The Children of Gay Parents Speak for Themselves

For the past five years, Gabriela Herman has been photographing and interviewing people from all over the country with one or more LGBTQ parent. “My mom is gay,” she explained. “But it took me a long time to say those words out loud.” For Herman, coming to terms with her mother's identity was a “raw and difficult time.” She had never met another person who was raised by a gay parent. “The topic was taboo even within our otherwise tight-knit family,” she said. “My younger siblings were dealing with the same emotions, but meaningful conversation eluded us.” Eventually she connected with COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere) and found a community of people who shared a similar childhood: the juggling of silence and isolation, the defending of parents on the playground. In many ways, the images and interviews in Herman’s essay The Kids seeks to fill that silence. The children of gay parents aren’t “hypothetical”: They’re real and they’re ok.

Read more
Hints: View this page full screen. Skip to the next and previous photo by typing j/k or ←/→.

Most Recent

  • © Karsten Mosebach / GDT Nature Photographer of the Year 2025

    Winners of the GDT Nature Photographer of the Year 2025

    A collection of winning and honored images from this year’s nature-photo competition

  • ESA / Hubble & NASA, K. Noll

    The 35th Anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope

    A collection of amazing recent images made with the Hubble Space Telescope

  • Andrew Harnik / Getty

    Photos of the Week: Pony Run, Corgi Race, Rocket War

    Mourners of Pope Francis gathered at the Vatican, scenes from the the second weekend of Coachella 2025, a humanoid-robot half-marathon in China, and much more

  • Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

    Photographing the Beauty of the North

    Images of the people, animals, and landscapes of the Earth’s arctic and subarctic regions, photographed by Olivier Morin