Press Kit

OUR HISTORY

Read about our history here

KEY FACTS

OurPath (formerly the Straight Spouse Network) is a 501(c)(3). We are a 30-year-old nonprofit that provides support to the Straight Partners of LGB people and Partners of Trans People after disclosure or discovery.
OurPath has 106 members of our Volunteer Force and 20 staff members.
In 2020, OurPath’s website had more than 192,000 page views.
In 2020, OurPath received more than 1,600 requests for personal support.
In 2020, the OurVoices Podcast had more than 38,000 downloads.
In 2020, OurPath helped Straight Partners or Partners of Trans People in all 50 of the United States, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, El Salvador, France, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the U.K.

OUR TEAM

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR – Kelly Hollimon

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR – Kristin Kalbli

RESEARCH DIRECTOR – Joe Hess

FOUNDER – Amity Pierce Buxton

Born in Massachusetts in 1929, Amity grew up in New York and attended Marymount College, from which she graduated in 1951. In 1952 she earned her M.A. from Columbia University and taught high school English in New York and Michigan. She eventually migrated to the San Francisco Bay Area and taught English at San Francisco State College, where she also completed her PhD.

While writing her dissertation, and in between periods of travel, house remodeling, tennis and art, she worked with community organizations to achieve desegregation. In 1968, Amity resumed professional work, focusing on school desegregation by training teachers and administrators in equality, interdisciplinary curriculum and active learning. She also continued to research, publish, present at conferences in the U.S. and abroad, and established a tri-city Teachers’ Center for Active Learning.

She was married in 1958. Her son was born in 1961 and a daughter followed in 1965.

When her husband disclosed he was gay (1985), Amity shifted her work to address issues of sexual orientation, gender identity, LGBT+ equality, and the anti-LGBT+ attitudes and heterosexism that underlie closeted marriages. Many heterosexual women and men enter closeted marriages unknowingly, so she established the Straight Spouse Network in 1991. The aim of the SSN was to provide valid information and individualized support to help Straight Partners and Partners of Trans People resolve their trauma constructively, and to reeducate the general public about sexual orientation and gender identity, thereby decreasing marriage closets. She conducted research, wrote professionally, presented at conferences (psychological, religious, legal, and LGBT+) in the U.S. and abroad, and made several guest appearances on TV talk shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show. Among her professional writings is the groundbreaking book, The Other Side of the Closet: the Coming-Out Crisis for Straight Spouses and Families.

Now in her nineties, Amity still works and writes to achieve social and sexual equality, and to eliminate closeted marriages.