Coming Out As an LGBT Parent

It’s National Coming Out Day once again, so I hope you’re having a happy day no matter where you are in your coming out journey. Here’s an updated version of a piece that sums up a lot of my thoughts on coming out as an LGBT parent.

It has become something of a truism in LGBT parenting circles to talk about how having kids means being out to everyone—teachers, plumbers, cashiers at the grocery store. Kids, as any parent will tell you, can’t keep closet doors closed. One ”Hey, Mommy and Mama!” across the produce aisle, and your cover is blown.

For me, however, the problem is not being outed, it’s assuming everyone knows I’m a lesbian when in fact, I tend to blend in with my mostly straight suburban neighbors. (The fact that many of my clothes come from boys’ departments doesn’t seem to register.)

Even when I try to be open about it, people hear “Alan” when I talk of my spouse “Helen” and miss my use of pronouns. My son once received an invitation to the birthday party of a new school friend, and Helen and I got a doubletake at the door because one of the friend’s parents hadn’t realized we were a two-mom family. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I’d gone to all of the school’s beginning-of-the-year events wearing an “I’m a lesbian” t-shirt. It would save us from those awkward moments. Read the rest of this post »

A Bit of Lesbian Mom History

(I posted this newspaper column of mine last year, but I think it bears repeating as part of LGBT History Month. Enjoy this look back at how lesbian moms have been a central part of the LGBT rights movement since the beginning—while simultaneously waging some intensely personal battles to maintain contact with their children.)

The so-called “gayby boom” may be a relatively new phenomenon, but lesbian moms have been a vital part of the LGBT rights movement since shortly after the Stonewall Riots in 1969. The documentary Mom’s Apple Pie: The Heart of the Lesbian Mothers’ Custody Movement gives us a look at several early custody cases involving lesbian moms—and shows how the activism they spawned has had a direct impact on LGBT people and organizations today.

When a custody case with a lesbian mom makes headlines now, it is most often a battle between two women over children they have raised together. Forty years ago, however, almost all custody cases involving a lesbian occurred because she was trying to obtain custody or visitation from her former husband.

Mom’s Apple Pie, released in 2006 but just recently out on home video, is a deft blending of personal and political. Filmmakers Jody Laine, Shan Ottey and Shad Reinstein begin with interviews of several mothers and their now-adult children who were involved in these early custody cases. Many of us have heard the outlines of such stories, even if we have no names to put with them: children being denied access to one of their parents; judges ruling that an abusive husband should have custody rather than a lesbian mom.

The tales are heart wrenching. The film does more than just tug at our emotions, however, focusing instead on the innovation that came out of adversity. In the days before LGBT organizations with multi-million dollar budgets or nationally recognized attorneys taking on LGBT rights cases, almost no lawyers were willing to defend a lesbian mom. Those that were had few resources. The mothers themselves therefore banded together to share knowledge and protect their families. Read the rest of this post »

In Memoriam: Paula Ettelbrick, LGBT Activist and Mother

Paula Ettelbrick (Photo credit: Rex Wockner)

Paula Ettelbrick, a long-time LGBT activist, died today at the age of 56 after battling ovarian cancer.

Etteblrick was most recently Executive Director of the Stonewall Community Foundation in New York, but her former positions included executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, legal director at Lambda Legal, family policy director at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and co-founder and the first co-chair of the Federation of Statewide Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Political Organizations, now the Equality Federation.

She was also the mother of three, the Washington Blade reminds us.

Almost every major LGBT organization in the country has issued a statement with their remembrances and condolences. Karen Ocamb at LGBT POV has compiled a number of them.

My thoughts are with her family, as well as all of us she touched, directly or indirectly, through her work.

Steve Jobs, Pancreatic Cancer, and Adoption

Like Steve Jobs, my father passed away recently because of complications after pancreatic cancer. If you want to learn more about this disease, I recommend checking out the Lustgarten Foundation, which is dedicated to its treatment, cure, and prevention.

I’m also going to jump on the bandwagon and share the Steve Jobs video that is making the rounds. In his commencement speech at Stanford University, he offers some wise insight about life and death. Also of note for readers here is the fact that he was adopted. Successful people—as I probably don’t need to tell you—come from all types of family structures. (As do unsuccessful ones; but I think we can eliminate family structure as a determining variable.)

The Impact of DADT Repeal on Servicemembers’ Children

The military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) ban on openly lesbian and gay servicemembers is now gone. In a piece for Keen News Service, I took a look at how repeal of DADT will impact the children of these servicemembers.

I’m not the only one to explore this issue, however. Stars and Stripes magazine, a Department of Defense-authorized daily newspaper for the military community, profiled two lesbian mom couples.

Not to be outdone, Reuters did a nice photo essay on a lesbian mom couple, both of whom are in the Navy.

Casey McLaughlin, who is raising twins with her spouse, a serving Army officer, shares her story with the Family Equality Council.

And Nancy Polikoff, an expert in LGBT family law, offered her own take on the matter, reminding us (among other things) that if the non-biological mom of a couple was in the military, and the couple split up, “the bio mom has had the heavy weapon of threatening to out her ex-partner if she tried to maintain a relationship with their children.” No more.

Difficulties still remain for these families, mostly because of the Defense of Marriage Act, as I explain in my KNS piece. (Stars and Stripes and Reuters discuss this, too.) But repeal of DADT has eased some of their burdens.

Gay Mayoral Candidate and Daughter in Ad

San Francisco mayoral candidate Bevan Dufty, a gay dad, has a new ad out featuring him and his daughter. The wonderful thing about the ad is that they could be any candidate and child—the fact that he’s a gay dad is completely incidental.

The ad is very sweet—and that’s not an adjective I often use to describe political ads. “Hard hitting” and “cutthroat” more often come to mind. Occasionally “stirring.” Whether the kinder, gentler approach works for Dufty remains to be seen.

As Andy Towle mentions over at Towleroad, too, Dufty’s family was the target of television news anchorman Pete Wilson five years ago. Wilson criticized Dufty’s decision to have and raise a child with a lesbian friend, calling the child “a travesty. Or a potential travesty.”

While it’s hard to tell much about reality from ads in general, Dufty and his daughter certainly seem happy here. That’s no travesty.

(I should note: Being on the East Coast as I am, my knowledge of local West Coast candidates is limited. I know almost nothing about Dufty’s political record or plans for the city. My comments are strictly about his ad, not his candidacy, about which I withhold judgment.)

Role Models and Manly Things

(Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column.)

I was recently asked by a mainstream journalist: “Are you worried about providing male role models for your son?”

I answered, as I always do to the question, “No.” It’s not that I don’t want him to have male role models; it’s just that I’m not worried about it. I think that very often, when the media asks that question, they are ignoring the realities not only of same-sex and single parents’ lives, but also of children’s lives in general.

A few weeks ago, for example, I went to a department store with my eight-year-old son to buy him a dress shirt for his piano recital. It wasn’t a super-fancy affair, but I wanted him to wear something a little nicer than his usual Lego Star Wars t-shirt. I was envisioning a plain white button-down shirt and khakis.

To my surprise, he made a beeline for the tie rack, insisting that he wanted to wear a tie, too. He pulled off a spiffy bright blue one with a thin diamond pattern in green, and then told me he preferred a light blue shirt to go with it.

After that—and even more surprising—he said he wanted to get a pocket square as well. I reeled from his sartorial vision. He’s rarely seen any of his close male relatives in suits (we’re a casual bunch), and not one of them has ever worn a pocket square. (Neither have my spouse or I, for that matter—we’re just not that butch.) Somehow, though, my son had created an image in his mind of what a well-dressed man should wear, and was pursuing it.

His conception of how to dress like a man is therefore clearly influenced by far more than just the men to whom he is closest. And even children with opposite-sex parents are influenced by more than just their parents, no matter how primary the parents’ influence may be.

The incident got me thinking further about the whole issue of gendered role models. I think there are three essential points many non-LGBT people miss when they inquire about this issue. Read the rest of this post »