UC professor seeks to make death care more inclusive

“The funeral industry is traditional and very, very slow to change,” Wright-Berryman said. “Getting this work done, we know it’s going to be glacial, it’s going to be slow, but one change at a time.”

Wright-Berryman’s work in the field, which is an extension of her research into suicide and ways to prevent it, began with her realization that she didn’t know enough about death care.

Because death can be a taboo subject, people often aren't prepared, and their final wishes may go unfulfilled.

“People in general don’t want to think about their own death,” Wright-Berryman said. “So they don’t want to think about prearranging their death care.”

In her quest to learn more about death care, Wright-Berryman conducted a study that looked at funeral home websites to see if they had any language, graphics, or forms to let members of the LGBTQIA+ community know they would feel safe while arranging services for themselves or a partner, spouse or family member. A random sampling of 90 funeral homes across the United States found no instances of language, symbols, imagery or LGBTQIA+-friendly collaborations.

“There are some who are phenomenal, and they’re already out there,” Wright-Berryman said of welcoming funeral homes. “They’re just hard to find.”

Following the publication of her paper, Wright-Berryman became involved with some of the most consulted trade publications in the funeral industry and presented her findings at a conference to funeral home owners and directors. At the conference, she offered suggestions on how to make their businesses explicitly safe places for the LGBTQIA+ community.

“Even LGBTQ folks in the death care industry don’t think about the fact that you can’t always rely on word of mouth,” Wright-Berryman said.

Wright-Berryman has seen some resistance from funeral homes to make death care more inclusive, but many others are open to the idea. However, she said, even some who are supportive may be hesitant to openly show their support.

“When the funeral industry sees this happening, even if they’re open to making their death care more accessible to the pride community, they may retract, become hesitant or withdraw for fear of backlash,” Wright-Berryman said.

Equal Deathcare, which Wright-Berryman founded with Kat Vancil-Coleman, a graduate of the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science, aims to fill in the gap and provide resources for funeral planning, end-of-life care, grief support, affirming providers and more.

The group has a team of national advisers to assist individuals with death care issues and is reaching out to LGBTQIA+ organizations to collaborate on identifying safe places and making resources more readily available.

Equal Deathcare also evaluates federal and state-level policies related to death care to see if they're written with LGBTQIA+ people in mind.

“When marriage equality became legal in 2015, I think we thought, ‘Oh, this is magic!’ because spouses who are legally married can be the first in line to make death care decisions, end-of-life decisions, claim remains and all these sorts of things,” Wright-Berryman said. “But what’s happening in some states, even though we have federal marriage equality, people are still suffering from discrimination.”