I’m Speaking at BlogHer Boston

I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be speaking at BlogHer Boston, part of the BlogHer series of conferences for and about women bloggers, on October 11.

Founder Elisa Camahort was kind enough to invite me to speak at the Closing Keynote, “Change Your Future; Change the World.” That sounds like the tagline for a Terminator or X Files movie, but here’s the official description:

Blogging and social media have tremendous transformational power. Power at the individual level, but the power of community too. Perhaps most thrilling of all is how often bloggers observe that personal power . . . and decide to use it to create community, and ultimately change the world. Lisa Stone moderates this conversation with some Boston area women who are right where the rubber meets the road when it comes to enacting changes large and small, personal and global, including Dana Rudolph and Isabel Walcott Hillborn.

If you’re planning to be at the conference, drop me a note so we can say hi.

If you have any thoughts about the topic, too, please leave a comment. Are we changing the world with our blogs? In what ways?

Weekly Political Roundup

• A Zogby Poll found that more than six in 10 U.S. voters say they could support an openly gay candidate for president of the U.S.
• U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), chair of the House Financial Services Committee, is looking into a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) policy that disqualifies domestic partners from receiving coverage available to married opposite-sex couples. The FDIC restricts its bank deposit insurance protection for revocable trust accounts to a list of “qualifying” beneficiaries, which does not include domestic partners.
• A former Army Special Forces colonel testified in federal court that she lost a job offer as a terrorism research analyst at the Library of Congress after she told her future boss that she was transitioning from male to female.
• In “we could have predicted this” news, senior members of Concerned Women for America (CWA) have condemned Hallmark’s new greeting cards for same-sex weddings or commitment ceremonies, saying, “Now parents will need to steer their kids from Hallmark’s section of the greeting card aisle and away from its previously heart-warming movies for fear that they too will push homosexual messages.” Blegh. Read the rest of this post »

Gay Pilgrims’ Progress

I don’t often post about purely local events, but since this one has ties to national history, here goes:

Plimoth Plantation in Massachusetts, the site of the first Thanksgiving, will host “Out at Plimoth Plantation” on September 13. The event will “offer a glimpse into the lives of 17th century LGBT pilgrims and Native Americans,” according to Bay Windows. The day includes two historical presentations and a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

The Plantation’s PR manager, Jennifer Monac, told Bay Windows, “At Plimoth Plantation we feel that history is everybody’s story,” and stressed that the event was meant to be a family affair: “We want same-sex parent families to feel that they can come with their children for a place that’s safe for them to be who they are for the day, explore the sites and really enjoy it as a family experience.”

This isn’t the American history I grew up with—and that’s a good thing.

Where Would You Put an LGBT Official?

“Where would an openly gay or lesbian, bisexual or transgender appointee or elected official make the most difference during the next administration?”

That’s the question the folks at Logo’s 365gay News posed to me and a number of others, including GLSEN director Kevin Jennings, former GLAAD director Joan Garry, former and current HRC directors Elizabeth Birch and Joe Solmonese, PFLAG director Jody Huckaby, furniture maven Mitchell Gold, and actor Rue McClanahan, as well as bloggers like Good As You’s Jeremy Hooper and Queerty’s Andrew Belonsky. See our answers here. I’m honored to be in such company, and happy to see such a diverse set of answers.

Logo asked the question to help celebrate today’s launch of 365gay News, “the first-ever, multi-platform, on-air, online news hub for the LGBT audience.” The hub will include 365gay.com, a long-running LGBT news site, as well as a half-hour magazine-style LGBT news show produced by CBS News, airing on Logo’s cable TV channel Thursdays at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT.

This won’t, luckily, conflict with out lesbian Rachel Maddow’s new show on MSNBC, which will run weeknights at 9:00 p.m. ET.. This means you can wallow in as much news coverage by and for LGBT people as you can handle (at least if the kids go to sleep on time).

Have your own answer to Logo’s question? Leave a comment.

“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 40

Last week, Helen and I talked about Olympic athletes who are mothers. This week, we turn to the mothers of athletes, bringing you some of our favorite stories of supportive parents at the Beijing Games. We add an LGBT twist by revealing which character from an LGBT-themed show Michael Phelps’ mom reminded us of, and pointing out an unintended double entendre about beach volleyball players Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

(If the Veoh video above doesn’t work for you, try it at Dailymotion.)

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

Take the LGBT Consumer Index Survey

The folks at Community Marketing have launched a survey for their second Gay and Lesbian Consumer Index. I’d like to encourage all of you to take it and contribute your perspectives as parents (or prospective parents) in our community. All information is confidential and will not be sold to third parties or used for marketing purposes by Consumer Marketing.

Last year’s Index was the largest LGBT consumer study ever conducted, with over 22,000 participants, 46% of whom were lesbians. Unlike many lesbian and gay surveys, this one separates the responses of gay men and lesbians, providing useful insight into the differences between these parts of our community. I’ll quickly add that yes, the bisexual and transgender parts of our community should also be included in surveys like these, and I hope they will be in the future.

I know many of us abhor advertising, but I firmly believe our consumer spending has driven much progress in LGBT rights. Corporate America is, by and large, far ahead of the U.S. Government in offering anti-discrimination protections and recognizing our relationships, parental status, and healthcare needs. Gathering demographic and marketing information is the first step in expanding corporate awareness of our marketing power. Complete the survey while you’re watching the Olympics, and it will be painless.

Coming Out as LGBT Grandparents

With increasing coverage of LGBT parents in the media today, it is surprising LGBT grandparents are still largely invisible. I suspect this has much to do with the frequent media focus on lesbian couples with cute little tots or funny stories about finding sperm, or, for occasional variety, gay men searching for surrogates. The idea that LGBT people have been having kids long enough to become grandparents is foreign to most people, as is the concept of anyone coming out after having kids.

Alice Fisher and Michael Connolly of the Stonewall Communities Lifelong Learning Institute, the first LGBT LLI in the world, hope to change that. They ran a course in 2007 for LGBT grandparents, and wrote up their experiences for this month’s The Older LEARNer, a publication of the American Society on Aging. They discuss the changing role of grandparents in today’s society as well as particular issues for LGBT grandparents. One positive excerpt:

For the most part, we have not found the issue of how and when to come out to grandchildren to be a big issue for the youngest generation. We are open and low-key. . . . Grandchildren help choose—or invent—terms of endearment for the nonbiological grandparent. Can grandchildren keep track of five or seven grandparents? Yes, we found. Better than we can.

It’s a good article on a topic that deserves more recognition. I’ll be bringing you more voices of LGBT grandparents, in cooperation with Stonewall Communities, in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

Help Needed: LGBT Children’s Books in Spanish

A reader just wrote to ask me if I knew of any LGBT-inclusive children’s books in Spanish, especially for the very youngest tots. She knew of Antonio’s Card/La Tarjeta de Antonio, by Rigoberto Gonzalez and Cecilia Alvarez, but felt that was a little beyond the age of her own child.

I’ll add the bilingual English/Spanish Best Best Colors: Los mejores colores, by Eric Hoffman and Celeste Henriquez, but that, too, is more of a preschool/early elementary book rather than a toddler book. The classic Heather Has Two Mommies, again for the same age range, also exists as Paula tiene dos mamas, but I’ve never liked Heather as a starter book for kids since it focuses on a child being teased about her family. That’s important to explain at some point, but can also create fears where there were none.

For toddlers (and up), all I could find was Todd Parr’s It’s Okay to Be Different in Spanish as Esta Bien Ser Diferente. The book is not LGBT-specific, but includes depictions of two moms and two dads with the captions (in the English version) “It’s okay to have different Moms [Dads].”

This is a pretty meager showing. Anyone know of any other Spanish-language children’s books (originals or translations from another language) that are LGBT-inclusive? Although my reader was interested in ones for toddlers, leave a comment if you know of any for any age child.

LGBT Parenting Roundup

Lest you think I’ve become entirely obsessed with the Olympics (almost, but not quite), here’s a roundup of what’s happening in LGBT parenting news:

• The California Supreme Court ruled today that a group of doctors cannot use their religion as a legal excuse for denying a lesbian patient infertility treatment. Lambda Legal reports, “In a unanimous decision, the justices ruled that Guadalupe ‘Lupita’ Benitez was entitled to be treated like other patients with her same health problem, and that constitutional protections for religious liberty do not excuse unlawful discrimination.”
• Conservative activists gathered outside a California high school to rally support for Proposition 8, which would ban marriage of same-sex couples. They are apparently upset that the state’s Teachers Association donated $250,000 to fight the ban.
• Canada.com has a good interview with the mother of a trans son, in which she says, “I haven’t lost a daughter. I have gained a confident, strong level-headed son of whom I am immensely proud.” The article also mentions Families In TRANSition: A Resource Guide for Parents of Trans Youth (PDF link), which seems similar in spirit to The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals, which I reviewed last month, albeit with a Canadian bent.
• The U.K’s Guardian looks at some of the different approaches to transgender children who want to transition. Read the rest of this post »

Beijing Olympics in Legos

My love of both Legos and the Olympicsis well documented. My son is also obsessed with the former and learning to love the latter.

I was thrilled, therefore, to see this astounding recreation of the Beijing Olympic facilities in Legos, including the Bird’s Nest, the Water Cube, the beach volleyball court, the equestrian arena, and more. (More photos here, including cutaways that show how they did the patterns in the walls of the Water Cube.)

Show this to your kids and hear them say “Wow!” (Then quickly explain why you can’t run out to the nearest Lego store and buy them enough bricks to do it themselves.)

(Thanks, Slashdot.)