It’s a mostly international edition this time, with lots of LGBT parenting news from around the world. Go world!
- It’s LGBT Fostering and Adoption Week in the U.K., an event organized by charity New Family Social. Moms Carolyn and Vicki tell their adoption story at the event’s Web site, and Harriet and Lizzy write about why “Transgender people can be parents, too.” Their pieces are republished from the new We Are Family magazine for LGBT families—which looks like it will be a wonderful resource.
- A eight-year-old daughter of lesbian moms wrote to the U.K. cabinet minister David Jones, the Welsh Secretary, about his comment that, “I regard marriage as an institution that has developed over many centuries, essentially for the provision of a warm and safe environment for the upbringing of children, which is clearly something that two same-sex partners can’t do.”
- Israel’s Haaretz newspaper discusses “The trials and treasures of Tel Aviv’s gay-by boom.” (Free registration required.)
- The European Court of Human Rights said Austria had discriminated against a lesbian mom by not allowing her to do a second-parent adoption of her partner’s legal son.
- Germany’s highest court ruled that same-sex partners should be able to adopt a partner’s adopted child. Previously, they could only adopt the partner’s biological child. (See the guest post by Stephanie Gerlach for more on this ruling.)
- HuffPo explains why “Gay And Lesbian Adoptions Are The New Norm In Quebec.”
- Elsewhere in Canada, a lesbian couple in St. John’s is “joyous” after becoming one of the first same-sex partners in Newfoundland and Labrador to adopt children.
- Actor Wilson Cruz writes about the Puerto Rican Supreme Court’s ruling that upholds a ban on adoption by same-sex couples—and about the support he found from his grandmother when he came out. (For more on the ruling, see ABC News’ coverage, as well as USA Today’s more optimistic look at gay rights on the island.)
- Ten-year-old Braiden, who has gay dads, writes at Windy City Times about how her life has changed since she was adopted, and why she supports marriage equality.
- A Texas lesbian was brutally assaulted after she attempted to defend her partner’s child from bullies on a playground. The other children’s father began punching and kicking her. The women say he was using homophobic slurs, and had became enraged when he discovered the two women were together. At this point, however, police are not treating it as a hate crime.