Welcome.
If you’re here because you love your child but realize love may not be the only thing they need from you, you’re in the right place.
Rainbow Roots is for parents raising LGBTQ kids in a world that can be confusing, hostile, politically loud, and occasionally full of adults behaving like absolute jackasses. You may be wrestling with faith, family pressure, fear of saying the wrong thing, questions you were never taught how to ask, or the uncomfortable realization that some of the parenting tools you inherited are not enough for the kid in front of you.
That doesn’t mean you are doomed to get this wrong. It does mean you have some work to do.
Around here, the kid is not responsible for making the adults comfortable while they learn. We ask what parents can change, repair, understand, or protect so children are not carrying everybody else’s learning curve. You can come here with questions, but you cannot make your child pay the price while you avoid the answers.
You do not have to arrive perfect, but you DO have to be willing.
About Rainbow Roots
Rainbow Roots did not begin because I wanted to build a brand. It began because I was raising queer kids, learning alongside them, and waking up to the heartbreaking reality of how many LGBTQ+ youth lose their homes when parents choose the comfort of what they’ve always known over the vulnerability of learning how to love a queer child. That realization led to a question I could not shake: How do we keep queer kids from being displaced to begin with?
I’m Kathleen Lancaster, a straight Gen X mom and widow who has gotten some things right, gotten plenty wrong, apologized, changed course, and kept learning. My kids taught me that love matters enormously, but love alone does not automatically make a parent informed, safe, accessible, or prepared.
So Rainbow Roots works with the adults. We look at what parents, families, communities, and systems can change so the kid stops paying for everyone else’s learning curve.
Our story is not perfect. Neither is parenting. But we can still do better once we know better.
Children Should Not Have to endure barriers
Rainbow Roots is designed with neurodivergent, disabled, and sensory-sensitive people in mind. Every video is captioned and accompanied by a written transcript. We avoid blinking and flashing effects, and we design our graphics and written content with readability in mind. Whenever possible, we offer more than one way to take in the material, because no single format works for everyone.
Accessibility is not an extra feature we add after the important work is finished. It is part of the important work. We know access needs differ, and we will keep listening, learning, and improving. If we are going to ask families, communities, and systems to remove unnecessary barriers, we have to do the same here.
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