Written by:
Gretchen Lee
Looking Up at American
When American Airlines announced earlier this year it would extend employee partner benefits to same-sex couples, none could have been happier than Robbin Burr, a 20-year employee at the company and co-chair for the airline's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employee group, GLEAM. Burr, as national sales manager to me gay and lesbian community since 1996, was the first woman named to the company's innovative American Airlines Rainbow TeAAm. "I'm so proud of my company for doing the right thing," she says.
Burr, who has a teenaged daughter from a previous marriage, was 40 years old when she finally came out as lesbian. "Having lived most of my life as a straight employee, having had a full benefits package as a married person, it's definitely been a personal battle for met to get this," she says. Burr's partner is self-employed as a piano teacher and had previously found it cost-prohibitive to pay for her own health insurance. Burr, her partner and daughter live near Fort Worth, Texas.
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