Mazel Tov! Jewish LGBT Children’s Book Contest Winner Announced

Jewish LGBT organization Keshet has announced the winner of its first Jewish Children’s Book Writing Contest (mentioned here in February): The Purim Superhero, by Elisabeth Kushner, a public librarian in Vancouver, Canada—and a lesbian mom herself.

Kushner told Keshet:

When I heard about the Keshet contest, it seemed like a perfect fit: in the Purim story, Esther “comes out” as Jewish in a way that can be a model not just for Jews, or for GLBT people, but for everyone who feels different. I hope that The Purim Superhero will help inspire and reassure kids like Nate who don’t necessarily want to be like everyone else—and most importantly, I hope kids will enjoy reading and hearing the story.

Alas, the book is not yet available, although Keshet is working with a publisher to try and make it happen. Bonnie Rosenbaum, Keshet’s deputy director of communications and planning, told me:

Our selection committee of Jewish educators and librarians had a really hard time choosing the winner from the almost 50 manuscripts we received. We’re especially thrilled that in addition to The Purim Superhero, we also received a handful of other really impressive high quality manuscripts. If the publisher with whom we are working commits to publishing this one, we are considering self-publishing one or two more stories.

Personally, though, I’m glad they started with a Purim tale, because it’s just fun to listen to a child trying to say “hamantashen” (the filled cookies traditional for the holiday). Heck, I still have fun saying it myself. Hamantashen, hamantashen, hamantashen. . . . Now I have a craving.

Congratulations to Kushner! Can’t wait to read it.

Proud Parents

(Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column.)

I keep seeing bumper stickers around town with slogans like, “Proud Parent of a Middle School Honor Student,” and “Proud Parent of a Soldier.” They remind me, in this season of LGBT Pride, of how often “pride” is associated with both LGBT identity and parenting. We LGBT parents have a lot of which we can be proud, in a lot of different ways.

First, several people with LGBT parents have been in the news lately with things we can be proud of as a community. Director Mike Mills has just released his film Beginners, based on the true story of his father coming out at age 75. It stars Golden Globe Award nominee Ewan McGregor, Academy Award nominee Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent of Inglourious Basterds, and Goran Visnjic of ER.

Utah college student Cara Cerise, who has a gay dad, was recently named the 2011 Utah Young Humanitarian by a panel of community leaders, receiving a $5,000 college scholarship, the largest service-based award in the state. Her volunteer activities have included leading her high school social-justice club, helping low-income HIV-positive teens in Brazil, and creating a Utah chapter of COLAGE, the national organization for people with LGBT parents, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. Read the rest of this post »

First LGBT Parent in Congress: Out U.S. Rep. Jared Polis to Become Dad

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and his partner Marlon Reis are expecting a baby in September, reports the Denver Post. That will make him the first out LGBT parent in Congress.

Polis has refused to tell the press how he and Reis will be creating their family—and I give him a lot of credit for that. Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with discussing how we create our families, should we choose to do so—and it can even be an educational opportunity. At the same time, much mainstream media coverage of LGBT parents seems to focus too much on the mechanics of family creation. Unless a journalist is making a point related to how the family was created—say, to discuss the particular concerns of families with children adopted from another country, or the role of a surrogate or donor in the child’s life—there’s really no need. It’s like mentioning a person’s race or religion when it has no bearing on the story.

If Polis and Reis choose to keep it a personal matter, to protect their child’s privacy or for any other reason, I admire their resolve. Let’s hope they continue to find a good balance between privacy for their child and the visibility that LGBT families need to move closer to acceptance and equality.

“Impossible is nothing”: Zach Wahls Speaks with Lambda Legal

Remember Zach Wahls? The University of Iowa student with two moms shot to fame in February after testifying at an Iowa House hearing about a bill that would ban marriage for same-sex couples. He’s since spoken with Ellen and the Human Rights Campaign, among others.

This month, he’s profiled in Lambda Legal’s Impact newsletter (PDF file)—and it’s worth a read. He writes, in part:

I was in elementary school, first or second grade, when a friend told me, “My dad says we can’t be friends anymore.” And it was just because my parents were gay. It wasn’t even the kid’s idea. . . .

It’s hard to tell a kid that his family is different, because you don’t really have anything to compare it to. It’s just a fact of life. It seemed natural to all the kids I knew, unless they had been very specifically instructed that there was something wrong and abhorrent about a gay couple.

At the same time, he says, having same-sex parents was not the most challenging part of his childhood:

It was that I broke my leg when I was three and I spent two years re-learning how to walk. It was that my mom Terry was diagnosed with secondary MS when I was 14 and I spent most of high school watching her go from a former world-class athlete to wheelchair dependence.

Quoting Muhammad Ali, he concludes, “Impossible is nothing.”

Weekly Political Roundup: A New York State of Mind

No big roundup this week. As with many of you, I’m busy watching the marriage equality happenings in New York tonight. Stay tuned.

[10:45 p.m. ET: A wee update, from my piece for Keen News Service.]

Same-Sex Parents: More than a Boom

Data from Census 2010 is slowly rolling in, state by state, and so far, it looks like about one quarter of same-sex couples are raising children, in states as diverse as Alabama, California, Hawaii, and Wyoming.

The diligent demographers at the Williams Institute of UCLA are doing the analysis; they have yet to release breakdowns by gender, race, age, or any other characteristics, but I would guess that that will be forthcoming.

I’ve deliberately avoided linking to an article that cites this data but uses the phrase “gayby boom.” The term “gayby boom” dates back to at least 1990—over 20 years ago.

That means gay parents are no longer a demographic “boom.” We’re more like cosmic background radiation after the Big Boom (Bang): persistent, and spread almost evenly in all directions.

Lesbian Mom Writes About Her Gender Variant Daughter

There’s been a growing amount of coverage lately about parents supporting their gender variant and/or transgender children—most recently in a worthwhile New York Times article last week. Veronica Rhodes of Parent Dish, however, gives us a perspective seen even less often—that of a lesbian mom with a gender variant child.

Rhodes explains the extra criticisms she and her partner have faced—speculation that their daughter’s penchant for boys’ clothes and haircuts is because of a missing father figure, or because the moms are trying to “make” her gay. “I know from the very depths of my soul that this child is who she is, and that Em and I are not driving her to be something she isn’t,” Rhodes says—but then asks, ”So why did I care what people thought?”

Go read the full post for her answer and insights. She’s not the first person to note the extra stress of LGBT parents with LGBT or gender variant children—or the stress that myths about LGBT parents place on those children when coming out. Abigail Garner, for example, in her book Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is, devotes a whole chapter to such “second-generation” children and their stories. Rhodes’ post is, however, a welcome addition to the conversation.

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Happy 15th Birthday, WNBA!

The WNBA is 15 years old today. I remember being at the first game in 1997. (For those doing the math: the league was founded in 1996, but play began in 1997.) That means some of the players were my son’s age (eight) or younger when the league began. Now I feel old.

Former WNBA president Val Ackerman offers her thoughts on the milestone at ESPNW. She tells us the noteable facts:

In its 14th season, the NBA’s average league-wide attendance was only 5,008 (the WNBA’s was 7,835), and it took the “brother league” 30 seasons to average more than 10,000 fans per game (10,179 in 1975-76, to be exact; the WNBA eclipsed that number in its second and third seasons).

More important than the numbers, of course, is Ackerman’s other observation on change over the past 15 years: “People have accepted—and treat as perfectly normal—the fact that women play basketball for a living.”

Also of note is the fact that three-time league MVP, Olympian, and lesbian mom Sheryl Swoopes—40 years young—is still playing. She started in the 1997 season, only six weeks after giving birth to her son. (I suppose if we lesbian moms want role models, we shouldn’t complain if some of them are overachievers. Fifteen years of WNBA may make me feel old, but I guess I don’t really have any excuse to let that slow me down.)

A rematch of the league’s inaugural game between the New York Liberty and the Los Angeles Sparks is on ESPN2 at 10 p.m. ET.