Archives › 2008 › September
Teen’s Story of Life with Lesbian Moms Is a Winner
Morgan Aitken-Young, a 17-year-old resident of Fremont, California, won first place in the national Young Voices Foundation Short Story Contest with “Unequal,” a moving piece about life as the daughter of lesbian moms. The Palo Alto Daily News has more. Her piece is more than a personal essay, however. She fictionalizes it so she can [...]
Bronx Queer
Which New York City borough has the highest percentage same-sex families with children? Those who know a bit about New York’s LGBT population might guess Manhattan, with traditional gay meccas Greenwich Village and Chelsea, or Brooklyn, with lesbian-filled Park Slope. According to a new report by the Williams Institute at UCLA, however, forty-nine percent of [...]
Philanthropy and Family a Sweet Combination
(Originally published with slight variation in Bay Windows.) For Jen Rainin, creating a lesbian travel company based on the idea of giving back to the world was an extension of her role as a philanthropist, but also a way to convey positive values to her children. Rainin is one of the founders of Sweet, which [...]
What Are Your Best Baby Gear Ideas?
Nina over at Queercents is adopting a baby in December, and wrote today about her meltdown at Babies R Us and her concerns about what to get for her new arrival. She was kind enough to mention that she found my list of baby gear recommendations useful. I wrote the list a few years back, [...]
Banned Books Week
It’s Banned Books Week once again, the American Library Association’s annual celebration of the freedom to read. Each year, the ALA tracks the books that have received an official challenge, “a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.” Judith F. Krug, director of [...]
Weekly Political Update
The ACLU won a federal court decision that ruled discrimination against a transgender person constitutes per se sex discrimination in violation of Title VII. Nan Hunter at Bilerico has further analysis of what this means for ENDA, and warns that it is a trial-level court decision, which the Justice Department is likely to appeal. The [...]
LGBT Parenting Roundup
Because the financial bailout isn’t the only thing happening this week: Ten-year-old Kira Findling of Sebastopol, California, wrote “Please Let My Moms Be Married,” a moving plea to vote no on Prop. 8, for the Press Democrat newspaper. A new report by the nonpartisan Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York concludes that gay [...]
“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 44
Helen and I take to the great outdoors this week. Helen talks about her love of compost and gets picky about her choice of pitchforks, I imitate an earthworm, and we bring you a green idea for the fall that gives your kids something to play in while it helps clean up your yard. Online [...]
Second Giveaway of Giggles Software for Babies
This is my second giveaway of a set of Giggles Computer Funtime for Baby software by Leveractive. Babies can hit any key on the keyboard to interact with the software and trigger various animations and other fun but age-appropriate actions. See my post about the first giveaway for more on the software and this LGBT-friendly [...]
Clay Aiken a Gay Dad
Quick: How many famous gay dads can you name? For me, the answer is “Not many.” While most of us can reel off at least a few names of famous lesbian moms, starting with Melissa and Rosie (if not the whole list of Most Powerful Lesbian Moms in America), I think we’d be hard pressed [...]
Non-LGBT Book Recommendations for LGBT Families, II
Here’s my next recommendation for a book about non-traditional (or non-specific), but not necessarily LGBT families. (See my philosophy behind this as well as my first recommendation here.) Mommy, Do You Love Me?, by Jeanne Willis and illustrated by Jan Fearnley (Candlewick Press, 2008), tackles the same broad theme as the publisher’s classic Guess How [...]
Family Voices XVIII: LGBT Grandparents
Here’s the next post in my Family Voices series. This phase of the series is in partnership with Stonewall Communities, an organization dedicated to creating residential, educational, social and supportive opportunities among older LGBT people. Sandy and Deb have been together for 26 years. They each offer their answers to the interview questions, and talk [...]
New No On 8 Ad Features Parents of Lesbian Daughter
The indefatigable folks of the No On 8 coalition have released a new ad featuring the parents of a lesbian daughter. They don’t treat her any differently than they do their straight children, they say. Why should the state? Spread it around: Give if you can (and if you’re not in Arizona or Florida, fighting [...]
Online Art for Kids (and Others)
Here are a couple of great little online apps, ways to satisfy a kid’s desire to be online but without the ads and noises of many kids’ sites: Mr. Picassohead is a simple painting app that lets users create faces in the style of the famous Spaniard. Jacksonpollock.org is even simpler. Just drag your mouse [...]
When Every Day Is Talk Like a Pirate Day
Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I feel obliged to mark the occasion, even though those of us with young children (particularly, though not exclusively, boys) can find any day suddenly turned into Talk Like a Pirate Day, with foam swords swinging and old sheets pressed into service as sails hanging from the [...]
The Lipstick Schtick
Ellen Degeneres revealed she is the new face of Cover Girl barely a week after the first smear in the lipstick wars between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama. {democracy:13}
“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 43
It’s lesbian home improvement this week! Helen and I show you how we reorganized our garage with a few simple pieces of hardware to make things more convenient for ourselves and safe for our son. We also update viewers on our son’s transition to kindergarten and recommend two classic books with positive messages for kids [...]
Kentucky Forbids Same-Sex Stepparents
The Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled this week that adoptions by stepparents are allowed only when the stepparent is married to the child’s biological parent. In a catch-22, same-sex stepparents cannot therefore adopt because Kentucky has a constitutional amendment banning marriage of same-sex couples. The ruling holds regardless of whether the person was involved in [...]
Non-LGBT Book Recommendations for LGBT Families
The number of children’s books featuring LGBT families is sadly low, and the number of quality ones even lower. I think the only new one in the picture book category this year was Uncle Bobby’s Wedding. This needs to change, and we need to do whatever we can to encourage both independent publishers and large [...]
Nominate Guinea Pig Defender for Librarian Award
The Carnegie Corporation of New York and the New York Times are seeking nominations for the 2008 I Love My Librarian Award. Up to ten librarians will be honored. Each will receive $5,000 and be recognized at an awards ceremony hosted by The New York Times at TheTimesCenter in December 2008. I can think of [...]
Family Voices XVII: LGBT Grandparents
Here’s the next post in my Family Voices series. This phase of the series is in partnership with Stonewall Communities, an organization dedicated to creating residential, educational, social and supportive opportunities among older LGBT people. I’ll be posting the stories of LGBT grandparents (and the occasional grandaunt/uncle) once a week for the next few weeks. [...]
LGBT Parenting Roundup
Another collection of stories from round and about: The Boston Globe this Sunday covered the disturbing story of separated gay dads, one of whom kidnapped their son and fled with him to Israel before being stopped by international authorities. The dads were one of the first same-sex couples to marry in Massachusetts, and were profiled [...]
Five Principles to Start the School Year
(Originally published in Bay Windows, September 11, 2008.) It’s back-to-school time, when we LGBT parents face the dual challenges of getting our children in an academic frame of mind and readying all of us to face a new batch of questions about our families. My own son is about to start kindergarten, and I’m trying [...]
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