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 most deeply feminizing of processes—pregnancy.” She’ll be serializing the 100-page comic at the rate of several pages per week, and hopes someday to find a print publisher. (Note: This is a comic of the grown-up variety.)

I had the pleasure of interviewing A.K. for my upcoming Mombian newspaper column, which should be appearing in papers this week. (Here it is in Bay Windows.) I’ll repost it here after the papers have it out. (If your local LGBT (or other) paper isn’t carrying my column, and you’d like them to, drop the editor a note and ask her or him to contact me. Much appreciated!)

In the meantime, go enjoy Pregnant Butch and marvel yet again at all of the many journeys we take to parenthood. (You can also find out more about A.K. at her personal site.)

To my mind, the key takeaways from all of the above material are these:

• Over 65,500 adoptive children and 14,000 foster children are already being raised by gay or lesbian parents in the U.S.
• All of the legitimate, peer-reviewed, academic studies that have been done show that children being raised by lesbian or gay parents are as well-adjusted as any others. These findings are supported by major professional organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Child Welfare League of America.
• Finally—do the math: Over 115,000 children are still waiting for adoptive homes, while over two million LGB people are interested in adopting. (Presumably, many transgender people are also interested in adopting, too, but there has been less research on them.)

On Monday, Nov. 21, we are inviting you to Blog Adoption.

As you may know, November is National Adoption Month and we are working to raise awareness about the obstacles LGBT families face in opening up their homes to children in need of families—especially those who are in foster care.

We have seen some progress on this issue. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) has now introduced the Every Child Deserves a Family Act (ECDF) and the House version of the bill, sponsored by Rep. Pete Stark (CA) now has 82 bi-partisan co-sponsors. ECDF would discourage discriminatory state laws and policies that prevent many qualified LGBT parents from fostering or adopting children.

But there is much work to be done. We must encourage Congress to act on this legislation and we must educate the public about the fact that qualified LGBT parents can help solve the child welfare crisis in this country by providing homes to some of the 404,000 kids in foster care.

You can blog about the issue, the laws in your state, what your organization or media outlet is doing to raise awareness of this issue or even personal anecdotes around the issue of adoption.

We just ask that you send us a link to your blog on Nov. 21 so we can repost them on our own blog. We’ve included this link to one of our recent blog posts about the issue. You can send it directly to me at smajors@familyequality.org or to info@familyequality.org.

It’s a great opportunity for us to inform folks during the week of Thanksgiving about why every child should have the blessing of parents who care for them.

So please, Blog Adoption on Nov. 21 and let the world know that Every Child Deserves a Family.

His message:

For the magazine Details, I am trying to do a story on straight men who sperm-donor to their family or friends and then play a “part-time” (or less) role in the raising of the child: limited responsibility yet limited rights and involvement. I am looking primarily for men under 50 who can talk about both the upsides and the downsides of “partial parenthood.”

Can you pass this around and help me in any way? I’d much appreciate it! I need to find a few good men in the next few days. I can be reached at timmurphynycwriter@gmail.com.

(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 adoptive families—even though over 65,500 children are being raised by gay or lesbian adoptive parents in the U.S.

And while over two million LGB people are interested in adopting, over 115,000 children are still waiting for adoptive homes, according to UCLA’s Williams Institute.

Adoption by Lesbians and Gay Men: A New Dimension in Family Diversity, edited by David Brodzinsky and Adam Pertman of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, has brought together experts across several disciplines—social welfare, psychology, sociology, and law—to address these issues and provide a picture of this “rapidly growing new family form.” First, Cynthia Russett places adoption by lesbians and gay men in the context of the evolving history of adoption in the United States over the past 250 years.

Pertman and Jeanne Howard examine “the unprecedented, ongoing transformation in American family life” that includes an increasing number of gay and lesbian adoptive parents. They explain why the transformation “is a positive one for children who need permanent homes,” and give us a picture of current attitudes, policies, and laws.

Annette Appell looks more closely at adoption laws and how they have been applied in cases of lesbian and gay parents.

Several of the papers then look at best practices among adoption professionals and agencies.

Gerald Mallon draws on previous research to offer suggestions about the homestudy process. He shows how adoption professionals can treat lesbian and gay prospective parents with equality, while not avoiding relevant issues related to sexual orientation, such as how they plan to address homophobia with their children.

David Brooks, Hansung Kim, and Leslie Wind share the results of their study on the pre- and post-adoption services gay and lesbian families may desire, such as counseling and support groups. Many of their needs for such services are similar to those of straight adoptive families and “are being adequately addressed and met.” At the same time, there are some “significant differences” that may imply unmet needs. For example, more gay and lesbian parents expressed a need for legal advice.

Scott Ryan and Suzanne Brown look at how lesbian and gay people react to the stresses of being adoptive parents, and the social supports, resources, and strengths they develop in response.

Abbie Goldberg and Mark Gianino show how therapists and others can assist and support lesbian and gay adoptive parents.

Brodzinsky offers results from his national study of adoption agencies’ policies and practices. The good news: adoptions by lesbians and gay men “are occurring regularly and in noteworthy numbers across the country, through both public and private agencies.” The bad news: Nearly 15 percent of adoption agency directors surveyed were unsure about the legality of adoption by gay men and lesbians in their jurisdiction, or thought it was illegal, even when it wasn’t.

Two of the papers look generally at children with lesbian or gay parents, adoptive and not. Charlotte Patterson and Jennifer Wainright present findings from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, showing that family type had little to do with adolescents’ social or personal development. Instead, it was the quality of adolescents’ relationships with their parents that mattered.

Nanette Gartrell, Heidi Peyser, and Henny Bos share results from the long-running National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study. While it includes only families created through donor insemination, it adds to the growing evidence that “children raised by lesbian mothers are thriving.”

Brodzinsky, Robert-Jay Green, and Katie Katuzny wrap things up with a look at what we know about adoption by lesbians and gay men and what we still need to know and do. Legal roadblocks still exist in many states, they remind us. Legislators, judges, and adoption professionals need to be educated about the social science research that shows adoptive children of lesbian and gay parents are as well adjusted as any others.

But while social science data “will be helpful, and ought to be determinative,” they say, “advocates of this type of adoption will need to find additional ways of countering the values-based arguments of those who oppose it.”

Still, additional research will be valuable—not only in reaffirming that gay and lesbian parents are suitable, but also in further detailing the unique needs of their families and how adoption professionals can best support them.

And there is almost no research yet on transgender or bisexual parents and their families. Given that more transgender people are coming out, say the authors, “It is very important that the professional community develop a better understanding of them and receive appropriate training to work with those who seek to adopt.”

Adoption agencies as a whole, they say, need to better educate their staffs and set a welcoming tone for LGBT families. They should also hire LGBT and LGBT-affirmative staff and reach out to recruit prospective LGBT parents.

This volume summarizes our knowledge of lesbian and gay adoptive families, contributes to it, and points out directions for future research, education, and policy changes. It is an academic book, not a light read, but should become an invaluable reference for adoption professionals, researchers, policy makers, advocates, and lawyers. Lesbian and gay adoptive parents and prospective parents may also want to read it (though they may wish to skip some of the nitty-gritty statistical analyses).

As Brodzinsky et al. say in their concluding chapter, the beneficiaries will be the many children who need permanent homes.

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Here, for example, are some useful facts from the Institute’s previous work:

• Lesbians and gay men adopt at significant rates, with over 65,000 adopted and 14,000 foster children in the U.S. residing in homes headed by non-heterosexuals. Children growing up in such households show similar patterns of adjustment as those raised by heterosexuals.
• At least 60% of U.S. adoption agencies accept non-heterosexual parental applicants, and almost 40% have knowingly placed children with them – meaning almost any lesbian, gay man, or same-sex couple can find a professional to work with them.

And here are some fascinating new findings:

• About one-third of the adoptions by lesbians and gay men were “open,” and the birth families’ initial reactions regarding sexual orientation were very positive (73%). Interestingly, male couples more often reported having been chosen because of their sexual orientation than did lesbians, explaining that the birthmothers expressed a desire to remain the child’s “only mother.”
• Over 10% of the children adopted were 6 or older – a population generally perceived as more difficult to place – and 25% were at least 3 years old. Interestingly, the household incomes of respondents were high – and more so for the male parents, $212,380 vs. $115,467, indicating (among other things) that more lesbians adopted as individuals and more gay men as couples.

The report recommends, among other things: 

• Remove legal and cultural barriers so that all qualified, vetted prospective parents can be considered, notably including the passage of “gay marriage” laws, because the social institution of marriage brings clear long-term psychological (and other benefits) to children.
• Provide training, recruitment and educational tools to increase professional competence for working with non-heterosexual parents, and offer pre- and post-placement services to better enable those parents to deal with adoption issues and those relating to their sexual orientation.

The report incorporates many of the findings in the brand-new book Adoption by Lesbians and Gay Men: A New Dimension in Family Diversity, ed. by Adam Pertman and David Brodzinsky of the Institute. I did a full review of it for my latest Mombian newspaper column, which I haven’t posted here yet, but you can read over at Bay Windows. It is an academic book, chock full of studies by professionals in social welfare, psychology, sociology, and law—but worth knowing of as a reference, even if you don’t read it all yourself. (If you have any academic leanings whatsoever, I do recommend diving into it, as it contains much more information and insight than I could stuff into my review. At least get your local library to stock a copy.)

I am a member of the Amazon Associates program, and get a small referral fee from all purchases made at Amazon.com via links on this site. You are under no obligation to purchase through them.

The so-called “gayby boom” may be a relatively new phenomenon, but lesbian moms have been a vital part of the LGBT rights movement since shortly after the Stonewall Riots in 1969. The documentary Mom’s Apple Pie: The Heart of the Lesbian Mothers’ Custody Movement gives us a look at several early custody cases involving lesbian moms—and shows how the activism they spawned has had a direct impact on LGBT people and organizations today.

When a custody case with a lesbian mom makes headlines now, it is most often a battle between two women over children they have raised together. Forty years ago, however, almost all custody cases involving a lesbian occurred because she was trying to obtain custody or visitation from her former husband.

Mom’s Apple Pie, released in 2006 but just recently out on home video, is a deft blending of personal and political. Filmmakers Jody Laine, Shan Ottey and Shad Reinstein begin with interviews of several mothers and their now-adult children who were involved in these early custody cases. Many of us have heard the outlines of such stories, even if we have no names to put with them: children being denied access to one of their parents; judges ruling that an abusive husband should have custody rather than a lesbian mom.

The tales are heart wrenching. The film does more than just tug at our emotions, however, focusing instead on the innovation that came out of adversity. In the days before LGBT organizations with multi-million dollar budgets or nationally recognized attorneys taking on LGBT rights cases, almost no lawyers were willing to defend a lesbian mom. Those that were had few resources. The mothers themselves therefore banded together to share knowledge and protect their families.

In 1974, several lesbian mothers and friends in Seattle founded the Lesbian Mothers’ National Defense Fund (LMNDF) with $2 and the slogan, “Raising our children is a right, not a heterosexual privilege.” The women of LMNDF helped lesbian mothers find and pay for appropriate lawyers and organize their cases. Although some LMNDF members had law degrees, they saw themselves as organizers more than lawyers. Their activism was intensely personal and often grew out of experience with their own custody and visitation battles.

The organization’s newsletter, “Mom’s Apple Pie,” offered advice and information, asked for donations, and celebrated their few triumphs. As word of the organization spread, women began to contact them from around the country. LMNDF members drew on their personal networks to find nearby contacts for them, no mean feat in the days before Facebook and Twitter. LMNDF eventually encouraged women to start local defense funds and created guidelines to assist.

Around the country, too, lesbian lawyers were beginning to take custody cases and to organize. In 1977, lawyers Donna Hitchens and Roberta Achtenberg in San Francisco formed the Lesbian Rights Project (LRP), which in 1989 evolved into the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR).

The film shows us the challenges of these early groups, from confronting homophobia to the mundane difficulties of distributing materials and fundraising. One major source of funds came from women’s music concerts and other events that the organizations helped produce. (At one, we learn, author Rita Mae Brown even auctioned off her underwear for the cause.) The film underscores the connection between activism and music with a soundtrack of songs by women’s music icons Margie Adam, Alix Dobkin, Mary Watkins, and Cris Williamson.

The interviewees also discuss their organizations’ roles within the broader lesbian and feminist movements of the time. They helped women become independent at a time when California was the only state to offer “no-fault” divorces and most women did not have their own bank accounts or credit history. The groundwork they laid for women’s freedom had an impact on rights for lesbian moms by choice, single moms, and women as a whole.

When LMNDF began, only one custody case in the country had ever been won by an out lesbian. Within 10 years, aided by the resources from LMNDF, LRP, and similar organizations, 50 percent of cases between lesbian mothers and their ex-husbands ended with custody or visitation for the mothers.

Although laws and attitudes have changed in some ways since the 1970’s, certain things have stayed the same. Current NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell says in the film that even today, “hardly a week goes by” that NCLR is not getting calls from women in custody disputes with ex-husbands. Anyone unfamiliar with NCLR’s work today need only look at its Web site, however (nclrights.org), to see that its work has expanded to almost every area of LGBT rights—and the successes are more frequent.

For those too young to remember the 1970’s as the period that nurtured the early LGBT rights movement, Mom’s Apple Pie is a fascinating and worthwhile history lesson. For those who recall the era, it will bring back memories both cherished and painful, but ones worth passing on to the next generation.

Pam Keeley, an early LMNDF member, reflects in the film, “Here we were, just this little clot of young women, trying to change the world. And we were changing the world.”

Mom’s Apple Pie shows us how they did it.

The DVD belongs in the collections of all LGBT parents, grassroots activists, and teachers of the civil rights movement. It is available at frameline.org.

I’m also going to jump on the bandwagon and share the Steve Jobs video that is making the rounds. In his commencement speech at Stanford University, he offers some wise insight about life and death. Also of note for readers here is the fact that he was adopted. Successful people—as I probably don’t need to tell you—come from all types of family structures. (As do unsuccessful ones; but I think we can eliminate family structure as a determining variable.)

I keep seeing bumper stickers around town with slogans like, “Proud Parent of a Middle School Honor Student,” and “Proud Parent of a Soldier.” They remind me, in this season of LGBT Pride, of how often “pride” is associated with both LGBT identity and parenting. We LGBT parents have a lot of which we can be proud, in a lot of different ways.

First, several people with LGBT parents have been in the news lately with things we can be proud of as a community. Director Mike Mills has just released his film Beginners, based on the true story of his father coming out at age 75. It stars Golden Globe Award nominee Ewan McGregor, Academy Award nominee Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent of Inglourious Basterds, and Goran Visnjic of ER.

Utah college student Cara Cerise, who has a gay dad, was recently named the 2011 Utah Young Humanitarian by a panel of community leaders, receiving a $5,000 college scholarship, the largest service-based award in the state. Her volunteer activities have included leading her high school social-justice club, helping low-income HIV-positive teens in Brazil, and creating a Utah chapter of COLAGE, the national organization for people with LGBT parents, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Zach Wahls, a University of Iowa student with two moms, spoke eloquently at an Iowa House hearing in February against a bill to ban marriage for same-sex couples. He has since appeared on Ellen and (with his moms) MSNBC to talk about his family.

And Morehead State University basketball star Kenneth Faried is a leading prospect in the NBA draft coming up on June 23. He spoke with ESPN.com in February about the influence of his two moms, one of whom is battling lupus. “When they got married,” he said, “that showed me what commitment is all about. . . . I look at them, what they’ve been through and I think, ‘Wow. That’s amazing.’ They’re amazing to me.” He told NBA.com in March that his mom Waudda’s rebounds from bouts of lupus are what inspire him to be a star rebounder on the court.

Not all of our children will succeed in such public ways, of course—nor should we expect them to. But we can all be proud of our children for all the many concrete accomplishments of childhood, from learning to walk, to riding a bike, to passing an algebra test. We can also be proud of them for emotional accomplishments: overcoming stage fright at a piano recital, standing up to a bully, asking a date to the prom.

In those ways, we are no different from any other parents. But we may also be proud of our children for things specific to LGBT families.

Every time they introduce us to their friends, teachers, or coaches, we can be proud that they are unashamed of their families in a society that often lacks understanding and acceptance.

Many of us who have come out or transitioned after having children can be proud of them for learning to accept us afterwards.

For those of us with children who have come out as LGBT themselves, we can be proud they have the courage to be who they are despite the extra burden of dealing with the myth that LGBT parents are more likely to create LGBT kids.

And we can be proud of our children every time they speak up for their families or for LGBT people in general—but we can also be proud of them if they choose to focus their activism in other areas.

We should also be proud of our allies, such as the politicians who have introduced legislation that would give our families equal recognition and protection, and the lawyers and judges who work to make sure laws are applied fairly to all families. But we should be equally proud of the allies in our immediate communities—neighbors, teachers, coaches, clergy members, and others—who accept us, speak up for us, or make an effort to be inclusive of all families.

Finally, we should remember to be proud of ourselves as well: for sticking to our dreams of becoming parents; for fighting to retain custody or contact with our children after divorce or separation; and for expanding the definition of family to include donors, surrogates, birth parents, and others who contribute deeply to our children’s life and well being.

Sometimes, I am proud simply to have gotten the laundry done, put dinner on the table, and sat down with my son for his bedtime reading. (If my newspaper column gets written, too, so much the better.) At other times, I reflect that I am also proud to be part of a family that medically, legally, and socially might not have existed a few decades ago. And I am proud that my son seems to be thriving in it.

LGBT parents don’t have exclusive rights to pride. We share one type of pride with non-LGBT parents and another with the wider LGBT community. But we stand at an intersection that gives us a unique perspective, proud of ourselves, the LGBT community, and our children.

Happy Pride, proud parents.

(Photo credit: Strange de Jim)

Polis has refused to tell the press how he and Reis will be creating their family—and I give him a lot of credit for that. Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with discussing how we create our families, should we choose to do so—and it can even be an educational opportunity. At the same time, much mainstream media coverage of LGBT parents seems to focus too much on the mechanics of family creation. Unless a journalist is making a point related to how the family was created—say, to discuss the particular concerns of families with children adopted from another country, or the role of a surrogate or donor in the child’s life—there’s really no need. It’s like mentioning a person’s race or religion when it has no bearing on the story.

If Polis and Reis choose to keep it a personal matter, to protect their child’s privacy or for any other reason, I admire their resolve. Let’s hope they continue to find a good balance between privacy for their child and the visibility that LGBT families need to move closer to acceptance and equality.