5:25

they reject you. But every

5:27

time we make discrimination less socially

5:29

acceptable, less normalized, that helps all

5:31

of us. We

5:33

do see in situations like child

5:36

custody cases that being polyamorous or

5:38

another kind of family configuration is used

5:40

against people. I see

5:42

this as supportive and

5:44

helpful using lessons from the

5:46

same-sex domestic partnership movement that

5:49

once the state has

5:51

stamped something, once a

5:54

male same-sex couple could go and have a cute

5:56

picture in front of City Hall and have a

5:58

piece of paper, suddenly their churches and

6:01

their parents and their employers were

6:03

willing to say, yes, it's acceptable for your

6:05

husband to come to the company function. Yes,

6:08

it's acceptable to have a picture of the two

6:10

of you. And perhaps it's my problem and it's

6:12

uncouth for me now, even if it's just

6:14

about what's socially acceptable, to be openly discriminating against

6:16

people. I wanted to jump in and say, anybody

6:19

out there thinking, okay, there's no poly

6:21

triad in Oakland, whose landlord

6:23

is attempting to discriminate against them. But

6:25

this is how it's done. I'm

6:28

old enough and gay enough to

6:30

remember a time when there weren't

6:32

even domestic partnership registries anywhere

6:34

in the entire country. And

6:36

we won marriage equality first by in

6:39

a city like Madison, Wisconsin, or

6:41

some other college town, or

6:44

Seattle, getting domestic partnership registries

6:46

that then became civil

6:49

unions, that then became state

6:51

level marriage equality laws

6:54

that passed at the ballot box, that then became

6:56

the victory at the Supreme Court. And this is

6:58

how you build protections for

7:00

people in different kinds of relationship

7:03

structures. It is the model, it

7:05

is the roadmap of marriage equality.

7:07

You start with a city like

7:09

Oakland where this isn't controversial in

7:12

the same way that being gay in Madison, Wisconsin,

7:14

there were still bigots, there were still homophobes, but

7:16

it wasn't controversial. And it made

7:18

sense to people to pass a domestic partnership registry

7:21

that allowed a same sex couple to have a

7:23

piece of paper that they could show to a

7:25

landlord that gave this stamp

7:27

of, state approval

7:30

shouldn't really matter, but sometimes you need that

7:33

piece of paper and it matters.

7:36

And there is discrimination against individuals

7:38

and couples and triads and quads based on

7:40

their relationship structures or how they love. And

7:43

your organization, Chosen Family Law Center, takes

7:45

those cases. And often it's

7:48

child custody, where a

7:50

vindictive acts finds out their former

7:52

partner with whom they share kids

7:55

has two partners now, and

7:57

they super child custody or... to

8:00

bar visitation based on the

8:03

prejudices that attach to people who have more

8:05

than one partner and to protect that person

8:07

who may live in some shitty part of

8:09

downstate Illinois where there isn't the kind of

8:12

law that just passed in Oakland you need

8:14

to build piece by piece protections

8:17

that cover everybody in the same way that

8:19

piece by piece we built protections for

8:21

all same-sex couples by moving marriage equality

8:23

from city domestic partner

8:26

registries to state protections

8:28

for same-sex couples to state same-sex

8:31

marriage laws to federal

8:33

rights for same-sex couples. Exactly.

8:36

That's the strategy. So it's not

8:38

necessarily about a massive concern of

8:40

discrimination against poly people in Oakland

8:42

or in Cambridge or Somerville, but

8:46

instead about building this momentum. And

8:48

it's also a way for progressive

8:50

cities to take a stand that's

8:53

in opposition to the way that

8:55

many red states, many places in

8:57

this country, we hear these horrible

9:00

city council and school board meetings,

9:03

you know, talking about trans people as less

9:05

than human, you know, talking

9:07

about massive potential infringements

9:09

on women's rights. And this

9:11

is a way to go in the other direction and say we

9:13

are going to be a queer utopia. We

9:16

want the Boston area, we want the Bay Area

9:18

to be the kind of place that is the

9:20

opposite of that where this is a place that

9:23

you can come to. And frankly,

9:25

in some of the trans sanctuary bills

9:27

that I've been involved in, in New

9:29

York State and in

9:31

Chicago and the state of Illinois,

9:33

there's an intentional awareness of

9:36

we want to make it easier for your queer

9:38

people and your feminists to get out of that

9:40

state and come here. A lot

9:42

of these bills are making it easier to

9:44

streamline the professional licensing so that maybe a

9:46

lawyer or a physical therapist or a doctor

9:48

or a teacher could get

9:51

their state license transferred. And frankly,

9:53

in part, it's not just benevolent,

9:55

it's also strategic. I'll happily take

9:57

your brain drain to Chicago or the Bay Area or

9:59

to the Boston area. an area of Florida, go ahead,

10:01

have people like me and Dan and you know lots

10:04

of feminists want to leave and want to

10:06

come and do interesting things where we are instead. All

10:08

my life, you know, I always said for

10:10

decades queer peoples are refugees. We

10:12

you know, if you grew up in a place

10:14

with 500, you know, I've heard someone

10:17

describe this as a kind of metropolitanism, which is

10:19

this idea that to be queer you have

10:21

to go to the big city. Well, if

10:23

you grew up a place with 500 people,

10:25

there's not going to be much of a dating

10:27

scene there, even if it was a wonderfully accepting

10:29

place. And we are, you know, queer

10:32

people move to the cities, you

10:34

know, I remember meeting queer people who were refugees

10:36

in the city that they grew up in because

10:38

they had to flee their homophobic families. And

10:40

so they lived on the other side of Chicago and never saw

10:42

their family of origin. And they kind of

10:44

had a refugee vibe, even if they didn't have to

10:47

go far, even if it was just an L right

10:49

away. And as

10:51

red states become worse and

10:53

worse about queer people, about women's

10:55

rights, about trans people, you are

10:57

seeing more refugees fleeing these places

11:00

for blue states, for more welcoming,

11:03

bigger cities. And the

11:06

passage of a law like this in Oakland

11:08

really does send up a flare. It also

11:10

shows that we can still make progress that

11:12

we're not just fighting an endless rearguard action

11:14

to protect the wins we've already had. We

11:16

can have a win. And this is a

11:18

win. And it's really, it's

11:21

really inspiring to see this win. So congrats

11:23

on it. Thank you. I think that

11:25

I think it's important that we take those wins. It

11:28

sometimes is controversial. I've been in the

11:30

LGBTQI legal movement for 20

11:32

years now. And sometimes there's been this discussion

11:34

of like, we can only focus on same

11:36

sex marriage, just like we can only focus

11:38

on Roe v. Wade in terms of feminism

11:40

and just hang on to what we can

11:42

get. We don't have time to talk about trans issues. We don't have

11:45

time to talk about family structure or polyamory. And

11:47

I see it differently. I think that we can do both at

11:49

the same time And also educating for

11:52

our own personal liberty and having these

11:54

wins at a local level. Keeps up

11:56

our own personal inspiration. It Keeps up

11:58

my own inspiration. They try to

12:00

write trans sanctuary bills in New York

12:03

State. It keeps up my inspiration to

12:05

be able to get affirmed that there

12:07

are places that are with us that

12:10

want us and were queer. People were

12:12

trans People were polyamorous. People aren't just

12:14

tolerated but celebrated and welcomed. I

12:17

wanted to have you on sex in Politics

12:19

because we have these conversations on the loved

12:21

cause for he briefly touched on our histories

12:23

as both of us poly people, people, polyamorous

12:25

relationships I'm but I wanted to be able

12:27

have a more relaxed conversation. I I want

12:29

to know more about you. where did you

12:31

grow up and when you were young? When

12:33

you're a young person, what did you want

12:35

out of love with kind of relationship did

12:37

you think about having when you are in

12:40

a dog. The I'm gonna

12:42

guess here that when you were. Thirteen.

12:46

The. Kind of relationships that as an adult for

12:48

the right relationships for you were the relationships you

12:50

were. Even able to conceive of

12:52

the only people I've met who are poly

12:54

from the beginning of their sexually active adult

12:57

lives in a poly from the jump or

12:59

people under thirty who benefited from those of

13:01

us who are older and poly and came

13:03

to polyamory being out and open about it

13:05

and put it in their heads of this

13:07

was an option for them. But where did

13:10

you start? thinking. Raskin

13:12

that down and I have

13:14

been openly by for twenty

13:16

five years. polyamorous for. Twenty

13:18

Years Arms and. I

13:22

grew up in a small town in

13:24

upstate New York and did not have

13:26

internet access, didn't have exposure to anything

13:28

other than the options of marry a

13:30

man, and frankly, as a working class

13:32

girl, I was socialized to want to

13:34

marry a rich man. You, I get

13:36

outta here, that's your ticket out. Meanwhile,

13:38

I was very smart and found my

13:40

own ticket out by getting some financing

13:42

going to Yell, but that was one

13:44

of that. That wasn't one of the

13:47

options that was presented to me and

13:49

I remember having a lot of fear

13:51

and anxiety. Because I knew I wanted

13:53

to have kids, I wanted to have connection. I

13:55

wanted to fall in love. But.

13:57

i didn't even have the words or bisexual but

13:59

i or polyamory, but I knew

14:01

in my heart that this was

14:04

not going to be easy for me. And

14:06

I imagined with fear that sure, maybe I'm

14:08

going to marry some nice doctor, but I'm

14:10

probably also going to be sleeping with my

14:12

nanny. And I might also be sleeping with the

14:14

pool boy, and I just don't know that

14:16

I could choose to be with a man instead of

14:18

a woman for the rest of my life, and

14:20

also that monogamy was something that I

14:23

actually wanted. And I think I came

14:25

to a place of being

14:27

interested in polyamory before I had those

14:29

words, because I saw

14:31

so much oppression of working class

14:33

women around me, domestic violence in

14:37

my own family and in my own

14:39

communities. The ways that women being financially

14:42

entrapped and entangled by men kept

14:44

women in abusive relationships or just

14:46

unhappy relationships, just controlling relationships. And

14:48

so the idea that I was

14:51

going to try to find my

14:53

freedom by finding the best one

14:55

of those rich guys to

14:57

own me was not appealing to me. I'm

15:00

a little confused. You looked around and you

15:02

saw a lot of women in

15:04

your community in shitty abusive

15:07

relationships, and your

15:09

thought as to how to solve

15:11

for that was have multiple potentially

15:14

shitty abusive relationships? No, no. Come

15:17

and draw the line between those dots for me. Yeah,

15:19

good clarification. I think I wanted to

15:22

not have anybody be able

15:24

to be in control of my sexuality or

15:27

my financial well-being. I didn't want

15:29

to be financially dependent within a marriage, and

15:31

I also really chafed at

15:34

jealous boyfriends being

15:36

able to tell me or my dad being able to tell me

15:38

what I could wear, what I couldn't wear, because they

15:40

didn't want men looking at me when it felt like

15:43

this is my body and my decision. And

15:45

if you're uncomfortable with it, we can talk about it. But

15:48

I wanted to be in control of my own body

15:50

and my own sexuality and not have a man tell

15:53

me what I could and couldn't do in terms of relating to other

15:55

people, just as I didn't want to be

15:57

in a situation of feeling financially

15:59

controlled. and coerced into being in a marriage

16:01

and then feel stuck. So I

16:03

didn't have the words for it at the time. And

16:05

you were actually my first queer

16:08

friend, because

16:10

I grew up in a small town near

16:13

Albany. And when there was a

16:15

chance to drive into the big city of Albany,

16:17

we would pick up the free artsy paper and

16:20

your column was in the

16:22

paper. And I would secret away

16:25

to the backseat of the car and be so excited

16:27

to read it because you were the first queer person

16:29

I knew of, period. And

16:32

then it was like Ellen on TV, you

16:34

know? But I had, so but hearing your

16:36

voice was incredibly powerful for me. And you

16:38

were actually a bit of hope, even if

16:40

you were writing about blow jobs and things like that

16:42

at the time, which is great. But it

16:44

just gave me some hope of both open sexuality

16:47

and queerness. And it

16:49

encouraged me to find other people. And now it's

16:52

awesome that I get to be on the love

16:54

cast and be your friend. That

16:57

was a little bit of my conversation

16:59

here on Sex and Politics with Diana

17:01

Adams, Executive Director of the

17:03

Chosen Family Law Center. If you'd like

17:05

to hear the entire conversation with Diana

17:07

Adams, please consider becoming a

17:09

Magnum subscriber today at savage.love.