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A Baker’s Dozen of Memoirs By and About Lesbian Moms
In honor of mothers today, here are a baker’s dozen of memoirs by and about lesbian moms. They are not just for lesbian or LGBT audiences, however, but shed light on many of the universal challenges and blessings of motherhood.
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We could all use some lighter news about now, right? Here’s a great quote from Batgirl comic writer Gail Simone—it’s in reference to her introduction of the first transgender character in mainstream comics, but it applies quite broadly to diversity in all kinds of media. It has particular resonance for me when I think about LGBT-inclusive children’s books.
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Food and Family Shape Tasty New Memoirs
Not one, but two memoirs by lesbians have come out recently that weave together stories of food, family, and personal growth. Like two dishes at a well-planned meal, each has its own flavor, and they complement each other well. A third new memoir, though not food-related, adds yet another flavor with the tale of a lesbian couple facing the ups and downs of infertility during the height of California’s marriage equality battle.
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“Family Pride” Offers Sweeping Look at LGBT Parents and Their Children
New Book by Lesbian Moms Looks at Racial Justice and LGBT Equality
In his second inaugural speech, President Obama linked “Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall”—the birthplaces of the women’s, Black, and LGBT equality movements—and reminded us of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words that (as Obama paraphrased) “our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.” A new book about two lesbian moms and their children reminds us that LGBT equality is indeed bound to the need for racial justice.
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LGBT Family Books: A 2012 Roundup
The year 2012 saw several notable books about LGBT parents and our children, including one for the often-ignored middle-grade readers, a young adult novel about two African American teens with a transgender dad, two memoirs (one by a gay dad, and another by the son of lesbian moms), and a fascinating history of LGBT family rights. They make better gifts than yet another “I Love My Mommies” t-shirt.
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Two New Books Reveal LGBT Lives
Stories can be told in many ways. Two new works—one poetic, one academic—take strikingly different approaches to telling the stories of LGBT people and families.
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Banned Books Week Reminds Us of the Need for LGBT-Inclusive Children’s Books
This week marks the 30th anniversary of Banned Books Week, bringing issues of LGBT content in children’s books once again to the fore.
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Gay Dads Read from their Children’s Book for Banned Books Week
It’s Banned Books Week, the annual celebration of the freedom to read! In honor of the event, here’s a video of gay dads Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, authors of And Tango Makes Three, reading from their book, which for several years topped the American Library Association’s list of most challenged books.
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Lesbian and Gay Parenting: Funnier than Fiction
NBC’s The New Normal, a sitcom about two gay dads and their surrogate, premieres in a week. ABC’s sitcom Modern Family, which includes two gay dads, has won an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. I therefore thought I’d post a list of some of the funniest true memoirs by lesbian and gay parents. Humor can be a coping, teaching, and entertainment mechanism, and the authors below use it in all three ways.
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Parents of Transgender Children Share Their Stories
Parents of transgender children “are the best parents ever. They unconditionally love their children, even when they don’t completely understand what their child is going through,” writes mom Tracie Stratton (herself such a parent) in Transitions of the Heart: Stories of Love, Struggle, and Acceptance by Mothers of Transgender and Gender Variant Children, edited by Rachel Pepper. That lesson of acceptance and love, conveyed through the 32 essays in the collection, make Transitions of the Heart a valuable read for any parent, regardless of the gender identity of their children.
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So Few LGBT Parenting Memoirs, So Few Cover Designs?
LGBT parenting memoirs are few and far between. You’d think any publisher’s marketing and design team would take the time to investigate what’s already been done. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to take drastic measures here and declare a moratorium on LGBT parenting memoir covers with blue gradient backgrounds, all-lowercase white titles, and Ken dolls.
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New Parenting Memoir Shows Humor and Heart
To label Dan Bucatinsky’s Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight?: Confessions of a Gay Dad a “gay parenting” book is to do it a disservice. Not that there is anything wrong with gay parenting books (far from it)—but Bucatinsky’s work is about parenting, period. To limit the scope of this hysterically funny, often bawdy, and unexpectedly touching book to gay parenting alone is to miss that essential point—even if the book also contains some supremely sharp observations about being both gay and a parent.
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Zach Wahls’ “My Two Moms” Tells of His Family’s Values
Zach Wahls, the former University of Iowa student whose speech about marriage equality to the state House went viral—twice—on YouTube, has a new book out today about his family: My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength, and What Makes a Family.
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Is Blogging a Luxury?
April is National Poetry Month, which always brings to my mind this passage from Audre Lorde, self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”:
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Catching up with “Pregnant Butch”
Back in December, I wrote about A. K. Summers new online graphic memoir, Pregnant Butch. She’s recently finished posting the last pages of Chapter One and the first few pages of Chapter Two—which cover the beginning of her second trimester—so I thought this would be a good time to remind readers of her work and encourage you to take a look. (Some pages are NSFW; we’re talking about human biology here.)
Also, I realized I’d never posted the full interview of Summers I did for my newspaper column, so here it is.
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Adrienne Rich: The Passing of a Lesbian Icon
Adrienne Rich was a mother, a lesbian, and one of our country’s foremost poets and writers. Today comes the news that she has died at the age of 82. Below is one of my favorite quotes from her works, about invisibility and diversity.
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Books for and About Transgender Children: More Than You Think, Less Than We Need
Children’s books with gender nonconforming/transgender protagonists are rare, but over the past year or so there have been some encouraging signs of progress.
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New Dr. Spock Childcare Book Includes Gay and Lesbian Parents; Iffier on Transgender Issues
The new, 9th Edition of the venerable Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care by Dr. Benjamin Spock, first published in 1946, includes a section on gay and lesbian parents, the Washington Post informs us. I’ve taken a look, and while there is much to praise, there are also a few obvious gaps, particularly around gender [...]
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Top Lesbian and Gay Parenting Books of 2011
This year brought us several new books, fiction and non-fiction, featuring lesbian- and gay-headed familes. While we might hope for greater quantity (and greater diversity across the LGBT spectrum), the quality was at least very good. Here are some of the best.
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“Pregnant Butch” Takes a Comic Look at Pregnancy and Gender
You’re probably saying, “What would make this Monday morning just perfect is a new comic about a pregnant butch lesbian.” What? You’re not? Well, you should be. Go check out A.K. Summers’ new comic/graphic tale, “Pregnant Butch” over at comic collective site Act-i-vate. It’s a funny, insightful, semi-autobiographical look at “a butch dyke enduring that [...]
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“Invisible” Black Lesbian Families Made Visible
Invisible Families: Gay Identities, Relationships, and Motherhood among Black Women, by UCLA sociologist Mignon Moore, is arguably the most groundbreaking work on LGBT parenting published in recent years. Moore gives us one of the few in-depth looks at lesbians of color, showing how race and class influence their self-perceptions, relationships, and family creation. Her work [...]
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New book Explores Lesbian and Gay Adoptive Families
(November is National Adoption Month. Here’s my review of a new book on adoption by lesbians and gay men. Originally published in my Mombian newspaper column.) There have been a number of studies over the past 25 years on lesbian and gay parents and their children, but few have looked specifically at lesbian and gay [...]
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10 Books Every LGBT Parent Should Read
Books about LGBT parenting are few and far between, but here are ten that I recommend for all LGBT parents and prospective parents. I chose works that each showcase a variety of voices, rather than single-person memoirs, so each one would resonate as widely as possible. I also chose books that focus on the emotional side of parenting rather than medical and legal how-to works, since the latter tend to be specific to particular segments of the LGBT community.
I hope these selections, taken together, will help us better understand our collective, yet diverse, experience of being LGBT parents.
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“Over the Rainbow” Casts an Academic Eye on Queer Children’s and Young Adult Books
Over the Rainbow: Queer Children’s and Young Adult Literature (University of Michigan: 2011) is the first collection of essays devoted to LGBTQ children’s and young adult literature. Edited by Michelle Ann Abate, associate professor of English at Hollins University, and Kenneth Kidd, associate professor of English at the University of Florida, the collection gathers 17 [...]
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