Wallpaper in ship corridor

(Something a little lighthearted at an otherwise somber time for me. Originally published several weeks ago as my Mombian newspaper column.)

I’d only ever done gay cruising before. No, not that kind of cruising—I mean the floating around on a big ship kind. My in-laws recently took my spouse, our son, and me, plus my spouse’s two siblings and their spouses and children, on a cruise to Mexico as a way of getting the family together. I wasn’t new to cruises, having done two with my spouse via Olivia, the venerable lesbian travel company, and one with R Family Vacations, which caters to LGBT families and allies.

But it struck me that being on a boat of predominantly non-LGBT people would be a significantly different experience than being on one with several thousand queer folk. It’s not as if I live my life in isolation from non-LGBT families, but the thought of being one of the few queer people crammed on a boat with them for a week made me understand how anthropologist Jane Goodall must have felt before going to live among the chimps.

I feared the worst when during our first-day safety drill, the safety officer announced there was—even in this day and age—a “women and children first” policy for the lifeboats. I’d never heard that aboard any of our previous cruises, where the very suggestion might have gotten the officer thrown overboard by a bunch of burly lesbians.

It turned out, however, that other parts of our recent cruise were very gay indeed. 

Tile in stateroom bathroom

The wallpaper lining the corridors to the staterooms had images evocative of the early 20th century—the golden age of steamship travel—several of which showed two women or two men gazing at each other in a way that, while not explicitly gay, was certainly open to happy interpretation. In the hallway outside our door, two swimsuit-clad women cast glances at each other over martinis. A decorative tile in our cabin bathroom showed a young man in a dapper suit smiling at a similarly attired gentleman. Even if they were only discussing the cut of their jackets, there was something rather gay about it all.

And when I went to an onboard exercise class, hoping to burn off some of the endless buffet, the first song the instructor played was a dance mix of Melissa Etheridge’s “I’m the Only One.”

More explicit was the nightly LGBT gathering advertised in the schedule of cruise events that the crew slipped under the door of each cabin every day. Yes, even on a non-LGBT-specific cruise, there were still enough of us to throw a party. The party was titled “Friends of Dorothy: GLBT,” referring to an old term indicating gay men, not really the LGBT world at large—but it was a start.

Then came showtime one evening, when the ship’s resident troupe of singers and dancers performed a “Fiesta Latina.” It was more Vegas than Latin American, but still a decent musical spectacle. When the female dancers appeared for the finale holding large feather fans in rainbow colors, and the men appeared in sequined, midriff-baring tops, I realized I hadn’t seen anything that gay since the San Francisco Pride Parade (except that then, the feather-carrying performers were drag queens, and arguably better looking).

Two nights later, however, the performance—a revue of 20th-century rock ‘n roll—was even more full of queerness. There were Elton John, Boy George, and Joan Jett covers—but the song that garnered the most audience participation was “YMCA,” performed by four of the dancers in full Village People garb. The show then closed with two covers of Queen and their bisexual (or gay, depending on who you ask) lead singer Freddy Mercury: “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions.”

Which begs the question—with this much queer on a mainstream cruise, is there still a need for LGBT-focused cruises? Or have we reached a post-queer era where such separation is no longer necessary?

I think that as long as there are queer people, there will be a need for queer gatherings—not to ghettoize us, but to celebrate our shared heritage. Sometimes these gatherings will subdivide even further into the different components of L, G, B, and T, and that is fine as well. It doesn’t mean we can’t also participate more openly in mainstream culture, nor that mainstream culture can’t celebrate LGBT contributions to it.

And the more we raise awareness of those contributions, and the more musicians and other celebrities come out as LGBT, the better we will all be—as evidenced by another incident during the cruise.

One night at dinner, our waiter, who hailed from the Philippines—a largely Catholic country and not the most LGBT friendly of nations—was trying to figure out the relationships among our large group of relatives. When he got to my spouse and me, we explained that we were, well, spouses.

“Oh,” he said. “Just like Ellen Degeneres.” With a smile, he then seated us and our son for supper, adding, “As long as you are happy, that’s the most important thing.”

I won’t give up my gay cruising, but the mainstream ones, I think, are sailing into favorable winds as well.

Photo courtesy of the Family Equality Council

(Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column.)

Take several hundred LGBT families from around the country—moms, dads, children young and old, and assorted other relatives—add sun, sand, movies, and a bonfire, and you’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of what Family Week in Provincetown is all about.

The event, now the largest gathering of LGBT families in the country, had its origins in a grassroots group of gay dads looking to support one another and build their community.

Out of their organizing, in 1979, came the Family Equality Council (FEC), first known as the Gay Fathers Coalition (and later expanded to include all LGBT parents). Family Week “started out as some backyard gatherings” of the men in the group, said Brent Wright, director of programs for the FEC. In 1985, it became an “official” week-long series of events. “Over the years, it’s just continued to gain momentum,” Wright said. 

Early years saw mostly families with younger children, but these days, noted Wright, all ages of children (including adults with LGBT parents) attend. Transgender parents are also more common than in earlier years. These changing trends have “driven our programming to reflect those needs and those conversations,” said Wright.

New York resident Brian Sheerin has attended Family Week each of the past eight years with his husband and their two girls, now ages two and nine. He called it “my absolute favorite week of the year, and our kids’, too.” All members of the family, he said, have made lasting friendships there.

“Even though we live in an area with other LGBT families, there’s something special about Family Week,” he explained. “It is the only time of the year when we get to be the majority.”

Allison Bauer, who will be attending this year for the eighth time, agreed. The best thing about Family Week, she said, “is the general feeling of comfort and acceptance that pervades the whole town.”

She first attended Family Week when she lived in Arlington, Virginia. Although their community was “very progressive,” she said, “there was still the underlying feeling of difference.”

And even though she and her family have since moved to Massachusetts and done co-parent adoptions and a legal marriage, she said there is still “something very special” about the sense of community at Family Week. “Intellectually, we know that the gay parenting community is out there, but during Family Week we actually get to experience it fully.”

Her nine-year-old twin son and daughter, she said, think less about issues of difference and more about being on vacation with their friends, “yet there is a familiarity with this particular week for them. . . . I can imagine that they also like being around families that look like theirs, but they haven’t articulated that to us.”

Sheerin similarly recalled one incident when one of his daughters met another child during Family Week. She said to the other, “You have two moms? I have two dads.”

“It was just so matter of fact,” Sheerin observed.

Wright said that FEC also tries to facilitate conversations among the children. For example, he said, they host a panel of teens they have found during the week “who have really great stories and want to share them.” The panel gives them the chance to do so, and for others to ask questions: How did they handle bullying when they were in school? How did they get teased and how did they respond to that? It also gives parents a chance to talk about how they are able to advocate on their children’s behalf in those settings.”

But not all Family Week programming deals with such heavy topics. Children’s activities include theater, dance, and photography workshops—the latter run by a photographer who has gay parents and attended Family Week herself as a child.

FEC is also partnering with Provincetown Rec Center to offer children “a classic summer camp experience for the week” if they want it.

Families wanting less structure may still want to check out the Toddler Pasta Party, Family Kickball Game, or Whale Watch, among other activities.

For adults, rather than the workshops of past years, FEC is hosting a number of “parent café” discussion forums. Wright explained, “You’re on vacation—do you want to sit in a classroom and listen to a presentation?” Instead, the cafés will offer more casual conversation over coffee and food, albeit around various topics related to LGBT parenting and what’s happening in the LGBT movement.

But Family Week is less about explicit activism and more about fun, friendships, and community. Bauer said one of her favorite memories of the week is “just looking back up the street at the size of the Family Week parade as we march through town. It is very inspiring and uplifting.”

Wright added that that Friday afternoon parade “encapsulates for a lot of the families the celebration we feel over the course of that week.” Following the parade is a family dance to end the week.

Wright urges attendees, especially first-timers, to look at the schedule and “lock in their spots early” for the events they know they want to attend, especially ones with limited spaces. He also encourages people to contact the Provincetown Department of Tourism, who are “eager to partner” with LGBT families about lodging and more.

No matter what one chooses to do, said Wright, Family Week offers LGBT families “the chance to really feel an entire community’s embrace.”

Family Week is July 30 to August 6. Find out more and register at familyequality.org/familyweek.

I make it a habit not to blog about vacations while actually on them—to me, it’s like putting up a big sign saying, “My house is empty, come and get it.” Now that we’re back, though, I thought I’d share the 10 Gayest Things from Our Disney Vacation. (OK, some of them are a stretch, but I had fun putting this together.)

10. Labrys decorations topping many of the buildings in the Magic Kingdom.

9. Pirate Tinkerbell. In a place where the “girls = princesses and boys = pirates” motif is pervasive, it’s nice to see this small acknowledgement that some of us live outside gender expectations.

8. Abraham Lincoln, featured in the Hall of Presidents show in the Magic Kingdom. (Well, maybe.)

7. My Mickey Mouse rainbow pin. Because ya gotta represent.

6. The “Stop AIDS” sign and protesters shown briefly as part of a series of images about twentieth-century activism during “The American Experience” presentation at Epcot. (No, AIDS isn’t specifically gay. But the movement to stop AIDS has been driven in large part by the LGBT community—and this was the only mention, however oblique, of LGBT activism in the context of other American civil rights movements.)

5. k. d. lang’s image in the montage of famous Canadians at the “O, Canada” show in Epcot.

4. “Ellen’s Energy Adventure” at Epcot: a fun but fluffy tour of fossil fuels and the importance of alternative energy sources.

3. The male cast members who would give us knowing smiles when Helen, our son, and I walked by holding hands.

2. Eating at Iron Chef and lesbian mom Cat Cora’s restaurant Kouzzina—and meeting another two-mom couple and their one-year-old in the lobby while waiting for our tables. If you happen to read this, say hi! (And if a lesbian is judged by the quality of her hummus, Cat ranks right up there—although I have to give the place points off for the waiter who didn’t bring our appetizers until after our entrées.)

And the number one gayest moment of our vacation, after the jump:

1. Because who doesn’t look good in Minnie bridal ears? (This is, of course, banned under the state constitution.)

Our son is in a few local summer programs for July, but we’re hoping to do family stuff in August, so I’ve left that pretty open. Our local rec department has a lot of events going on, though, so there will be plenty to do if we get bored. On our own, we’ll probably camp, bike, and play tennis. My tennis is weak, but our son has enjoyed the few lessons he’s had, so I’m determined to hit well enough to play with him. (Helen played varsity in high school, so she can take us both on at once.) Maybe it’s just that I’m used to sports that require major amounts of protective gear—fencing, taekwondo, rock climbing—or that I’m not used to playing sports with balls. (!)

I’m also hugely excited about my new road bike, which at least requires a helmet. (See picture.) I’ve always biked as ancillary training for other sports, but I’m starting to get into it now for its own merits. (I also have a low-end mountain bike for bumping around trails with the family.)

When we’re not being ridiculously active, we’ll probably be playing the new LEGO Harry Potter Wii game, which is just as much geeky fun as you might imagine. (And the fact that we bought it on the first day it came out tells you something about the general geekiness around our house.)

What are you all up to?

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• Put on your flak jackets. “It is same-sex parenting that is heating up as the next skirmish in the nation’s culture wars,” asserts the Chicago Tribune.
• Nancy Polikoff points out just how scary are the proposed Bush rules that would allow healthcare workers to refuse to participate in procedures on moral grounds. She says they would allow doctors and others to restrict assisted reproductive treatments to (heterosexually) married women. Pam has more, and notes that both the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Hospital Association (AHA) oppose the regulations.
• Forbes has an article by the daughter of a single (non-lesbian) mom searching for her donor dad. Good article, although the lesbian mom she quotes who says “the only children she’s met with a passion to track down their donors are raised by just one parent,” seems to be a minority opinion. My sense is that there are many children of two moms who want to know their donor.
• Attorney Jeffrey Cleghorn talked with SoVo about legal planning for LGBT prospective parents.
• The Wisconsin State Journal weighs in against the Arkansas law that bans adoption by same-sex couples (and other unmarried individuals). Nothing profound for readers here, but good to see that the ban is causing people elsewhere to take notice.
• While much of the media coverage about LGBT families focuses on parents who create their families after coming out, Abigail Garner shares a letter from a daughter who is struggling with how to help her very closeted dad come out.
• Plans for an LGBT high school in Chicago are no more, but Bay Windows reports on the virtual GLBTQ Online High School that will launch in the fall of 2009. It promises to be a college-preparatory curriculum “using the best technology and techniques of distance education available. . . . It will also provide online social opportunities for students, and if there are clusters of students in specific areas, the school will help them get in contact.”
• Canadian-based OUT Adventures announced a series of trips dedicated to LGBT families with children more than six years old. Trips will operate in Thailand, Vietnam, India, China, South Africa, Spain and Italy with a maximum of 14 passengers per departure. I’m not at all familiar with this company, but a visit to an elephant conservation park in Thailand sure sounds fun.
• Gay pundit Andrew Sullivan points out a long New Yorker review of recent books that debunk “overparenting.” The author, Joan Acocella, asks whether it really is wrong to push our kids where they excel, discusses the role of feminism in the overparenting debate, and ponders, “whether the overparenting trend is truly the emergency that these authors say it is.”

I also discuss the theatrical release of a new movie documenting the fight for marriage equality in Massachusetts, Mary Cheney’s not-so-excellent dinner, and a lesbian mom presidential candidate.

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For Jen Rainin, creating a lesbian travel company based on the idea of giving back to the world was an extension of her role as a philanthropist, but also a way to convey positive values to her children. Rainin is one of the founders of Sweet, which will offer “voluntourism” vacations that combine fun and relaxation with opportunities for giving back to the communities they visit. Her co-founder and the company’s CEO, Shannon Wentworth, is a marketing executive with experience at established lesbian travel company Olivia, PlanetOut, and Care2, a social network for people who want to improve the world.

For Rainin, philanthropy is a way of life. Her primary job is as chair of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation established by her father, an entrepreneur who built a leading scientific instrument company. Now she is carrying on both his entrepreneurial and philanthropic traditions through Sweet. “I feel like if I didn’t share the good fortune that I’ve experienced in my life, then shame on me. With the foundation, I’m able to do that. Then Sweet came along and the idea that there will be even more opportunity for hands-on giving back really appealed,” she says.

As the mother of two young boys, part of the appeal for Rainin is also what this work can teach her children. She explains, “As a mom, a big part of my job is instilling values in my kids and trying to be a role model. What I’m doing is what I hope my kids will want to do in the future, to find something that they feel passionately about that really does make a positive difference in the world and pursue it with their whole hearts.”

On their first cruise, in October 2009, the volunteer opportunities will start with the chance to help Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in the departure port of New Orleans. As they travel the Caribbean, guests can donate a few hours helping the local communities at every port. The volunteering is optional, and guests will still enjoy a full spread of parties, beach time, and other traditional cruise fun.

For Rainin, though, the volunteer and social aspects of the cruise are not distinct. The travel experiences she likes best are when she has the opportunity to work with people she might not have met otherwise. “You end up making really quick and easy friendships with people who care about the same things you do,” she says. Sweet will give guests that opportunity, in addition to “representing lesbians in a really positive light throughout the world” and making the physical space better wherever they go,” says Rainin.

Parents may gain an additional bonus. Rainin explains, “Any parent is going to be a better parent if they take care of themselves now and again, and get away and recharge.” To do that while volunteering and learning about a different part of the world, however, “will enrich your parenting opportunities with your child. It will spark conversations about what you’ve seen and what you’ve learned, and how you might give back in a similar way in your own community.”

The company has no plans at the moment to offer cruises for families with young children, however. Rainin likes the idea, but says they want to get the first cruise under their belt before making further plans.

Rainin does have some advice, based on her own experience, for parents traveling without their kids. She makes sure her boys each have a small album of family photos. She calls every day to touch base. Now that they can read, they e-mail and send text messages, and Rainin shares what she has done and seen. “It’s a way to include them in the vacation. . . . That makes it a little bit more interesting for them and less like mommy just disappeared for a week and came back with a tan.”

Rainin says her own dad was “a huge influence on me in terms of getting me out to see the world and giving me a perspective on things.” She traveled with him until he died last year, and still travels often with her mom. “It’s one of the most lovely gifts,” she says, “to be able to travel with your parents as an adult.”

Her boys, already good travelers, have gone along on some of those trips as well. “That’s made it a much more fun and richer experience,” she reflects. It also meant she got more of a vacation. She could relax while they spent time with their grandparents, who love them “like nobody else.”

Finding a balance between work and family life can still be tough, however. Rainin, like so many parents, says she wishes for more hours in the day. Sometimes, one of her boy’s soccer games will conflict with a business meeting, and she knows she has to make her kids the priority. She’s found, though, that “people are usually pretty flexible and understanding” if she asks to reschedule.

The biggest challenge for busy working parents, however, she says, is finding the time “to transfer what you think is really important to your kids.” Through her foundation work and Sweet, she thinks she has found an answer. “It’s a really nice thing to have my work be something that is so reflective of what I think is important in the world. It’s sparked so many conversations with the kids. Every day, something new.”

Visit www.discoversweet.com for more on Sweet trips and events.