“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 104

I have a special guest this week while Helen is away on a business trip— our six-year-old son. He offers his thoughts on one of his favorite books of the moment, Redwoods, by Jason Chin. It’s not LGBT-related at all, but it’s delightful, and our son likes it, which is reason enough for me to include it here. It also has a certain resonance with Earth Day, which is coming up next week.  (And it was our son’s idea to join me on the video, so who am I to refuse?)

Also, note that I have blocked out our son’s face here. Not that he isn’t the most adorable child in the world, but I’m just paranoid about having his image out and about online. I think you can still get a sense of his personality, though. Enjoy!

Mombian: She Got Me Pregnant, 04-15-2010
Uploaded by drudolph. – Watch more LGBT videos.
(If the embedded video above doesn’t work for you, try it at Dailymotion.)

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

I am a member of the Amazon Associates program, and get a small referral fee from all purchases made at Amazon.com via links on this site. You are under no obligation to purchase through them.

Become a Fan

I’ve finally decided to bite the bullet and move all Mombian Facebook goodness over to a Fan page. The Mombian Group has been growing strong—over 260 members at last count—but a Fan page makes a few things easier to manage for me.

So: Even if you’re a member of the Group already, please click the button below, or pop over to the Fan page and click the “Become a Fan” button. I won’t shut down the Group right away, but I will start doing less and less there, and encouraging discussion over at the fan page. (Comments here at the blog are always welcome, too.)

Thanks to all of you who are part of the Mombian community.

Collateral Damage

(This ran as my newspaper column on March 16, 2010. A few of the details on the McMillen prom case are a tad out of date, but the bulk of the piece still holds.)

The Lego castle was almost done. It was a complicated thing, one of the most intricate constructions my then-preschooler had ever built. One piece wasn’t snapping in well, however, and it became too much for his hands to manage.

With a sweep of his arm, he smashed the castle to bits.

Two organizations have shown similar behavior lately with respect to gay people. A Mississippi high school canceled its entire prom rather than let student Constance McMillen attend with her girlfriend and wear a tux. The school board issued a statement saying the event was causing “distractions to the educational process.”

Now the story is all over the Internet, Ellen Degeneres has tweeted about it, and the ACLU is suing the school district. Is that really less distracting than a lesbian in a tux? Read the rest of this post »

New Gender Spectrum Web Site

Gender Spectrum, which “provides education, training and support to help create a gender sensitive and inclusive environment for all children and teens,” has launched a beautiful new Web site with a ton of information and resources.

Parents of transgender or gender-variant children will find the site (and organization) of particular interest, but other parents and educators should check it out as well. Even if your children aren’t transgender or gender-variant, you never know when they might have a friend or classmate who is.

Gender Spectrum’s executive director is Stephanie Brill, author of The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals, which I reviewed here, and of The New Essential Guide to Lesbian Conception, Pregnancy, and Birth.

The Gender Spectrum site was built by Sarah Dopp, a Web developer, social media consultant, and the founder and community manager of Genderfork. Some of you may know her from the Geek Labs she ran at various BlogHer and BlogHer Reach Out conferences. I met her briefly during the Boston Reach Out tour. (Design for the Gender Spectrum site was done by Devin Lyttle, whom I don’t know, but I’m sure is a lovely person as well.)

Check it out!

I am a member of the Amazon Associates program, and get a small referral fee from all purchases made at Amazon.com via links on this site. You are under no obligation to purchase through them.

Mike Huckabee In the Doghouse

Former Arkansas governor and erstwhile Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee shared his opinion about same-sex parents in a speech last week at The College of New Jersey. As reported by The Perspective:

He also affirmed support for a law in Arkansas that prohibits same-sex couples from becoming adoptive or foster parents. “I think this is not about trying to create statements for people who want to change the basic fundamental definitions of family,” Huckabee said. “And always we should act in the best interest of the children, not in the seeming interest of the adults.”

“Children are not puppies,” he continued. “This is not a time to see if we can experiment and find out, how does this work?

Leave a comment. Consider it a form of Monday morning catharsis.

The Kids are All Right Trailer

Now out: a trailer for Sundance film The Kids Are All Right, starring Julianne Moore and Annette Bening as lesbian moms whose kids decide to go in search of their sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo).

My initial thoughts: Moore and Bening make a great couple, but just once I want to see lesbian moms on screen when the plotline doesn’t revolve around anything related to sperm. Still, a lengthy Salon review made it seem deeper than just that, so I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Salon claims, “‘The Kids Are All Right’ ranks with the most compelling portraits of an American marriage, regardless of sexuality, in film history.”

Also, thank heavens that someone in this day and age knows to spell “all right” as two words.

What are your first thoughts?

Weekly Political Roundup

• Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens announced his retirement. Michael Jones at Change.org explores his LGBT-rights legacy. Back in February, Lisa Keen took at look at the LGBT-rights records of some potential nominees.
• The Pentagon grapples with the problem of “How do we ask gay and lesbian troops what they think if they can still get kicked out if they say they are gay or lesbian?”
• Will the Employment Non-discrimination Act pass soon after Congress returns from recess? What about a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Best try your Magic 8 Ball—although DC Agenda offers its analysis. Read the rest of this post »

On Being Tolerated

I’m very pleased today to publish a guest post by J.A. Madrone, who also posts at Our Big Gayborhood. Please enjoy!

On Being Tolerated

By J.A. Madrone

My ear cocked back when I heard the kids in my carpool group all talking in the back seat on the way home from school that day.

“Jane is bi. Haley is lesbian,” one said.

“I think that Jacob is gay, but he says he’s bi,” said the other.

The kids were in middle school when this conversation took place. Curious, because I couldn’t imagine that anyone would be discussing such a thing, I probed. Turns out that things are a bit different than when I was growing up and the only semi-salacious thing discussed was the rumor that Darlene had “gone all the way” with a 9th grade boy sometime in the spring of 8th grade. It was all out in the open and just plain conversational. Like, “Haley wears a lot of pink.”

“Awesome,” I thought, “Finally we are getting there.” At the same time, I felt a little twinge of terror and whimsical melancholy as I realized that 300 middle schoolers were becoming sexual beings whether we, the parents, wanted to forever keep them 10 years old or not.

Time traveled on. The kids grew. By the time they reached high school, there was a gay-straight alliance firmly in place on campus.

By then though, I knew I had a child who was not going to be straight. Read the rest of this post »