St. Petersburg Funeral Home & Memorial Chapel. (Photo courtesy the venue.)
The Good Page features positive LGBTQ+ news in Central Florida and Tampa Bay, impactful stories highlighting locals in our community. In this issue, we meet Michael Moloney, a third-generation funeral director dedicated to inclusive care.
For many LGBTQ+ families, the fear is real: that in the hardest moments of loss, they may walk into a funeral home and be met with judgment, hesitation or outright refusal. That because the deceased is part of the queer community, they are not welcomed.
St. Petersburg Funeral Home & Memorial Chapel was created to be the opposite of that experience. It was built on dignity, compassion and the unwavering belief that every person deserves to be honored exactly as they lived.
Moloney, who has nearly four decades of experience, has heard countless stories from LGBTQ+ individuals and families. “Over the years I’ve spoken with individuals, families who share experiences of feeling overlooked, judged, uncertain about how they’re going to be treated,” he says. “Every family deserves passionate care without fear of discrimination or misunderstanding.”
He, his wife and his son run the funeral home together. Their family has been serving others for almost 100 years. But the decision to open this particular location in July 2025 was shaped by what he witnessed after moving to Florida.
He had been working for a local funeral home that was bought by a large corporation. “Everything became about money and not the people,” he recalls. “They have shareholders to answer to, not necessarily the community anymore.”
When one of those locations closed, he knew it was time to return to the kind of service he believed in. “I needed to open a place that was committed to the community — families — which is what I’ve been doing my entire life.”
That commitment extends to all religions and all faith traditions, which the funeral home welcomes without hesitation. “People are who they are, and who am I to say anything other than that?” he asks.
For transgender and nonbinary individuals, the fear of being misgendered or presented incorrectly after death is profound. Moloney approaches this with care and clarity.
“It becomes about listening and carefully letting everyone know that their loved one was an individual, affirming their name, their pronouns,” he notes. “Ensuring that their clothing, their appearance, their memorial materials reflect who that individual was through life.”
His goal is always “to tell the story authentically and respectfully, honoring the identity and preserving the dignity of each individual and that family.”
He also understands the emotional and legal realities of chosen family. “The chosen family is the one that I acknowledge as the immediate family, within the legal limits of the law,” he says.
He describes situations where parents haven’t approved of their adult child’s partner. He advises them that “Your son is an adult. This is what he chose. This is how he wants to live his life. The partner is the person I direct my questions to.”
He balances that with empathy for everyone involved. “I understand your grief, but I also have to understand the partner’s grief.”
LGBTQ+ families often face additional hurdles when it comes to paperwork, next of kin decisions, and medical or legal documentation. Moloney sees his job as guiding them through it. “Inclusivity means helping families understand the options while treating everybody with dignity and respect.”
Florida law allows individuals to designate someone to handle their affairs, but when no such documentation exists, things can become complicated. Even then, he stays focused on supporting the people who were closest to the deceased.
Moloney’s dedication to LGBTQ+ families isn’t a one-time promise. It’s ongoing. He says he’s “committed to learning more, listening, and growing alongside the community, engaging with local organizations, seeking feedback and investing in staff education.”
And at the heart of it all is a belief he returns to repeatedly. “It’s not just the dignity of the family that’s living. It’s the dignity of the deceased. The body is the temple that houses one’s soul. Whether it’s cremated, buried, entombed, it needs to be treated with respect and dignity. And that is what we do.”
The space proudly serves the communities of Pinellas County and the message on their materials says it plainly: We welcome. We respect. We are here for you.
Moloney’s words echo that promise: “I want to serve the LGBTQ+ community because I know that if I do, they will be served well.”
Learn more about St. Petersburg Funeral Home & Memorial Chapel at StPetersburgFuneralHome.com.
Interested in being featured in The Good Page? Email Editor-in-Chief Ryan Williams-Jent at Ryan@WatermarkOutNews.com in Tampa Bay or Central Florida Bureau Chief Bellanee Plaza at Bellanee@WatermarkOutNews.com in Central Florida.
Sign up for the Watermark Out News eNewsletter and follow us for more:
BlueSky | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | TikTok | Threads | YouTube
