Hi! I'm Amanda, and I'm Allison, and we're the founders of Affirming Business Institute, which we lovingly call "Abbie" for short. If you've landed on this page, you're probably wondering who we are and why we built this. So let us tell you.

Our mission here at ABI is to connect queer people with businesses that are not only welcoming, but also educated, proactive, and accountable in providing equitable service while raising the standard for what affirming care looks like across the industry. And it's a mission that's really close to home for us.

I'm sure it's not a surprise to learn that Amanda and I are queer, and when we got engaged, we were so excited to plan our wedding. One of the first things we did was research wedding photographers.

We'd pull up a website, fall in love with someone's work, but when we got to the intake form, so many of them had name fields that said bride and groom. This didn't stop us at first, we'd end up rock-paper-scissoring for who got stuck in the groom's section, and we'd wait to hear back, at the time focusing more on connecting with people whose editing style and portfolio we liked.

But then we'd get on the phone. We'd ask standard questions getting to know the photographer and they us, but then, in one of the calls, Amanda thought to ask, "What's been your experience working with queer clients?" and "How do you pose queer couples?"

More often than not, people replied with "love is love," "I treat everyone the same and pose everyone the same," "I don't do anything differently." And while this is a kind answer because queer people don't want to be treated differently, there's a difference between treating someone differently in a way that makes them feel like an outsider, and treating them differently because you actually see and celebrate what makes them unique.

We want to work with people who care to understand the way we move in our relationship, the way queer culture will impact the way we move on our wedding day, and what we actually need on one of the most important and vulnerable days of our lives so far.

For example, I don't want to be posed like a traditional groom just because I present more masculine, and I don't want to be the only one in more feminine poses just because I have longer hair. We both don't want to have to teach people about they/them pronouns, both for us and for our gender expansive guests. Or worse, have a vendor call me "she" all night as a non-binary person because they don't believe in pronouns or didn't take the time to practice before our wedding day.

After those conversations, it made us realize that we needed to hire someone who really knew and understood the nuances of queer weddings. Someone who knew how to handle complicated family situations, not tokenize us in their portfolio, but not only that, but you can't capture and tell the story of queer love unless you know how to celebrate it and respect it in the same way that we in the queer community do.

We did end up finding our person, but it was exhausting.

We looked at each other after that and were so exhausted at the idea of having to do that again with each vendor as we built our team. Because we weren't just interviewing allied or straight photographers, some of the photographers we interviewed were queer as well and couldn't make us feel seen or heard either, because while they were queer themselves, they hadn't really thought about the intersection of queerness and their work.

We looked all over the internet trying to find vendors who were not just queer or genuinely allied, but who had experience working with queer people in affirming ways, but what we really wanted was a one-stop shop to find them.

We also talked to a ton of people about our experience, and so many of our friends said the same thing, except the problem for them is way bigger than just weddings.

Personal trainers who didn't know how to help trans people achieve their fitness goals. Hair stylists and barbers with gendered pricing that left non-binary clients not knowing what they'd be charged until they were already in the chair. Coaches, therapists, doulas, photographers, beauty specialists and service professionals across every industry.

Queer people, and people of every marginalized group, don't always have the energy to vet who they work and interact with. Doing that would literally be impossible. But when we don't know for a fact, a certainty that someone is safe and affirming, there's sometimes a thought in the back of your head… "Am I safe here?" "Do I need to hide a part of myself to be treated fairly?" "If I can't hide it, do I have to shrink into a corner in order to not take up too much space in case someone feels a negative way about my presence?"

Especially in professions where I'm trusting my body or health to someone, can I trust them to understand the nuance of my needs and where I'm coming from, or am I just going to get generic service, regardless of how much I've paid?

This is the load queer people are carrying right now, and our hope with Abbie is that it can help foster cultural change enough that it lightens this load, at least when it comes to the businesses they trust their bodies, minds, and stories to—businesses like yours.

Queer people deserve to be seen, cared for, and affirmed by every business they interact with. We're so glad you're here, and we hope you'll join us in the movement making this happen.

If you're ready to learn and get certified, your course is waiting for you. Head to our courses page to find the one that's right for your industry and get started. And if you can't find yours, please let us know which industry we should make courses for next! See you there!

— Allison and Amanda
Founders, Affirming Business Institute