Heather’s Mommy Has Two New Books

(Originally published in Bay Windows, June 25, 2009.)

“Writing has always been my political activism,” said Lesléa Newman, author of Heather Has Two Mommies, the classic 1989 children’s book that was the first to feature a child with two moms.

Her two new books, however, are sweet, simple tales of family life, without any overt politics or agenda. Mommy, Mama, and Me and Daddy, Papa, and Me (Tricycle Press: 2009) are sturdy board books for toddlers, with ink-and-watercolor illustrations by award-winning English artist Carol Thompson. They each show a child with two moms or two dads, respectively, going through everyday activities such as playing in the park and painting pictures.

“What I really wanted to do with these books . . . was show a loving family where there was no issue involved. It was just a kid with his or her parents having a great day together,” said Newman. She wrote them after her editor suggested there was a need for books for the very youngest children with same-sex parents, and that she would be the perfect person for the task. Read the rest of this post »

Vermont Author Writes Teen Novel of First Love

(Originally published in Bay Windows, May 15, 2008.)

“It’s the book I wish I’d read when I was 13,” says Vermont writer Jennifer McMahon about her new young adult book, My Tiki Girl (Dutton/Penguin: May 2008). “I wish I had a time machine to send it back to my 13-year-old self. When I fell in love with my best friend at 13, I thought I was the only freakish one in the world who ever had these feelings, and I felt completely alone and isolated. This is a book I wish I’d had then.”

McMahon, a best-selling author of adult fiction, has written a captivating story of outsiders and first love. The protagonist, Maggie Keller, lost her mother in a car accident two years ago and blames herself. The friends she used to have now seem shallow. They can’t understand the transformation she has undergone. Instead of the popular girl she was in junior high, she enters tenth grade as an outcast with a shattered leg. She befriends the new girl in class, Dahlia Wainwright, also on the social margins, who is dealing with a mentally ill mother and the challenges of being part of a poor family in a rich town.

The two girls find adventure with Dahlia’s mother and brother through elaborate games of alternate identities and make-believe. A crisis looms, however, when Maggie finds herself falling for Dahlia at the same time that friends from her previous life start to impinge upon her new world. The book distinguishes itself not only by its focus on a same-sex relationship, but by its sensitive treatment of how the lure of normalcy can cause people to make different choices. “I think the outsiderness of the characters in the book isn’t just about coming to terms with their sexuality,” McMahon explains. “Being a teenager is hard, no matter what you’re dealing with. Gay, straight, whatever.” Read the rest of this post »

Studying Our Children, from Birth to Adulthood

Dr. Nanette Gartrell is the principal investigator of the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS). “Longitudinal lesbians?” you may ask. Parse it differently, however, and it’s a multi-year, repeated study of a group of lesbian moms and their children, the longest-running and largest investigation of its kind. Dr. Gartrell was kind enough to take time from her work as an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California-San Francisco, her upcoming book launch, and her research, to speak with me about the NLLFS.

Gartrell began the study in 1986, with the goal of following the first wave of lesbian families begun through donor insemination. “We started it at a time when there was no possibility of obtaining any funding, because there were no funding sources then,” Gartrell recalls. “Even now, it’s only possible to get small grants.” She and her small team remained committed, however, to providing information about these families from conception until the children grew up. “Our goals were to describe the experiences of the moms in raising their kids and to report on the effects of choosing to raise children on the moms’ lives, relationships, careers, and activism as lesbians—and of course to report on the growth and development and mental health of the children. It’s already been well established that children raised by lesbian mothers are happy, healthy, and high functioning, but we want to report on our population as well, and then, very importantly, to document the effects of homophobia on these families. Some of the stereotypes are that kids are going to be significantly disadvantaged by growing up in lesbian families, and that’s not the case.” Read the rest of this post »

How Do Our Children Compare?

(Originally published in Bay Windows, January 22, 2008).

Dr. Blase Masini wants to spend time with your family—or at least with data about you. The developmental psychologist and head of the research department at Howard Brown Health Center, a leading LGBT health care organization in Chicago, has launched a nationwide study of LGBT parenting, and hopes more families will participate by completing his online survey. He’s not just an ivory-tower researcher, however: He’s also the gay father of two sons whom he adopted with his partner. This experience, coupled with his professional training, motivates his work. He explains, “My graduate study was in early childhood development. I’ve come to know through the textbook and firsthand experience what it takes to raise kids to be healthy. I am convinced that sexual orientation has nothing to do with it.”

Masini acknowledges the growing body of research on LGBT families, but believes more can be done. He wants to collect empirical data on the development of children in LGBT families so policy makers have better information when it comes to passing legislation. The best approach, he feels, is to do comparisons against existing national data sets of families in general—in this case, a National Survey of Children’s Health conducted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in 2001, encompassing over 100,000 households. He’s asking many of the same questions as the CDC, and adding a few extra to get at the impact of homophobic discrimination and bullying. “My goal is to get a control group from the national sample, based on like households with the same sort of socioeconomic status and the same geographic area and the same number of children and the same race,” he says.

He will then look at how the family environment and the children’s development compares to national norms. While he intends to promote his study mostly through academic channels, he hopes to partner with someone who has a policy background and can help translate his numbers into something that could be distributed to politicians.

He admits this is only a pilot study, with certain limitations: Read the rest of this post »

Family Voices XVI

Here’s this week’s post in my Family Voices series. COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere) member Terrance talks about being the gay son of a gay dad, his many non-profit activities, and some of the lessons he’s learned over the years.

A big thank you again to COLAGE for asking their members to participate in these interviews. I’ll be taking a short break from this series for Thanksgiving, but back soon with more LGBT family voices.

Tell us a little about the family in which you grew up. Who was in it? Anything particular you’d like to share about yourselves?

I grew up with a family of five. My dad, mom, sister, cousin and myself. I am a black gay male.

What has been the most challenging thing you’ve faced as the child of (an) LGBT parent(s)? How did you handle it?

Well, I faced a lot of hardship because I grew up in the inner city. My sister told everyone that my dad was gay so it made it difficult for me. I basically denied his sexuality until I was about 16. My whole family always said my dad was gay so when he told me I was sad. My dad was a hairdresser, so a lot of the teachers knew him and so no teacher made me feel bad about his sexuality. Read the rest of this post »

Family Voices XV

Here’s this week’s post in my Family Voices series. COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere) member Asha talks about being second-generation queerspawn, how to survive when families get “messy,” and why COLAGE matters to her.

Tell us a little about the family in which you grew up. Who was in it? Anything particular you’d like to share about yourselves?

My family is really a melding of both biological and chosen family. I’ll start with my bio family. Like many COLAGE families, my mom came out later in life. Until I was 16 I lived with both my bio Mom and Dad who were married. Our family consisted of my Mom, Dad, and brother. At that time, my parents separated and it was a couple years into the separation that my Mom came out. Both of my parents have re-married after their divorce. My Dad and stepmom have had two children so now I’m blessed with two baby brothers! My chosen family includes my chosen sister, her bio mother, and some precious friends. I am second generation, being the queer daughter of a lesbian mother. In total, my family makes for 4 moms (3 are gay!), 1 dad, and three brothers, and many heart friends. I am an artist, drag king, femme, southern belle, sex radical, and drama queen. At heart though I’m a queer activist and have had the good fortune to work in the LGBT movement for the past 10 years.

What has been the most challenging thing you’ve faced as the child of (an) LGBT parent(s)? How did you handle it?

One challenge is when other adult queers freak out when they realize I’m second generation and ask me whether I think my mom contributed to my queerness. I feel like this reaction is an example of internalized homophobia. Why shouldn’t queerspawn end up with many different sexual orientations or gender identities? I really see my sexual orientation as immutable fact. I don’t think the sexual orientation of my many mothers are responsible. Read the rest of this post »

Family Voices XIV

Here’s this week’s post in my Family Voices series. COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere) member Isabel talks about having a mother who came out, the importance of being yourself and letting your children be themselves, and why COLAGE means so much to her.

Tell us a little about the family in which you grew up. Who was in it? Anything particular you’d like to share about yourselves?

The first seven years of my life my family consisted of me, my brother, my mother, and my father. When I was seven years old my parents got divorced and my mother came out as a lesbian. A few months later, my mother’s partner at the time moved in with me, my mother, and my brother, with her three children. A few years later, my mother and her partner at the time adopted a son together. My father has always been part of the picture. My mother is no longer with her partner but they still remain close, as my mother and father have.

What has been the most challenging thing you’ve faced as the child of (an) LGBT parent(s)? How did you handle it?

I didn’t really face many challenging things as a child because of my mother. I guess telling some people was a little awkward because you never know how people are going to react, but I didn’t get much negative feedback.

What, if anything, did your parent(s) do to help you understand their sexual orientation or gender identity, or to help you deal with any issues this raised at school or elsewhere? Any resources (groups, books, movies, Web sites, etc.) you found particularly helpful?

I think the best thing my mother did was to not make it a big deal. There wasn’t a big discussion about how she was now a lesbian and what that really meant. My father moved out and my stepmother moved in. Thats pretty much how it went.

The most helpful group to me was COLAGE. COLAGE is honestly the best thing that has ever happened to me. It provided me and my family a safe place to discuss how we feel, and to hear other peoples experiences. I developed many friendships and relationships that will probably last me my whole life. What other kid can say that they love to go away for a week every summer to go to workshops and meeting and teen panels? I don’t know of any. Read the rest of this post »

Family Voices XIII

Here’s this week’s post in my Family Voices series. COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere) member Sara tells us about her blended family, the influence of Ellen, and why it’s important for children of LGBT parents to remember that it’s okay not to be perfect. She also relates one of the best coming out stories I’ve heard in a while. . . .

Tell us a little about the family in which you grew up. Who was in it? Anything particular you’d like to share about yourselves?

My name is Sara Elizabeth Berger, otherwise known as Pumpkin, Mean Bean, and Sugar-Booger by my moms and dad. Yeah, that’s right . . . moms . . . PLURAL. Although for those who are reading, this is probably not a hard concept to grasp for obvious reasons. However, growing up in a small conservative town in North Dakota, I didn’t have what one might call an “easy” time explaining this to people. Then again, I’ll admit my family is just a tad bit complex. I grew up in two houses, my moms’ and my dad’s, with a plethora of siblings and more than my fair share of furry critters. My biological mom, Vickie, and her partner, Sherri, blended a family together after they both found themselves in the midst of divorce. My mom, who had been previously married before meeting my dad, brought Andy (my older half brother) and myself to Sherri’s old four-floor home in northern Mandan when she and my dad divorced; I was only six months old at the time. Sherri had been living in the old house for a few months with her three kids, Steven, Sara Lynn, and Joy after getting a divorce with her husband (which ironically enough happened to be my dad’s best friend). Mom and Sherri were not out at the time, neither to the community (due to custody reasons) or even to themselves; they struggled years before they were able to integrate their sexual “orientation” into their religious views. However, because I was so young, none of the “behind the scenes” struggles ever entered into my mind. As I grew up, I never questioned the fact that I had two houses and my friends didn’t, or that I had two moms and a dad when my friends only had one of each; in fact, I thought it was pretty dang cool to have two of just about everything.

As mentioned before, I had two of each sibling, too, all of whom were many years older than me. Stephen, who was 12 at the time of our “family fusing”, and Andy, who was eight years my senior, I considered from the beginning to be my brothers. Sara Lynn and Joy, 10 and eight years older than me respectively, were without a doubt my sisters. When I think about it now, however, I’m almost positive they didn’t see our situation in the same light as I did. Because they were so much older than me at the time, and didn’t literally “grow into” our queer family like I did, they probably viewed me more as the cute little girl they babysat once a week or the annoying “tweeny-bopper” who spied on them when their high school girlfriends and boyfriends came over. With the exception of my biological half brother who I had always been close to, I think it wasn’t until I was in high school when Sherri’s kids had “grown-up” lives of their own did they really start to consider me a sibling, an aunt to their own children, and someone they could call from states away to talk about problems. I think it was also the fact that I had grown up into the situation that allowed me to become the passionate queer activist that I am—I really got to know my moms (collectively) and their LGBTQ friends more than my siblings, and in the end, it has honestly made all the difference. Read the rest of this post »

Family Voices XII

Continuing my Family Voices series with the next post by a member of COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere). Below, Scout talks about having both gay parents and gay grandparents, dealing with bias against her disability and her family, and watching her grandfathers marry after being committed to each other for over 50 years.

Tell us a little about the family in which you grew up. Who was in it? Anything particular you’d like to share about yourselves?

For the first half of my life I grew up with my parents, my Daddy who is my biological father, and his partner, Pappa. But I have severe cerebral palsy and need 24 hr care, so eventually it became too big of a task for them, financially and physically, so I went to live with my grandparents in England. My grandparents are also gay, Grandpa is my biological grandpa, and Grandfather is his partner.

What has been the most challenging thing you’ve faced as the child of (an) LGBT parent(s)? How did you handle it?

I have problems with people staring. Having severe cerebral palsy and being confined to a wheelchair, people stare at me quite frequently, but when they stare because my parents are both men, it is a very distinctive stare. Usually I get a: “Oh you poor thing,” stare because of my disability, but the homophobic stare sounds more like: “Oh . . . That’s one of those GAY families.” It bothered me for so long, but my Grandpa really gave me the tools to be accepting of my unique situation. So when people stare now because they recognize I am in a “different” family, I stare back confidently as if to say: “Yes, and I love my family, and they love me.” Read the rest of this post »

Family Voices XI

Continuing my Family Voices series with the second post by a member of COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere). Below, Jonathan shares a bit of his “lovably bizarre” family, talks about his experience as the son of a transgender father, and reminds us of the importance of keeping a sense of humor.

Tell us a little about the family in which you grew up. Who was in it? Anything particular you’d like to share about yourselves?

My family is a witch’s brew of geeks, dorks, and delinquents. We built secret passages in the basement for fun, and my father fought an eternal battle against right angles. My oldest brother just got married: he walked down the aisle with his wife to ‘Where Is My Mind,’ by The Pixies, my sister-in-law chucked a bouquet of dead flowers to the tune of ‘The Doom Song’ from Invader Zim, and then the entire place (a museum) was rocked by Britpop and New Wave until midnight. Because that’s the way my people roll. And by the by, my father is a transgender woman. Read the rest of this post »