Personal stories, political news, entertainment tidbits, and more that I haven’t covered elsewhere! A buffet for your reading pleasure!
Family Profiles
- “I am the African American adopted child of two white lesbian moms, and when I was a child, I was often afraid for us,” writes Tony Hynes in a piece at Catapult on “Why We Shouldn’t Call Adoptees ‘Lucky.’” He explains, “When we insinuate that an adoptee is lucky, we often invalidate the unique challenges they continue to experience after being adopted, and paint adoptive parents as saviors—when in fact they are simply parents, good and bad and wonderful and flawed as any parent can be. When we point to adoptees as lucky, we may also fail to look for ways to change systems that contribute to the trauma-inducing situations too many children and families experience. ” It’s a tale of the systemic ills of homophobia and racism and how they can have very personal effects. A must-read.
- “I’m a transgender parent in Trump’s America. This is what it’s like,” writes Casey Brown, whom some of you may know from their blog, in the Independent. “I’m not just telling my child to be herself — I’m actually showing her what that looks like.” Another must-read.
- Kara Swisher is “Arguably the most feared and respected tech journalist in the business.” She’s also a lesbian mom, and chronicled motherhood with her first two sons several years ago at HuffPo. She spoke recently with The Cut about her career, ambitions, and having a baby with her new girlfriend at age 56. (Also, while it has nothing to do with parenthood, Swisher’s interview with soccer superstar Megan Rapinoe is just a bundle of lesbian goodness packed into a podcast.)
- KaeLyn Rich, a “35-year-old (femme)nist activist, word nerd, and queer mama,” writes at Autostraddle about defining her own “Mommy Style Profile.”
- KaeLyn also profiles several other couples in “How These Lesbian Couples Decided to Get Pregnant.”
- Cara Gormally at Mutha Magazine gives us “Beyond the Turkey Baster: A Queer Mom Dishes on Donor Sperm,” a chapter from her upcoming graphic memoir Science, Luck & Love: How Two Moms Made a Baby.
- Atlanta attorney Lawrie Demorest was once co-chair of HRC’s board of directors and fought for her relationship to a same-sex partner to be treated as a marriage. Now, her former partner Lee Kyser has filed a Complaint for Divorce, and Demorest is asserting their 20-year relationship was never a marriage after all, despite having a ceremony (albeit before they could legally wed) and adopting two kids together. It’s an ugly story and the legalities (to my non-lawyer mind) are unclear, involving a short window when the state of Georgia permitted common law marriage. Regardless, it’s a sobering tale.
Education
- BBC News explores “Why gay dads worry about starting primary school” (more accurately, why they worry about their kids’ starting it) and how an upcoming new, LGBTQ-inclusive relationship and sex curriculum will help students learn about different types of families, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
- On a similar note, David Minerva Clover writes in the Washington Post that “For queer families, back-to-school time is especially fraught.” (Here are some resources that can help.)
Politics and Law
- Two-dad couples around the world receive less parenting leave than two-mom or different-sex couples, according to a study from UCLA, published in the Journal of Social Policy. The researchers found that, on average, straight parents in the 33 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) get five months more parental leave than male same-sex parents. Two-dad couples got the same number of weeks off as couples in just 12 percent of the countries. Two-mom couples got the same time off in just under 60 percent of them. The lead author attributed the lack of leave for male couples to gender stereotypes.
- Serbia’s health minister has banned LGBTQ people from donating eggs for assisted reproduction, a move seen as a response to the country’s lesbian primary minister, Ana Brnabic, having a child through the same means.
Media and Entertainment
- The heroine of Netflix’s The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance has two dads.
- A yet-unnamed character in the upcoming Marvel’s Eternals movie is a queer dad. Marvel Studios co-president Kevin Feige has said of the character, “He’s married, he’s got a family, and that’s just part of who he is.”
- Marvel Studios is also in the early stages of development for Miss America, a teen superhero series about the lesbian, Latina comic book hero America Chavez.
- Country singer and lesbian mom Chely Wright spoke with Rolling Stone about coming out and coming back to play at the Grand Ole Opry.