“She Got Me Pregnant”: The Mombian Vlog

I’m proud to announce the launch of a new venture here at Mombian: the “She Got Me Pregnant” video blog. Published in partnership with After Ellen, the vlog will focus on the intersection of lesbian parenting and popular culture, covering children’s media, depictions of parenting in pop culture, and celebrity lesbian moms.

I convinced my partner Helen to join me in this effort (how, I won’t say), so she’ll also be providing her perspective and commentary on matters Mombilicious. In our inaugural effort, we review Dottie’s Magic Pockets, a new TV series for children of LGBT families, wonder where Dottie gets all her free time, and debate the merits of a parallel universe in which only gay people exist. We also compare Melissa Etheridge and Britney Spears as parents, and highlight a song that could be an anthem for LGBT families.

The film editing won’t win any awards at Sundance (as with parenting, we’re learning as we go), but we hope we’ve put together an enjoyable ten minutes for you. You can tune in to a new vlog every Thursday, crossposted here and at the After Ellen blog. Thanks to the fine women over there for giving us this opportunity.

If you came here from After Ellen and are visiting for the first time, welcome! Hope you’ll have a look around.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

From Hogwarts to Tucker Elementary

Commentary on J. K. Rowling’s outing of Dumbledore is still flying thicker than owls in the Hogwarts Dining Hall. Michael Jensen at After Elton questions why she didn’t reveal this sooner. John Cloud, a gay writer for TIME, wishes she hadn’t said anything:

But as far as we know, Dumbledore had not a single fully realized romance in 115 years of life. That’s pathetic, and a little creepy. It’s also a throwback to an era of pop culture when the only gay characters were those who committed suicide or were murdered. . . . Like a lisping weakling, Dumbledore is a painfully selfless, celibate, dead gay man, so forgive me if I don’t see Rowling’s revelation as great progress.

Karen Brooks of Australia’s Courier Mail, however, sees the delayed revelation as a way to “[teach] the ignorant to look beyond stereotypes and biases and understand the qualities that constitute a person, the deeds they enact, the friendships they form and the loyalties they arouse – without any reference to sexuality being mobilised.” She also quotes writer Michael Bronski, who believes the Potter books are “profoundly queer in the broader sense of the word because they celebrate a revolt against accepted, conventional life . . . they are at heart an attack on the idea of normalcy.” I agree with this over Cloud’s interpretation, although he has a point in terms of the portrayal of earlier gay characters.

It is Tralee Pearce of Canada’s Globe and Mail, however, who makes the explicit connection to teaching children about acceptance: “Dumbledore’s new gay icon status presents a ‘teaching moment’ that parents should seize.” This observation deserves much wider publicity.

In our Muggle world, a nine-year-old girl in Milton, Massachusetts says she was verbally and physically harassed at Tucker Elementary School because her mother is a lesbian. The Family Equality Council (formerly the Family Pride Coalition) is working with the local school board to provide resources on LGBTQ family inclusion, address underlying causes of conflict, and improve their nondiscrimination and anti-harassment policies. It sounds as if they are making progress. Among other things, the superintendent will be “[checking] the school system’s library holdings for books that represent and address LGBTQ-headed families.”

That’s a good move, and it seems like Milton (and other school districts) could use such books. The trick will be getting students to read them. Thanks to Rowling’s revelation, though, they already have a series (for what school library doesn’t own a copy of Harry these days?) of hugely popular books that children have likely read, which feature a gay character—a father figure, even—and several plotlines about social justice. (Think of the struggle between Muggles and wizards, or Hermione’s campaign to free the house elves.) What better way to spark discussion of what it means to be LGBT than to use this as a starting point?

No, in itself it is not enough. Teachers will have to work their way from Harry Potter to what it means to be LGBT in the real world, and find resources to help them do that. They will have to delineate between Dumbledore’s admittedly tragic relationship with Gellert Grindelwald and the happy, healthy relationships most real LGBT people have. They will also have to find other material for students too young for Harry. I’m a big believer in teaching by making topics fun and relevant, however. Who better than Hogwarts most famous headmaster to do that?

Symbolism or Substance in ENDA Debate?

Below is an editorial by Jody M. Huckaby, Executive Director, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) National. (Used with permission.)

When the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) received its first-ever vote in the House of Representatives and passed the Education and Labor Committee on Oct. 18, it should have been a historic—and celebratory—moment for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. But there was a cloud hanging over the vote, with over 300 LGBT and allied groups in the United ENDA Coalition advocating for the original form of the bill introduced earlier this year—one that finally included a ban on discrimination based on gender identity. The House Democratic leadership’s decision to strip those protections from the bill, leaving only sexual orientation covered, has turned what should have been a victory into an unnecessarily divisive, disappointing setback for the LGBT movement.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media has characterized this primarily intra-community conflict as the protestations of a “fringe minority of transgender activists” or the “extreme left” of the LGBT population. Nothing could be further from the truth. One look at the list of organizations and the constituencies we represent makes that crystal clear. This is not a conflict between “pragmatic incrementalists” and “all-or-nothing idealists.” This controversy goes to the very core of what brings the LGBT community together, and it has forced a much-needed debate to the surface. It is time for some truth-telling and difficult conversations about what it means to be a community advocating for workplace protections. Read the rest of this post »

Family Voices XIII

Here’s this week’s post in my Family Voices series. COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere) member Sara tells us about her blended family, the influence of Ellen, and why it’s important for children of LGBT parents to remember that it’s okay not to be perfect. She also relates one of the best coming out stories I’ve heard in a while. . . .

Tell us a little about the family in which you grew up. Who was in it? Anything particular you’d like to share about yourselves?

My name is Sara Elizabeth Berger, otherwise known as Pumpkin, Mean Bean, and Sugar-Booger by my moms and dad. Yeah, that’s right . . . moms . . . PLURAL. Although for those who are reading, this is probably not a hard concept to grasp for obvious reasons. However, growing up in a small conservative town in North Dakota, I didn’t have what one might call an “easy” time explaining this to people. Then again, I’ll admit my family is just a tad bit complex. I grew up in two houses, my moms’ and my dad’s, with a plethora of siblings and more than my fair share of furry critters. My biological mom, Vickie, and her partner, Sherri, blended a family together after they both found themselves in the midst of divorce. My mom, who had been previously married before meeting my dad, brought Andy (my older half brother) and myself to Sherri’s old four-floor home in northern Mandan when she and my dad divorced; I was only six months old at the time. Sherri had been living in the old house for a few months with her three kids, Steven, Sara Lynn, and Joy after getting a divorce with her husband (which ironically enough happened to be my dad’s best friend). Mom and Sherri were not out at the time, neither to the community (due to custody reasons) or even to themselves; they struggled years before they were able to integrate their sexual “orientation” into their religious views. However, because I was so young, none of the “behind the scenes” struggles ever entered into my mind. As I grew up, I never questioned the fact that I had two houses and my friends didn’t, or that I had two moms and a dad when my friends only had one of each; in fact, I thought it was pretty dang cool to have two of just about everything.

As mentioned before, I had two of each sibling, too, all of whom were many years older than me. Stephen, who was 12 at the time of our “family fusing”, and Andy, who was eight years my senior, I considered from the beginning to be my brothers. Sara Lynn and Joy, 10 and eight years older than me respectively, were without a doubt my sisters. When I think about it now, however, I’m almost positive they didn’t see our situation in the same light as I did. Because they were so much older than me at the time, and didn’t literally “grow into” our queer family like I did, they probably viewed me more as the cute little girl they babysat once a week or the annoying “tweeny-bopper” who spied on them when their high school girlfriends and boyfriends came over. With the exception of my biological half brother who I had always been close to, I think it wasn’t until I was in high school when Sherri’s kids had “grown-up” lives of their own did they really start to consider me a sibling, an aunt to their own children, and someone they could call from states away to talk about problems. I think it was also the fact that I had grown up into the situation that allowed me to become the passionate queer activist that I am—I really got to know my moms (collectively) and their LGBTQ friends more than my siblings, and in the end, it has honestly made all the difference. Read the rest of this post »

No Squid Were Harmed in the Making of this Soap

I recently agreed to receive a sample of Squid Soap to review. Despite the name, it’s really a plain liquid handsoap for kids, with once extra feature: a small stamp of red vegetable dye on the top of the pump. When a child presses the pump to get soap, the stamp makes a mark on his or her palm. It takes a full 20 seconds of washing to remove the ink, thus ensuring that the child scrubs for the length of time recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It’s a clever idea, but I put it to the test with my four-year-old, who is already a fine handwasher. In fact, I spend more time telling him to hurry up and move along to rinse than I do bugging him to wash. He loved the name “Squid Soap,” however, and the bonus rubber squid toy wrapped around the bottle. The novelty of the bottle was a good incentive to get him to put down his toys and go wash for dinner, but the ink didn’t seem to change his washing habits much. In fact, I noticed it made him spend more time on his palms, but didn’t offer any incentive to get between his fingers and on the back of his hands.

Squid Soap also seems to be more expensive than plain soap. Since prices vary from area to area, I did a quick lookup at Amazon, and found an 8.4-oz. bottle of Squid Soap for $4.62, or $0.55 per ounce, versus a case of Softsoap, which works out to $0.30 per ounce. (Squid Soap does not seem to come by the case.) One could probably do even better at a warehouse store.

It’s possible, of course, to buy one bottle of Squid Soap and keep it topped up with an off-brand refill jug. It remains an open question, however, as to how long the ink will last before drying up, or if a few drops of food coloring could “recharge” it.

If your child needs a little motivation to wash well, then Squid Soap could certainly do the trick—and if it only takes a bottle or two to teach them, the difference in price won’t matter over the long run. Otherwise, it may not be worth the extra money.

(Full disclosure: I do get a small referral fee from Amazon for purchases made through links on this site.)

Women Commanders Meet in Space

On Tuesday, NASA Commander Pamela Melroy is scheduled to blast off in the space shuttle Discovery, headed for the International Space Station (ISS), where she will be met by ISS Commander Peggy Whitson. This is the first time women have been in command of both the shuttle and the ISS at the same time. The Boston Globe is touting this as a landmark for women, though they note (as does Melroy in a NASA interview) that this is a complete coincidence, as Melroy’s mission was originally scheduled for several months earlier. Somehow, that’s much cooler than if this was a planned NASA publicity stunt.

It’s worth noting, of course, that it’s unlikely an out LGBT person would have a chance at commanding a shuttle because of NASA’s emphasis on military experience for Pilot Astronaut Candidates. (Military experience is not necessary for mission specialists, nor for command of the ISS, but shuttle commanders need to have been pilots.) Melroy is a retired Air Force colonel, a combat veteran of Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and a former test pilot.

The military’s policy on LGBT personnel is not Melroy’s fault, by any means, and I do not hold anything against her for pursuing her dreams any more than I hold it against my straight friends when they marry. I’d just be remiss if I didn’t note this additional lack of opportunity for LGBT Americans, especially as this mission is being (rightly) seen as a sign of the progress of equality.

I have a special interest in this mission, too, as Melroy is a graduate of the Wellesley College astronomy department, where I also majored. She was there five years before me, however, and I can’t claim to know her, though I’ve shaken her hand at a couple of reunions.

I wish them and their crews both the best of wishes in their missions, an unintentional, combined inspiration to girls who look outside at night and imagine flying to the stars. I hope that by the time those girls grow up, there will be no social barriers to their doing so in any capacity for which they are qualified.

Dumbledore Is Gay, or: the Pensieve of Loneliness

Making its way across the Internet faster than a blast-ended skrewt is the news that J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, has outed Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore. Speaking at Carnegie Hall in New York on Friday, she admitted she “always thought Dumbledore was gay.” Reuters reports:

Rowling said Dumbledore fell in love with the charming wizard Gellert Grindelwald but when Grindelwald turned out to be more interested in the dark arts than good, Dumbledore was “terribly let down” and went on to destroy his rival.

That love, she said, was Dumbledore’s “great tragedy”.

“Falling in love can blind us to an extent,” she said.

When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published in June, I speculated on LGBT themes within the series, noting that Rowling has a copy of Radclyffe Hall’s lesbian classic, The Well of Loneliness, on her bookshelf. I never guessed about Dumbledore, though—I think he always seemed like one of those academic types too wrapped up in his work to have time for any kind of romantic relationship.

Some may criticize Rowling for not having been being more forthright about Dumbledore’s love during the course of the books. Perhaps she did not think her readers were ready for such knowledge; perhaps she thought to protect us from further attacks by those who already wished to ban the series for its “promotion” of witchcraft, just as Dumbledore kept secrets from Harry in order to protect him from Voldemort. “I feared the uses to which he would put you,” Dumbledore tells Harry at the end of Order of the Phoenix. He continues, however, “And now, tonight, I know you have long been ready for the knowledge I have kept from you for so long.” With millions of readers holding Dumbledore in their hearts even before they knew his sexual orientation, perhaps they are now more willing to accept this new piece of information. And perhaps, just perhaps, this acceptance will flow over into their view of the real LGBT people in their lives. How very Dumbledorian of Rowling to present it this way.

Weekly Political Roundup

• The genderless version of ENDA passed out of committee. Out Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) will attach an amendment putting gender identity and expression back in, before the bill reaches the floor. Gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), who had earlier argued for removing gender protections in order to pass the bill, is now urging his colleagues to support the amendment, saying “We will now be able to do that in a procedural setting that allows us to maximize support for an inclusive bill without endangering our chances of getting any bill at all.”
• In non-LGBT-specific, but parent-relevant news, the U.S. House failed to overturn President Bush’s veto of a measure to expand funding for the Children’s Heath Insurance Program (CHIP).
• In a case of “Don’t ask, don’t tell, but at least do your research,” the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force advertised on gay social-networking site GLEE.com by mistake. Read the rest of this post »

Dottie’s Magic Pockets Brings Sparkle to Television for LGBT Families

(Originally published in Bay Windows, October 18, 2007.)

When Dottie’s partner, May, takes their son Ollie to his first day of school, the stay-at-home mom feels lonely. Luckily, Ollie has left her a present—a sweater with magic pockets. Glitter in the pockets transforms Dottie’s living room into a colorful, whimsical playground for herself and several new friends: James, a tea-loving French daisy, Motilda the Mouse, Randal, a slightly nerdy beaver, Wally the Wall, and Uncanny the Singing Can.

That is the premise of Dottie’s Magic Pockets, a new DVD-only television series aimed at 3- to 8-year-olds from LGBT families. The show’s creator, Tammy Stoner, developed Dottie because she could not find any videos for her 4-year-old son that featured families like their own. “If I wanted my son to have media to reflect his life,” Stoner says, “then I was just going to have to do it myself.” Luckily, Stoner had worked in the film industry and knew people who could help realize her vision.

“We pulled in favors from everyone we knew,” she recalls. “A lot of people put in a lot of time free.” She shot the first three episodes in her garage. “That’s why we have a lot of inserts, imaginative things that take you off the set even though you’re still on the set.” Still, they faced some unexpected hurdles. The garage’s seven-foot ceilings limited the height of their stage lights, causing trouble with shadows. They had to stop shooting every 20 minutes during Oscar weekend because their Southern California location was on the flight path for many celebrities’ private jets. Read the rest of this post »

ENDA and CHIP: The Perfect Storm?

There’s a bit of legislative weather blowing in for LGBT parents right now, with two critical federal votes set to happen in the next week or so. On the LGBT front, the much-debated Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) should move through the House Education and Labor Committee Thursday. The United ENDA coalition, which represents over 300 LGBT and other organizations across the country, reports that Representative Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) has secured an agreement from the Democratic leadership to introduce an amendment to H.R. 3685 (the gender-free ENDA) that would restore gender identity protections to the bill. The amendment would be considered on the House floor next week, after the bill moves through Committee. United ENDA reiterates that their preference would be to pass the original (gender-inclusive) ENDA (H.R. 2015) out of committee, but they will work with Rep. Baldwin to attach her amendment if necessary. You can use the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Center to contact your reps before these critical votes. (Thanks, PageOneQ.)

On the parenting front, the House is set to vote tomorrow on overriding President Bush’s veto of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). FamiliesUSA has its own Action Center for this issue, but if you’re on the phone with your rep’s office talking about ENDA anyway, might as well give them your thoughts on CHIP at the same time. (The FamiliesUSA site has some talking points you may want to read beforehand, though.)

LGBT families stand between these bills in a unique way, although all families can benefit from them. ENDA would protect not only those who are LGBT, but also those who are perceived to be. CHIP helps families struggling to provide medical insurance for their children, and LGBT families are among them. As Jennifer Vanasco of Visible Vote ‘08, points out, in fact, the lack of rights for LGBT families can make legislation like CHIP even more important: “If a birth mother is staying home to take care of the couple’s child and the other mother is working, their child might not be able to get health insurance if they live in one of the 25 states where second parent adoption is unclear.”

As if the legislation wasn’t enough, let’s not forget the everyday weather fronts, either: many of us are also scrambling to find or make last-minute Halloween costumes for our young ones, and already making plans for fast-approaching Thanksgiving.

Will we look back in a week, proud to have made our way through the turbulent winds of these many issues? Or will the combination of them, coming at the same time, overwhelm us?