SNAP Challenge from an LGBTQ perspective

One of the ways I come to the SNAP Challenge is as a member of the LGBTQ community. We are as a group disproportionately affected by poverty compared to our straight/cisgender counterparts, and we are  disproportionately reliant on SNAP and other programs.

Consider the data from the Williams Institute study released earlier this year:

* 14.1% of lesbian couples and 7.7% of gay male couples receive food stamps, compared to 6.5% of different-sex married couples.

* African American same-sex couples have poverty rates more than twice the rate of different-sex married African Americans.


• Almost one in four children living with a male same-sex couple and 19.2% of children living with a female same-sex couple are in poverty, compared to 12.1% of children living with married different-sex couples. African American children in gay male households have the highest poverty rate (52.3%) of any children in any household type.

Then consider this from the National Center for Transgender Equality:

“black transgender people live in extreme poverty with 34 percent reporting a household income of less than $10,000 a year. This is more than twice the rate for transgender people of all races (15 percent), four times the general black population rate (9 percent), and over eight times the general U.S. population rate (4 percent).”


The better we understand poverty and hunger as an LGBTQ issue, the better we can respond to this crisis in our midst.