Archives › 2005 › December
Same-Sex Couples in UK Can Now Adopt
Some good news to end the year: Same-sex couples (and heterosexual, non-married couples) in the UK are now legally able to adopt children or become co-parents through in-vitro fertilization. The Adoption and Children Act also gives parents who gave up children for adoption the right to try and trace their children, and to be put [...]
Family Pride Guide
The Family Pride Coalition is now offering a free Family Pride Guide: A Guide to Talking With Your Child about Political Attacks on Our Families. Their goal is to help LGBT parents talk with their children about media coverage of LGBT issues, some of which may be negative. They offer suggestions on creating a home [...]
Motherhood, Identity, and Being a Lesbian
(Or should that be “Lesbianism, Identity, and Being a Mother”?) There’s a great dialogue about identity going on right now on two other lesbian moms’ blogs. Both Renee and Kwynne offer different perspectives on how being a mother can raise questions about and change one’s sense of self. How true. Losing my own identity–as a [...]
Post-Holiday Tips
While there are lots of lists around telling us how to survive the holidays, I thought I’d take a different tack and offer a few suggestions for making the most of your post-holiday time: Don’t return anything till after New Year’s. The lines will be shorter, and you’ll be saner. Don’t delay too long, however, [...]
Happy Holidays
Happy holidays to you and your families, however you define them. No posts for a few days while we make merry here at our house.
Gay Weddings in the UK: Quote, Unquote
Civil partnerships between same-sex couples are now legal in the UK. I am celebrating this development with as much joy as I celebrated the first Vermont civil unions (and perhaps more, since I once lived in the UK for two years). It’s wonderful that same-sex couples will now get the same rights, protections, and responsibilities [...]
Electric Trains
My partner and I spent much of the last two days trying to get a fifty-year-old electric train to run around our Christmas tree (aka our non-denominational holiday bush) for our train-obsessed son. The trains are part of my ancestral set, which belonged to my uncle, then my brother and me. They’re nothing fancy–low-end O-scale [...]
Brokeback Mountain
My partner and I saw Brokeback Mountain yesterday. All the good things you may have heard about the film are true. Spectacular acting, writing, directing, and cinematography, and a story that needed to be told. I was saddened, however, that we had to drive an hour to an arthouse cinema to watch it–none of the [...]
Women Who Take Longer to Conceive More Likely to Have Sons
A new study from Maastricht University claims that women who take more than a year to conceive are more likely to produce sons: 58% vs. 51%. For every additional year of “natural” conception attempts, there is an almost 4% higher probability of having a boy. Apparently, women who struggle to conceive are more likely to [...]
Christmas Tree Safety
With children in the house, most of us want to be extra-extra careful about household safety (without veering into overprotective paranoia, of course). With that in mind, it’s worth checking out these tips on Christmas tree safety from the National Safety Council. It should go without saying (but I’ll say it just in case) that [...]
Update on Ford: Company will Advertise in LGBT Publications
A quick update on the rumor that Ford was pulling ads for Jaguar and Land Rover from LGBT publications because of pressure from the far right-wing American Family Association: Ford has reversed its decision not to run the ads, and will be placing them in such publications. I know many of the large LGBT organizations [...]
Tea May Reduce Ovarian Cancer
A new study by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, concludes that drinking two or more cups of tea per day may reduce the risk of ovarian cancer. The researchers caution that more study is needed, and that tea drinkers as a group may make healthier lifestyle choices, which may account for the results. I’ve [...]
Essential Tool: Weighted Tape Dispenser
tape to go with it.
Dykes on Bikes, Tykes on Trikes: Yikes!
The San Francisco motorcycle group Dykes on Bikes has finally won a trademark for their name, after initial refusals by the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office because of a perception that “dyke” was a derogatory term. Unfortunately, “Tykes on Trikes” seems to be in use by several non-LGBT organizations that either donate tricycles to kids [...]
How to Build a Snowperson
If you’re in the Northeast today, and stuck home with kids watching the fluffy stuff come down, you might take a minute to review these instructions on how to build a snow [person]. OK, it’s really not that hard, and most of us don’t need written instructions. I like the tip about spraying the snowperson [...]
One Month to The L Word
It’s exactly one month till Season Three of The L Word premieres on Showtime. I’m excited. No, it’s not an entirely realistic or representative depiction of lesbian life– but Desparate Housewives isn’t exactly a realistic portrayal of straight life, either. Besides, I have a real lesbian life already. I want my fiction to be fictional.
Grilled Cheese Bags
If your kids love grilled cheese as much as mine does, you may be interested in the Toastabags from CHEF’s Catalog. Pop a cold cheese sandwich into these woven fiberglass bags, and slip the whole thing into a wide-slot toaster. Voilà! Melted cheese in minutes, and a clean toaster. At least that’s the claim–haven’t tried [...]
Ford Pulls Most LGBT Ads; Rumored Link to AFA
Nineteen LGBT-rights organizations have released a joint statement expressing their concern over reports that Ford is pulling most of its LGBT-targeted advertising because of pressure from the extreme-right-wing American Family Association. Ford claims the move was made for business reasons, and although they are no longer advertising their Jaguar and Land Rover brands in LGBT [...]
Possible Risk of Bacterial Contamination Through ICSI
Spanish scientists last week reported research findings that indicate a risk of bacterial contamination during the common in-vitro fertilization procedure of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), where the doctor injects sperm directly into the egg. The research was conducted on mice, not humans, however, and other scientists are saying they don’t believe there is any health [...]
Oklahoma: Not OK
The ever-diligent attorneys at Lambda Legal have filed papers with a United States District Court in Oklahoma, hoping to strike down the state’s “Adoption Invalidation Law.” The law says that Oklahoma “shall not recognize an adoption by more than one individual of the same sex from any other state or foreign jurisdiction.” This means that [...]
World AIDS Day
It’s World AIDS Day, and this year’s theme is “Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise.” Yes, the odds of living with AIDS are improving, but the war hasn’t been won yet. According to UNAIDS/WHO: More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981. Africa has 12 million AIDS orphans. By December 2005 women accounted [...]
