A story of adoption, a business offering expanded family benefits to all employees, progress for same-sex parents in Italy, and more! Read on.
Family Stories
- For your thoughtful, inspirational read of the week, check out Cheryl Klein’s “Early and Often: An Adoption Story in Circles,” at Mutha Magazine, whether you’re part of an adoptive family like hers or not.
- Trystan Reese, whom many may know through the profile of him and his spouse Biff Chaplow as the Accidental Gay Parents on The Longest Shortest Time podcast, shares with Cosmopolitan “How To Talk To A Trans Parent About Their Pregnancy.”
Politics and Law
- Three more states—Kansas, Oklahoma, and Colorado—are considering bills that would give religious exemptions to those wishing to discriminate against LGBTQ prospective parents, LGBTQ youth, and others, the Daily Beast relates. This is on top of seven states that do so already, as I’ve written here before.
- Three same-sex couples in Turin, Italy, became the first in the country to be officially recognized on their children’s birth certificates. One mom had previously been told that “no form exists” to recognize a child born to two moms, and that she should say she had the baby with a man.
- A new bill in Malta would allow IVF for same-sex couples and single women, and raise the eligible age to 48 from 43 (although those over 43 must use eggs from a younger person). Children born through embryo donation, once they turn 16, would have the right to know the identity of their donor parents. Legislators are stuck, however, on a proposed amendment that would allow embryo freezing, with excess embryos put up for adoption. The Nationalist party leader has said that terminating frozen embryos amounts to genocide.
Good Business
- Cosmetics giant Estée Lauder will soon give employees in the U.S. an expanded family benefits package, regardless of sex, gender, and sexual orientation, including 20 weeks paid leave for those who have, foster, or adopt a child, with an additional an additional six to eight weeks for those who “conceived of that child themselves,” reports Business Insider (Although presumably Business Insider means just “conceived,” not “conceived of”—and “give birth to” is probably more accurate in any case, for those of us who bore a child but needed outside assistance for the conception.) The company will also offer up to $10,000 for adoption fees, $20,000 for fertility treatments, and reduced rates for child or elder care.