This roundup happens to have a particularly international flavor. We may not be able to travel in real life right now, but we can take a virtual trip with LGBTQ families around the world. Join in!
Family Stories
- Brianna Sharpe writes at HuffPo Canada about “How Co-parenting Has Equipped Queer Families To Handle The Coronavirus Pandemic.” She writes, “The resiliency that comes with learning to navigate complex family situations and invent non-traditional ways of doing things is serving multi-household queer families now, during the pandemic.”
- British transgender couple Jake and Hannah Graf are new parents, reports PinkNews. Hannah was formerly the highest-ranking trans officer in the British Army.
- French LGBTQ magazine Komitid interviews Emil, a gay dad who has created “Chez Papa Papou,” what they call “the first YouTube channel in France devoted to same-sex parenting.” (Interview is in French, but you can get the gist with Google Translate.)
- Finally, go read this New York Times profile about a two-woman couple—one 95, the other 101—who survived the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, and the Holocaust, and are now living through COVID-19.
Research
- A survey by the U.K.’s Diva magazine has found that “37% of LGBTQI+ women with children have experienced homophobia from other parents and one in three children of LGBTQI+ parents have experienced homophobia directly.”
Politics and Law
- A two-mom couple in China is caught up in a “first-of-its-kind” court battle over custody of their children. One woman provided eggs for two embryos, and each of them carried one of them. They also married in the U.S., but that marriage is unlikely to be recognized in China, where same-sex couples cannot marry. After the couple’s relationship fell apart, one of the moms took their two toddlers and left. The other mom is suing for custody of the child she carried and visitation rights to the other.
- A French bill that would allow single women and same-sex couples to access third-party assisted reproduction has moved forward, but its future is uncertain (and trans people are disappointingly not included).
- Three years after Finland made it legal for same-sex couples to become adoptive parents, both a two-mom and a two-dad adoptive couple have been confirmed, according to the country’s Sateenkaariperheet, or Rainbow Families Association.
- The Italian Supreme Court has refused to recognize the parentage of two women in two-mom couples who had children via assisted reproduction abroad.
Entertainment
- Actor J. August Richards, who plays a married gay dad on NBC’s Council of Dads, has come out as gay in real life, reports LGBTQ Nation.