A bevy of stories about LGBT families of different shapes, sizes, and colors:

• Cathy Drake and Ilene Gottlieb of Cornwall, NY met on a blind date on Mother’s Day three years ago, reported the Hudson Valley’s Journal News last Sunday. They were celebrating not only their anniversary, however, but also the birth of their three sons. (Perhaps next Mother’s Day they should buy three lottery tickets.) It’s a sweet story. Two of the boys are still in the hospital neonatal intensive care unit, though. May they all soon be home together.
• Nique and LaShun Davis-Hall are raising three boys in Seagoville, Texas, two from Nique’s first marriage, and one adopted. They say “No one ever treats us like we’re different. The neighborhood kids come over all the time,” according to the Dallas Voice.
• The Dallas Voice also reports on Leigh Wolfer and Patti Stephens, who have one biological child, two adopted from foster care, and a fifth they are fostering and hope to adopt soon. Their biological child’s father is active in her life and also acts as a “surrogate father” to the others.
• Radio Netherlands tells the story of Aad and Ron Dissel de Boo, who have fostered over 100 children since they first approached the then-reluctant Dutch Child Welfare Agency 25 years ago. Seven live in the house permanently, and the others have lived with them during transitions to more permanent homes. All had suffered abuse or have biological parents who are drug addicts. Now, the two men are working with the Child Welfare Agency to give parenting classes to people who need them, and they have started a foundation called Twee Vaders (Two Fathers), to raise awareness about child abuse and the need for foster homes.
• Shoshana and Nann Phoenixx-Dawn have two foster children in their Oakland, CA home, although Shoshana says “I wish I didn’t have to work and could take in 10 more. If we had more room we would have more kids,” according to the Bay Area Reporter. The article also looks at the general state of the Bay Area foster care system.

May is National Foster Care Month, and while such months always run the risk of making it seem like we can forget about the issue for another 11 months, they also offer the opportunity to educate. The foster families above are only a few of the shining examples of what foster care can accomplish, and why LGBT families must be part of the mix.

For those of you in the Boston Area:

The Cambridge Center for Adult Education is hosting a panel discussion on same-sex parenting tonight from 8:00-9:30 p.m. at 56 Brattle St. The cost is $10. I’ll be covering the event for Bay Windows; if you’re going, make sure to say hi. (I’ll have red hair and a large camera.)

Here’s the event description:

Come join us for a lively evening of reflection and conversation! Kelly Lawrence, lawyer in the US attorney’s office and lesbian parent, will be moderating a panel discussion with single-sex parents of children ranging from toddlers to high school students. Panelists will include former State Senator and now President of the Massachusetts Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation Jarrett Barrios, Boston area family lawyer and GLBT activist Polly Crozier, The Boston Foundation’s Director of Public Relations, David Trueblood, and Harvard Medical School Faculty and internist at Mt. Auburn Hospital, Rick Wellisch. They will discuss the challenges unique to gay parents and their kids: helping immediate and extended families accept and understand their family unit; what to call “moms” and “dads” when there are two of one instead of one of each; how to teach their kids about their family and why they’re different; dealing with the unsuspecting, but generally friendly, public and dealing with hostility. Additionally, they will address the various ways to create a legal family and how a same-sex family is recognized, or not, by state and federal governments.

Some of you may have heard or read NPR’s recent piece (and followup Q & A) on two young boys expressing female “gender preferences.” The boys’ parents each sought the help of a different psychologist. One went to Dr. Diane Ehrensaft, a psychologist and gender specialist in Oakland, CA. She described the boy as transgender, and said she does not think the parents should try to change their child’s behavior. The other went to Dr. Kenneth Zucker in Toronto, whose said he preferred to try and make the child, Bradley, comfortable with the gender of his birth. That meant depriving Bradley of favorite activities:

So, to treat Bradley, Zucker explained to Carol that she and her husband would have to radically change their parenting. Bradley would no longer be allowed to spend time with girls. He would no longer be allowed to play with girlish toys or pretend that he was a female character. Zucker said that all of these activities were dangerous to a kid with gender identity disorder.

Zucker, as it turns out, is the darling of groups such as NARTH, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. In his book Gender Identity Disorder and Psychosexual Problems in Children and Adolescents, co-authored with Susan Bradley, he writes:

The rights of parents to oversee the development of children is a long-established principle. Who is to dictate that parents may not try to raise their children in a manner that maximizes the possibility of a heterosexual outcome?

Zucker is treating gender identity the way sexual orientation was treated until fairly recently, as something that can be “cured.”

Awful stuff, but why am I telling you this now? Read more »

Slate did a weekend review of “Super Books for Pretty Good Moms: Parenting guides that won’t make you even more anxious than you already are.” Whether you’re an anxious parent or a calm one, you’re most likely familiar with how the media plays up these anxieties (and then tries to sell us the solutions). This got me interested in running a little poll:

Somebody bring me some water . . . in a sippy cup.*

MomLogic (part of the AOL Living network) just published the article “Melissa Etheridge: Superstar Mama.” The lesbian icon talks about having twins, explaining her cancer to her children, celebrating Mother’s Day, celebrity babies, the most important lesson to teach your children, and her new tour. She also offers this advice to other “non-traditional” families:

I would tell them they have all the power. That feeling inside, that desire, follow that, that’s what life is all about it. Just put it out of their mind that there is some sort of normal out there because there’s not. They may portray it on the television like Leave it to Beaver that there’s a perfect thing, but that does not exist, everyone’s doing the best they can to raise families, and find happiness, and find many ways to love, and there are many ways.

Bravo, Melissa! Bravo to MomLogic, too, for not just sticking to “traditional” families during this period of pre-Mother’s Day maternal celebration. Not all mainstream parenting channels are so bold.

*If you’re not an ME fan, that reference will be lost on you.

Writing about the right always makes me grumpy. To cheer up myself and maybe some of you, here’s a roundup of some happy articles about LGBT families:

• “Mother’s Day Special: A Tale of Two Moms” in the Windy City Times is the first of a two-part series about a couple of lesbian moms in Chicago. They conceived their family the way Helen and I did, using one partner as the egg donor for the other.
• “Surrogate mothers fulfilling gay men’s parenthood dreams” from AFP talks about the increasing number of gay men using surrogates, and the extraordinary expense of the process (over $100,000).
• “Diane Amos Headlines Funny Girlz” in the San Francisco Bay Times would be just another article about a local stand-up comedy event, except that it profiles comedian Diane Amos, the daughter of two moms, one black and one Jewish. She uses tales from her childhood in her routines, and says:
  

  Gay audiences love it because there’s so much funny stuff. Then I found a way to take it to straight audiences just by really telling the truth and telling some of the stuff around our household they’d never experienced. It’s just funny.

  Amos is also the face and voice of Pine-Sol cleaner. (And hey, you’d think a household cleaning product fronted by the daughter of two moms, and whose parent company has a perfect Corporate Equality Index rating, would be interested in advertising to lesbian moms, no? My own selfish interest in that aside, it does indicate that some marketing teams just aren’t thinking creatively enough when it comes to potential audiences. All they’d have to do is rearrange the bottles in the picture so they form a rainbow.)

I don’t usually respond to drivel from the ultra-right, but this one got to me. The Washington Times, in an article titled “Growing Up Confused,” reported Sunday on the memoir “Out From Under: The Impact of Homosexual Parenting,” by Dawn Stefanowicz. Stefanowicz is the daughter of a gay father who was married to her mother. She says that because of her father’s sexual orientation, she “experienced insecurity, depression, anxiousness, sleeplessness and sexuality confusion, and her psychological well-being and peer relationships were affected.”

Stefanowicz has been speaking up for the ultra-right for several years now. The book itself reads like a text for the Family Research Council, whose vice president for policy, Peter Sprigg says “It’s a very moving, brutally honest, first-person account of what it is like to grow up with a homosexual parent.” Perhaps one of them, but let’s not overgeneralize here.

The Washington Times relates: Read more »

In the vlog this week, I discuss two new memoirs about the journey to single motherhood, including the cynical and funny My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy and Choosing You, (both of which I reviewed at length in text a few days ago—see links). I’m vlogging without Helen this week, but instead I have a very special guest: my mom.

Hear what a grandmother has to say about the differences between being a parent and being a grandparent, what she first thought when she found out her lesbian daughter was becoming a mother, and how she talks about our family with friends and colleagues.

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If the Veoh video above isn’t working (sometimes their server can be flaky), you can try it at Daily Motion.

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

Andrea Askowitz is pregnant—and she’s grumpy. In My Miserable Lonely Lesbian Pregnancy (Cleis: May 1, 2008) she shares her cantankerous journey to parenthood as a single mom, complete with weight gain, leg cramps, hormone-induced depression, and well-intentioned friends who never quite do the right thing. It’s the perfect antidote to the slew of cheery parenting books that make pregnancy seem like a blissful time of womanly glow and nursery decoration. “I wake up at 8 in the morning, nauseated,” Askowitz relates. “What a relief. I’m still pregnant.” She worries later, “I can’t even decide what to eat for dinner. I’m going to be a terrible mother.”

Askowitz balances her dry, acerbic humor with unexpected bursts of warmth: “My baby wakes me at 7 a.m. playing the drums . . . It’s weird and wonderful, this steady beat. I can’t wait to meet this brilliant musician.” She also offers insights into the particularities of lesbian motherhood. When her straight friends start sending her maternity clothes, she complains “This must be a plot to turn me into a straight, suburban mom. They want me to be just like them. Just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean I’m not still a lesbian.” Read more »

(Many of you here in the bloggitysphere know of LGBT group blog The Bilerico Project. Founder Bil Browning was kind enough to share some of his thoughts on parenting and family with me—and now with you. Originally published by Bay Windows, April 18, 2008.)

Long-time LGBT activist Bil Browning is making a name for himself as the founding father of The Bilerico Project, one of the fastest-growing and most diverse LGBT communities online. Bilerico’s 50 contributors across the LGBT spectrum and the country include luminaries from most national LGBT organizations as well as a slew of local activists and other writers. Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank as well as both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have seen fit to post guest contributions there.

Browning and his partner Jerame Davis, who co-owns the site and oversees its technical side, are also fathers to a 14-year-old daughter. How do they balance the demands of managing the site (and consulting for local political campaigns and non-profits) with those of raising a teenager? Read more »