LGBT Parenting Update

Personal Stories

• Nina at Queercents discusses the various factors she and her spouse are weighing as they consider whether to have a second child.

Schools and Education

• A federal judge ruled that the Gay-Straight Alliance at Florida’s Yulee High School can meet on campus, with the same privileges as other student groups, and does not have to change its name to eliminate references to a specific sexual orientation. The group may continue advocating “for tolerance, respect and equality of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.”
• The GLBTQ Online High School, the first of its kind, will launch in January 2010. Founder David Glick says he wants to reach students in rural areas and be a safe-haven from bullying. Others worry that this will further isolated the students from their peers. Read the rest of this post »

Don’t Take Your Lesbian Moms to Hooters

The Canadian musical comedy My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding, which became the hit of the 2009 Fringe of Toronto Theatre Festival in July, will be expanded for a run beginning Nov. 7 at the Panasonic Theatre in Toronto, reports Playbill News. The new version will include a larger cast and new songs, in addition to the existing number, “Don’t Take Your Lesbian Moms to Hooters.” The musical was written by David Hein, a son of lesbian moms, and his wife Irene Carl Sankoff. Other song titles include: “If You Love Me,” “You Don’t Need a Penis,” “Straight White Male,” and “A Short History of Gay Marriage in Canada.” (If that’s not enough to get you excited about it, consider that Hein apprenticed for two years in a Muppet Music studio in NYC, working for Jim Henson, Disney and Sesame Workshop.) Here’s the description from the new production company, Mirvish Productions:

This original Canadian musical comedy became the toast of the 2009 Fringe of Toronto Theatre Festival when it played in July at Bread & Circus, a new venue in a tiny Kensington Market storefront. Based on a true story, My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding tells the story of a mother and her teen-aged son. The mother feels lost in life, wrestling with her identity. A new job brings new opportunities and with it a chance to truly find herself, discovering her sexuality, rediscovering her faith and coming out as a lesbian to her son, ex-husband and homophobic Jewish mother. My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding is for every mother who has ever come out to her children as a lesbian… and a Jew. It is for every girlfriend who has met her future lesbian in-laws… at Hooters. And it’s for everyone who’s ever been in love.

Sounds like it’s almost worth braving the cold of Toronto in November to go see it. Of course, one of the previous shows that Mirvish discovered at the Toronto Fringe and helped expand and develop was The Drowsy Chaperone. It found its way to New York and won five Tonys. Maybe I’ll just wait until MMLJWW hits warmer climes. After the jump, a video of Hein performing the song, “My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding,” before he made it into a full musical. Read the rest of this post »

National Fatherhood Tour

President Obama has just launched a National Fatherhood Tour, led by 27-year-old Pentecostal pastor Joshua DuBois, head of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. DuBois (who is not a father himself) explains to NPR: “[Obama] grew up without a dad in his own home, but he also saw the impact of father absence when he was working in Chicago, so he started this national conversation about responsible fatherhood.”

NPR points out that this is a particularly big issue for African American families. Obama is in a tremendous position from which to create positive change here.  DuBois adds, however, “This is about kids who are growing up without responsible role models in their families and that is for all American families regardless of their background.”

Not a bad thing. The risk, of course, is that some will take this message and use it to revive the old saw that “children need a mother and a father, ergo same-sex parents aren’t as good or appropriate as opposite-sex ones. Read the rest of this post »

How Do I Talk to My Kids About Safe Sex?

[Editor's Note: A reader left a comment on a post I wrote last fall about LGBT resources for teens. She wanted to know about safe-sex resources for her bi daughter. Blogger Serena Freewomyn, who has been a youth counselor and founded the Feminists for Choice site was kind enough to write a whole guest post on this topic when I asked her for suggestions. Here it is. (Readers may also want to peruse Lesbianstd.com, which isn't youth oriented, but has relevant information about STD's for women who have sex with women.)]

Has your teenager approached you with questions about safe sex? Are you looking for a little nudge in the right direction to figure out what to say? Planned Parenthood has a new guide available (PDF) to help parents talk to their kids about sex.

In my experience as a youth counselor, one thing that I tried to create was an atmosphere where the teens in our after school program felt comfortable talking about their issues. Teens can sniff out bullshit pretty quickly, so I didn’t think it was worth it to lie and pretend that I had all the answers, because it would affect the credibility of everything else I had to say. If I didn’t have an answer to a question, I would admit it and then the group could research an answer together. Sometimes we would invite a guest speaker to come talk to the group. And sometimes we’d go to the computer lab together to look up an answer. But sex talks were always natural, and we tried to keep it fun. Read the rest of this post »

Nurse Jackie: The Cure for Common Lesbian Moms

(I’ve written about Showtime’s Nurse Jackie before. Below is my extended piece on the “lesbian mom” episode that aired a few weeks ago. Originally published in Bay Windows and Philadelphia Gay News. Obsessive fans may also want to read After Ellen’s interview with the show’s creators, out lesbians Linda Wallem and Liz Brixius.)

Finally, someone got it right. Showtime’s new dark comedy series Nurse Jackie has portrayed lesbian moms in a way that is both believable and doesn’t fall prey to overused stereotypes. Most shows that have featured lesbian parents, including ER, Friends, NYPD Blue, and more recently, the short-lived Cashmere Mafia, show them trying to get pregnant or caring for infants. Even LGBT-specific series such as Showtime’s The L Word and Queer as Folk, or Logo’s Exes and Ohs and Rick and Steve, didn’t avoid the trap—all involved madcap escapades in the search for a sperm donor.

Nurse Jackie, starring The Soprano’s Edie Falco as the titular character, breaks new ground both by showing an adult child of lesbian moms and by not making his family the central focus of his character. For the first few episodes, we don’t know anything about the family of Dr. Fitch “Coop” Cooper (Peter Facinelli). We simply see him in the context of his job, an overconfident, self-absorbed young doctor with a form of Tourette’s Syndrome, which gives him a tendency to grab his female co-workers’ breasts when he gets nervous. He is, in all honesty, a bit of a prick.

When his moms show up at the hospital after one has a gall bladder attack, however, fellow doctor Eleanor O’Hara (Eve Best) overhears him refer to them both as “Mom.” “You have two mothers?” she asks. When he replies in the affirmative, she responds, “Bravo, Dr. Cooper.” Having two moms could be the one redeeming thing about him, she implies, the one characteristic that makes him stand out from all of the other self-important young doctors who have come through the doors. Read the rest of this post »

Weekly Political Roundup

• Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) introduced a transgender-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) into the U.S. Senate. Co-sponsors were Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Susan Collins (R-ME).
• The American Bar Association’s House of Delegates passed a resolution calling on Congress to repeal the section of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that denies federal marital benefits and protections to legally married same-sex couples. The measure does not take a position on marriage equality directly, but merely urges the federal government to recognize marriage rights granted by states.
• Lisa Keen wraps up her three-part look at the various federal marriage equality lawsuits now in play. Read the rest of this post »

How Do You Talk with Your Kids About Not Having a Dad?

Reader Laurie left a comment on the open thread earlier this week, and I wanted to bump it up to a full post so more people would see it. She raises a question many of us ask:

I have a friend who is struggling with what to tell her 3 year old about not having a dad. She is raising her 3 year old and 1 year old on her own after a bad breakup. Her 3 year old daughter (my god daughter) is coming home from day care talking about dads. What advice is there out there about how to handle this subject?

My own approach, for a three-year-old, is simply to explain that families come in all different shapes and sizes. I’d emphasize that she has a parent and other relatives who love her, rather than that she is “missing” something that other kids have.

It may also help to see images of families like hers. Todd Parr’s The Family Book is a good one for that age, and shows families of many different configurations, in bright and cheery colors. Her friend might also flip through Louise Sloan’s Knock Yourself Up: No Man? No Problem: A Tell-All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom—it’s aimed at single moms by choice, but she can skip the knocking-up part, and go right to the chapter on “The Daddy Question,” which may address some of her concerns.

Other suggestions? What’s worked (or not) for other readers?

“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 78

Helen and I take a retrospective look at the Disney classic Dumbo. What holds up after 70 years? What is just plain odd? (Psychedelic pachyderms, anyone?) And what should be relegated to the far, far past?

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

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