Blogging for LGBT Families Day: Contributed Posts

• Blogging for LGBT Families Day 2007 • 65 Comments

Blogging for LGBT Families Day 2007Total count is 150 contributed posts, plus a few others on private blogs that I couldn’t access. Thanks to all who took part!

Today is the second annual Blogging for LGBT Families Day, a time for the LGBT community and our allies to come together in support of our families. Below is the list of contributed blog posts so far. I will be updating the list every few hours throughout the day, so stop back often.

To contribute, send an e-mail to lgbtfamilies@mombian.com or leave a comment with a link to your post.

Thanks to everyone who contributed already. I wish I could thank each of you personally, but sheer numbers make that doubtful.

Many thanks to the Family Pride Coalition for their sponsorship, and to COLAGE and Mike Rogers of PageOneQ, among many others, for help in promoting the event.

List is getting too long, so I’m taking it off the front page:

65 thoughts on “Blogging for LGBT Families Day: Contributed Posts”

  2. ann adams

    Here is my post. Let’s see if I managed to get the link right.

    I posted it on Is America Burning instead of “granny” because it’s the political blog. Hope that’s okay.

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  22. Freewomyn

    We’ve got a post about the governor of New Hampshire signing civil unions into law. I saw go New Hampshire, but I believe that ALL forms of LGBTQ families deserve equality, whether people choose to get married or not.

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  28. Polly

    Ooopsie! Worlds longest “pingback” quote thingie. I’m out of town (way, way out of town; other side of the country out of town), so it took me a hair longer than usual to get today’s dittie up. Thanks, Dana, for throwing such a great party (and Family Pride, for supporting it)!

  29. Casey

    My blog is all about my family. I try to post every single day and mostly just ramble on about the joys and frustration of being a mom to two small children and the partner of a 3rd year law student.

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  52. Caroline

    Copied from a Facebook note:

    I’m sure a lot of you have heard my incessant rants about COLAGE and Family Week, but it’s become such a huge part of my life and my support system. It’s hard to understand, unless you actually have queer parents what it’s like to be a part of such an amazing and dynamic community.
    COLAGE is such an important community in my life, we are a group of people who arre spread all over the world, and although we don’t all know eachother, we share common ground and the COLAGE community. It’s refreshing to think that I am a part of a huge worldwide community that shares many experiences.

    I think the instant bonding that is ever-evident with COLAGErs stems from the incredibly unique and common experience we each have. Although barriers of race, economic class, geographic location and age are certainly evident in COLAGE communities, we all know what it’s like to be under constant scrutiny from members of our own communities and others. Children of queer families are truly the center of one of the most controversial issues in America today. We are the ones being scrutinized by both advocates for and opponents of gay marriage . The religious right hopes to find problems in children raised by gay parents, while socially liberal groups try to prove that no such problems exist.

    Being a child of LGBT parents is truly a unique experience. We

    o Are at the center of a huge political debate,
    o Are a part of two different worlds that don’t quite mix
    o Feel presssure to be “perfect” to legitimize our families, and
    o Witness the federal government taking rights away from our families and friends’ families

    Many children of queer parents know these experiences, yet few people outside that community could even begin to understand them. We truly come from backgrounds that shape who we are.

    I’m so glad to have found COLAGE in the past few years. The amazing people that I have met at family week and through COLAGE Boston have truly inspired me and forced me to rethink my beliefs about culture and identity. Being a part of the COLAGE community has been enlightening, frustrating, confusing and wonderful. Since meeting so many fabulous queerspawn, my life has only been fuller.Thanks.

  53. Heliana

    I don’t remember when I first learned that the Mexican-chocolate shade of my father’s skin made him an “other/outsider,” pero yo recuerdo at age 5, preferring his warm brown over my Mom’s white (and when cold, quasi-blue) complexion (harsh, cruel? I was only 5! I obviously hadn’t learned about about racialized beauty standards yet.). I also remember at age 12, experiencing great fear, confusion and anger when Dad came out, because by then, I’d learned that LGBT folks are harassed and beaten in the US. I remember being somewhat aware of the risk at that age since I’d already begun to closet my own emerging queeriosity. I also remember being furious in my twenties when he was in the hospital preparing for surgery and I had to find a witness to sign for his partner’s ability to make medical decisions for him in the event of an emergency- which meant that in addition to explaining the circumstances of their relationship I also had to worry about potential racial prejudice and homophobia among strangers I approached for signatures.

    My fears about my father’s (and thus my own) safety at the intersections of race and sexual orientation in Amerikkka came to life one day in an empty bank parking lot. Not more than 14 years old, I sat frozen in the family van as I watched a rowdy group of skin heads approach my father, standing alone at the ATM. I’ll always remember wondering if these young white thugs were going to attack him first because he’s brown or because he’s gay (after all, thousands of Mexicans were lynched throughout California and the US within the last two generations and Mexicano/Chicano youth and adults were beaten and raped by U.S. military personnel in the streets and movie theaters of San Diego in the Zoot Suit Riots of the 1940’s). Gracias a La Virgencita, there was no violence that day at the bank, a veritable miracle given the disproportionate rates of bashings and murders of LGBT people of color in this country.

    With the media’s limited attention on queer hate crimes focused almost exclusively on white gay and lesbian victims its easy to miss the double danger of having both melanin and same-gender loving attraction (well, easy to miss maybe if you’re white or a person of color who’s privileged or self-hating enough to believe that racism no longer exists in this country). It even seems that the only LGBT organizations discussing the increased risk of violence against LGBT people of color are transgender organizations and LGBT organizations of color. Mira, the racism in LGBT communities colludes with and confounds bigotry against nosotros y nuestras familias from straight society. That said, special recognition should also be made to transgender ally-organizations who are doing the work that others have yet to begin.

    While it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that queer people of color are at highest risk of bias-related violence in the US, our government is not trying very hard to get the full picture or address the situation. The Uniform Crime Reporting Program’s most recently published Hate Crimes Statistics (2005) do not include racial breakdowns of hate crime victims based on sexual orientation, in fact they’re so bad they don’t even include a category of crimes motivated by transphobia! Que, que? The failure to document hate crimes based on gender identity is particularly appalling given the fact that transgender people of color suffer the most from queer-based hate crimes. Special mention should also be made of the striking irony that transgender women of color were at the very forefront of the revolt against the police at Stonewall, it was from their beer bottles and clenched manicured fists that the U.S. LGBT Movement was born (how grateful we should be to these sisters!).

    Thinking, I mean really thinking about hate crimes is horrific in and of itself, but having to think about it as the child of an LGBT parent can have significant impacts on mental health (kids of color living in areas where racism is lethal also understand the impact of fearing for their parents’ safety such as in Latino communities currently being terrorized by immigration raids). Unfortunately, there are very few resources specifically targeting the unique effects of homophobia on children of LGBT parents not just in terms of fearing for our parent’s safety, but also when we become the targets of homophobia (regardless of our own sexual orientation). Whether its taunting kids on the playground or journalists and researchers who scrutinize and dissect us to then represent us as psychologically or sexually damaged progeny of immoral unions (rest in peace Jerry Falwell), kids of queer parents like LGBT people of color, are caught in the middle of society’s own psychosis of homophobia, heterosexism, transphobia and racism. Digame Tio Sam, quien esta el enfermo?/Tell me Uncle Sam, who’s the sick one? And if you really want to get real about it, 5 minutes spent with veterans who’ve seen combat or people who’ve survived serious prison time will confirm that anyone who experiences extreme trauma and extended periods of stress from threat of trauma, will likely suffer some effect to their mental health….so of course in situations of violent homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and/or racism some, but not all children of LGBT parents will experience mental health issues like depression or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. What is also demonstrated by research but not widely discussed is that kids of LGBT parents are no more likely to suffer from mental health issues, be gay or lead an immoral life style than children raised by heterosexual parents, however we do tend be more resilient, open minded and politically liberal to radical (hmmm…not so bad in my book).

    In participation with the first National LGBT Family Blogging Day, I am writing this piece for COLAGE’s (Children of Lesbian and Gays Everywhere) 2007 Speak Out Campaign. While there are few resources addressing homophobia as it affects children of LGBT families, COLAGE is the only organization providing leadership development, social space and media skills building specifically for kids of queer parents. As a member of the COLAGE community, I have benefitted immensely from the empowerment and transformation that happens when Queer Spawn gather together in play, community organizing and advocacy for social and familial equity. I hope this piece helps other children of LGBT families find their way home to us, where they will learn they are not alone and develop new skills to survive and flourish in a society based/built/maintained on prejudice, oppression and violence. The invitation is always open to join us in our work to realize the promise of the American Dream for all of our families and at the very least, the ability to live without fear of violence (is that really “special treatment” or so much to ask?). Children of LGBT families who are new to COLAGE find us to be a thriving and vibrant community with a great history of and current projects and programs dedicated to social change (well when you really stop to think about it, what else would you expect from the kids of politicized queer folk?).

    p.s. the opinions in this piece may or may not reflect COLAGE, COLAGErs or anyone else on the planet, however I gladly take sole responsibility for its content and do not intend to represent anyone but myself.

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  59. Jennifer

    Hey everybody.. I cant believe what i just read. It is unbelievably outraging. Its aHUGE EMBARRASSMENT for HRC , it turns out thatTim Downing the HRC board director is representing the birth mother in a lawsuit and denying the non biological mother visitation rights. That is a huge slap in the face. He needs to be removed from office there. We do not, and i repeat DO NOT need somebody like that in a high ranking position. Here is a link to the actual article is anybody is interested:

    http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/stories07/may/0504075.htm

    It is my hope that you will speak out with me by emailing HRC about this.

    hrc@hrc.org

    thanks

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