It’s the first week of a new era, but there’s one thing I know: Even if LGBTQ content is being scrubbed from the White House website, LGBTQ families are still here.
Family Stories
- Emily McGranachan, East Coast regional manager of Family Equality Council, writes of her experience at the Women’s March in Philadelphia last weekend (which I attended, too), saying, “I march for the multitude of intersectional identities that make up the kaleidoscope of LGBTQ families — and for the powerful love that underlies it all.”
- John Culhane at Slate explains why “No One Is Safe From the Gender Binary—Even Gay Families.” He observes that even when children are surrounded by examples of gender role flexibility, they may “still overwhelmed by the morass of gender traditionalism swirling around them.”
- Second-parent adoptions still provide critical protections to our families, but Andrea Lawlor explains at Mutha Magazine, “Why I’m Not Celebrating Adopting My Own Child.” As someone who had to go to court to be legally tied to my genetic child, whom my partner carried, I think they make some excellent points. Others feel the same, as evident in this piece from KUOW—which also notes that many same-sex couples are rushing to do second-parent adoptions given the uncertainty of LGBTQ rights in the Trump era. [Updated to add Lucy Hallowell’s new piece at Autostraddle, “Donald Trump Is President and I’m adopting My Own Daughter.”]
- Also at Mutha Magazine, Amy Abugo Ongiri, who describes herself as “a masculine of center author and educator” gives us “The Top Seven Reasons That BLACK PARENTS ARE MAGIC.”
Taking Action
- Last week, President Obama’s Secretary of the Army, Eric Fanning, gave the Secretary of the Army Public Service Award to Ashley Broadway-Mack, president of the American Military Partners Association and a lesbian mom. Bonus fun fact: Broadway-Mack was the first same-sex partner of a service member invited to the First Lady’s annual Mother’s Day Tea at the White House. And before marriage equality became national law, she made headlines when the Association of Bragg Officers’ Spouses rejected her membership and she objected—and ended up winning Fort Bragg’s 2013 “Spouse of the Year” award.
- Annie Van Avery, executive director of COLAGE, the national organization for people with LGBTQ parents, and psychotherapist Margo M. Jacquot suggest ways LGBTQ parents can help ensure the safety of their children and how best to respond to “schoolyard bullying or snubs from other parents.”
Politics
- Xiaochen, a lesbian mother of twins in China, has petitioned all 673 female members of the National People’s Congress, asking them “to propose and support legislation giving unmarried women access to assisted reproductive technologies.” Sixth Tone reports on her efforts, but also shares her personal journey to parenthood and some context on reproductive rights in China.
- Meanwhile, in the U.K., where assisted insemination and IVF are available to all women through the NHS (National Health Service), some NHS authorities are considering cutting funding for fertility treatments, which would impact single and same-sex potential parents across the board.
- Not parenting specific, but certainly relevant to many of our families: The Texas Supreme Court has agreed to hear a lawsuit seeking to halt same-sex spousal benefits that Houston provides to city employees. The case is being positioned as one that could provide a way for states to limit the scope of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized marriage for same-sex couples nationwide.
Fun Stuff
- A female zebra shark in an Australian aquarium has asexually given birth to live offspring (but I wouldn’t cancel those appointments at the fertility clinic quite yet, gals).