How to Help Kids Cope with Prop 8

I’ve written ad infinitum about the impact on children of Prop 8 and other anti-LGBT measures. SFGate’s “City Brights” writer and internist physican Doc Gurley, however, offers some practical advice on how to help your children cope with the emotions they may be feeling as a result of the ruling.

Here’s a summary of her main points—but definitely go read the whole thing if you’re in California or any other state with anti-LGBT measures in the news.

1. Be tolerant of irritability, mood swings, anger, shame and grief.
2. Frame the issue to allow for hope.
3. Chart a path for the future that includes constructive acts, and and then take actual physical steps to achieve them.
4. Try to protect your child from being re-traumatized.
5. If you care about kids in a family that’s been affected, let your feelings be known.

GOOD Decision Out of California On Tuesday

No, I’m not talking about Prop 8. I’m talking about the decision by the Alameda school board to adopt an LGBT-inclusive safe schools curriculum.

I wrote last week about the brewing controversy in Alameda, so I’ll refer you to that post for the details. Here’s the short version:

Supporters of the measure wanted to curb anti-LGBT teasing and harassment, and thought the proposed curriculum would help teachers debunk stereotypes and teach children about different types of families. Detractors got their knickers in a twist thinking that elementary school students would be learning about sex and having a political agenda pushed on them. (Where have we heard that before?)

The San Francisco Chronicle reports: “The topics the board approved start at the lower grades with the negative impacts of generic teasing. As students advance, the lessons introduce vocabulary such as gay, lesbian and bisexual, and include discussions related to diverse families and sexual orientation stereotypes.” They note, “Teachers will begin to use the words ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ in fourth-grade classes.”

OK, fine. But what are they going to do when little Johnny in the first grade pipes up with, “My moms are lesbians, and they can’t get married in California”?

Still, it’s a heartening bit of news from the Golden State this week. Kudos to the school board and all of the parents who had the courage to speak up for tolerance.

How Motherhood Earned Me a Free Sex Toy

[While I'm taking a bit of a break this week, please enjoy this guest post by Paige Schilt. Paige is a dyke mama, an activist, a low-femme nerd, and a part-time professor of Feminist Studies. She is also a contributing writer at The Bilerico Project. —DR]

When I was pregnant with my son, I heard a comedienne talking about the aftereffects of childbirth:

“I’m peeing all the time. I’m actually peeing right now,” she said.

That will never happen to me, I told myself.

I was in denial—the kind of deep, pre-delivery denial that ensures the continuation of the species. This maternal defense mechanism sustained several calming delusions. I believed that my partner and I would take a pleasant walk during the early stages of labor. I believed that I would not beg for drugs. And I believed that my intimate geography would not be forever reconfigured into Frankenpuss.

Once my son was born, however, I had plenty of other things on my mind. The war in Iraq had just started. There was an anti-marriage amendment on the ballot in my state. Also, there was this new little person in my life, and his every coo and sigh was mesmerizing.

So it took me a while to come to terms with the fact that I had a pee problem. Read the rest of this post »

HRC Releases “Introduction to Welcoming Schools” Guide

The recent suicides of two young boys after repeated bullying at school have made many of us, myself included, wonder what we could do. One of the ways the HRC Foundation Family Project has responded is to push up the May release of its “Introduction to Welcoming Schools” guide, “An Inclusive Approach to Addressing Family Diversity, Gender Stereotyping and Name-Calling in K-5 Learning Environments.” It is now available at the Welcoming Schools Web site, and chock-full of resources, ideas, exercises, and additional reading suggestions.

I covered the project when it first launched as a pilot program over a year ago. I’m pleased to hear that it has only gotten better after tests in New Bedford, Mass., and urban locations in the Midwest and West Coast.

Ellen Kahn, director of the Family Project, explains:

The new [online] publication includes findings from the first year of the pilot (12 schools in 3 districts thus far) and is essentially a scaled-down version of the full Guide—a primer, you might say. This is a great resource for LGBT parents, educators, and all concerned adults who are part of K-5 environment who want to more effectively address LGBT diversity/inclusion as part of their broader approach to anti-bullying/safe schools/character-development programs and curricula.

As Lawrence J. Finnerty, Ed.D., Retired Assistant Superintendent of the New Bedford Public Schools, said in his introduction to the Guide, “To expect that students will know how to handle issues related to teasing, gender stereotyping and bullying without specific, well-informed instruction is folly.” The Welcoming Schools Guide is one of the best places I’ve found for parents and educators to learn how to provide just that.

For even more safe-schools materials, see my Back-to-School Resource List.

Another Elementary School Suicide

Another 11-year-old boy, Jaheem Herrera, has hanged himself after enduring repeated bullying. (The horrible news comes via Will at Pam’s.) There is some reporting that he was bullied with anti-LGBT taunts, among others.

Just last week, after the suicide of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, I asked “How many more children must die before we as a society get a clue?”

This is one too many.

We as a community of parents and citizens must hold our schools to account. It could start as simply as having the parents’ associations require principals to state publicly how many reported incidents of bullying there were each month or semester, and what was done. Parents could then provide further evaluation and a check to make sure enough was done. Other ideas?

GLSEN has anti-bullying resources, focused around anti-LGBT bullying. HRC’s Welcoming Schools program and PFLAG’s Cultivating Respect also have some. Tolerance.org, from the Southern Poverty Law Center, has more general anti-bullying resources.

Not Just a Gay Issue

“It’s not just a gay issue,” said Sirdeaner Walker, mother of 11-year-old Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, who committed suicide last week after months of anti-gay taunts. “It’s bigger.”

The Advocate has a long interview with Walker. It’s an emotionally tough read, but worth it.

I mentioned in my roundup yesterday that GLSEN’s upcoming National Day of Silence on April 17, when students raise awareness of anti-LGBT bullying, made the tragedy even more poignant. The Advocate adds that April 17 would have been Walker-Hoover’s birthday. He’ll never blow out those 12 candles.

His death was needless, but let us hope it will at least help to raise awareness of why we must all work to stop bullying. Of course, I said the same thing about Lawrence King last year. How many more children must die before we as a society get a clue?

(Thanks, Pam.)

Utah Mandates All Children to Be Raised by LGBT People

In a special session of the Utah Legislature, lawmakers of both houses approved a bill that would require all children born in the state to be raised by LGBT people. A delegation rushed the bill to the governor’s desk, where he signed it immediately.

“When you look at all the cases of child abuse in our state,” explained Sen. Ty Tass, the bill’s primary sponsor, “it is clear that heterosexuals have a pretty poor track record.” He cited recent instances of a 19-year-old Orem man who was arrested in connection with the sexual abuse of the 4-year-old daughter of the woman with whom he had been living, the alleged rape of a male student by two of his female teachers, both mothers, and a former corrections officer. “It’s in the best interests of the children,” Tass asserted.

Under the new law, non-transgender heterosexuals will be required to give up any newborn children to be adopted by an LGBT person or couple. Those who already have children will be allowed to keep them, pending successful evaluation and home study by the Division of Child and Family Services, but those currently fostering children will not be allowed to petition for adoption.

The new law supercedes prior Utah law that banned anyone but legally married couples from fostering and petitioning to adopt.

When asked about the sudden about-face, Sen. Tass said, “It became clear to us that placing children with heterosexual parents posed a high risk of danger. While it is possible for some children of heterosexual parents to develop into well-adjusted adults, consider the number of those who have not.” He cited Britney Spears, Charles Manson, and Utah native Butch Cassidy as examples of the type of person who could develop after being raised by heterosexual parents.

Rep. Rea Lectme, the bill’s House sponsor, added, “Forget the old view that a child needs a parent of each gender. It’s well known that men and women are like Mars and Venus. Such contradictory outlooks can only add to rancor in the home. Same-sex parents will provide a more peaceful, stable environment for raising children.”

Stores in Salt Lake City are already reporting a critical shortage of “I [Heart] My Mommies” and “I [Heart] My Daddies” t-shirts.

Dr. Susan Love Recruiting an Army of Women

It’s LGBT Health Awareness Week. I therefore thought I’d post a piece I wrote with slight variation for Bay Windows as advance coverage for Dr. Susan Love’s appearance at Fenway Health here in Boston this coming weekend.

Dr. Love is an eminent breast cancer surgeon. Some of you may remember her from her guest appearance on Season 3 of The L Word. A photo of her and her partner showing their hot-off-the-presses California marriage license also graced the pages of Bilerico on June 17, 2008.

Fenway Health began back in 1971, and has a long history of firsts related to LGBT health care.

Despite the local focus, I hope the piece has a wider appeal. Dr. Love is now recruiting for an “Army of Women” to help fight breast cancer, and wants LGBT women to be a part of it. That isn’t some shameless plug for money or wearing pink armbands. Read on to see how she wants to revolutionize breast cancer research.

“I’m excited to come back to Boston and see all my friends there and my friends at the Fenway,” said Dr. Susan M. Love, a pioneering breast cancer surgeon and women’s health advocate.

Love heads the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation in Los Angeles, but knows Boston well from her time at Beth Israel Medical Center between 1974 and 1992. She will be returning to the Bay State for the Fenway Health Center’s Women’s Dinner Party on March 14, where she will present the annual Dr. Susan M. Love Award to actor Lily Tomlin. Read the rest of this post »

Blog for Choice Day

Today marks the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which also makes it the annual Blog for Choice day. The organizers have asked us to answer the question, “What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress?”

For me, it is three things:

• Standing firm against the forces who would limit a woman’s right to reproductive choice.
• Supporting family planning and sex education and that teaches both abstinence and safe sex.
• Supporting the right to create a family in whatever manner we choose. This isn’t traditionally part of the discussion around reproductive rights, which tends to focus on whether women should have the right to choose abortion. For me, however, the issue is as much about choosing how to create a child, and with whom, as it is about choosing not to do so.

Turns out those are already on his agenda, under women and civil rights. One more reason I’m doing the happy dance this week.

Songs for Cold Season from Erin Lee and Marci

Children’s musicians Erin Lee and Marci bring us the next of their regular posts with thematic recommendations for kid-friendly music, plus activities to make the songs an interactive experience for the whole family. Look for Erin Lee and Marci here on the first Monday of each month, or visit their homepage, www.gottaplay.org.

Erin Lee was also recently profiled by the Kingston Whig-Standard in her native Canada. She talked about her ten years as an actor, in which she “played every disturbed, addicted, pregnant teenager role that came along,” her switch to writing and performing children’s music, the dearth of intelligent music and theatre for kids (“A lot of pop music is aimed at kids, things like High School Musical, but that’s like eating Froot Loops all day”), and her inclusive family song that caught the attention of Sesame Street’s Alan Muraoka and got Marci and her a gig on Rosie’s cruise.

Erin Lee and Marci are performing in Illinois this month. Check their Web site for details if you’re in the area. —DR

The holiday season is wrapping up, and here in New York, we’ve been listening to the joyful sounds of children laughing, bells ringing, people sneezing . . . . Oh, yes, cold season is upon us. We’re confronted with it every time we step outdoors, so here are some songs to celebrate Cold Season! Read the rest of this post »