Making Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education Programs More Inclusive for LGBTQ+ Youth and Adults

Healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs aim to support strong, healthy, and happy families by teaching skills to help young people and adults form and maintain high-quality romantic relationships. Although most of the topics that HMRE programs cover are applicable to people of any gender in both heterosexual and non-heterosexual relationships, few programs explicitly address the perspectives and needs of those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or another sexual or gender minority (LGBTQ+). This white paper explores how to make HMRE programs more inclusive for LGBTQ+ youth and adults. The study team reviewed the literature on relationship education and inclusive programming for LGBTQ+ youth and adults, conducted focus groups with HMRE program directors and program practitioners, and interviewed HMRE educators and participants. Based on these data sources, the paper describes the common challenges programs face related to LGBTQ+ inclusivity and promising strategies for overcoming these challenges. The paper concludes with a discussion of remaining gaps in our understanding of how to make HMRE programs more inclusive for LGBTQ+ participants and considerations for future work on this topic.