Here are some stories from round and about that I haven’t yet covered, including family profiles and musings on parenthood, legal happenings, a WNBA star and queer mom making a big move, and some tidbits of media and entertainment.
Family Profiles
- Richard Just wrote in the Washington Post about his daughter’s decision to dub her other father “Mommy.” This causes Just to muse about the gendered language around families and parenting and the names we use to describe ourselves. It’s a great piece—and I’ll point out that many of the stories in the Mombian Parental Names Project also reflect a crossing of traditional lines of gender and parental titles.
- Actor Maria Bello and chef Dominique Crenn have gotten married, reports the Advocate. Bello walked down the aisle with her mother and 23-year-old son, and Crenn did so with her two 10-year-old daughters. All of the children are from previous relationships.
- Liz Canada shares with LGBTQ Nation what life has been like for her as a queer stepmom.
- This one could also go in the “Politics and Law” section: NOTUS explores “How Parenthood Changed Pete Buttigieg.” There are lessons here for all of us trying to balance family and career, as well as some thoughts about Buttigieg’s political aspirations.
- Jess deCourcy Hinds writes at Business Insider about how she rethought parental titles and roles after her spouse’s transition. Although she struggled at first, she eventually saw how this opened up more opportunities for freedom and celebration for them all.
Politics and Law
- A former New York City employee and his spouse are suing the city for denying them IVF coverage. Mother Jones reports that the men’s lawyer said the city would provide IVF benefits to any other couples using a surrogate, but not to two men.
- The Southern Pines chapter of PFLAG and Public School Advocates filed a federal Title IX complaint accusing North Carolina’s Moore County school district of discriminating against LGBTQ families by removing materials featuring same-sex parents, per the News & Observer.
- A federal lawsuit was also brought against a Milwaukee Public Schools principal for allegedly physically and verbally abusing a first-grade student for having gay parents, according to Wisconsin Public Radio.
- On a more positive note, Maine Public Radio profiles several queer families who have benefited from the state’s new confirmatory adoption law, which makes it cheaper, easier, and faster to secure the legal parentage of a nongestational parent. (See the guide from GLAD and myself at lgbtqparentage.org for more on why securing parentage is important, even if you are married.)
Business
- Retiring WNBA legend and queer mom Candace Parker has become the president of Adidas women’s basketball. She’s had a long relationship with the brand, but will now be “helping the brand with everything from new product development and branding to deciding which athletes it signs. As Parker says, she’ll be ‘overseeing pretty much everything,'” Fast Company reports.
Media and Entertainment
- If you haven’t yet seen GLAAD’s “Protect This Kid” video, go watch. It’s a pointed rebuttal to right-wing claims that anti-LGBTQ laws are “protecting children.” GLAAD CEO Sarah Kate Ellis, a mom herself, explains at Newsweek that “calls to ‘protect children’ have the opposite impact on LGBTQ young people and children of LGBTQ parents. It’s time to show the world that LGBTQ adults were once children, equally deserving of visibility and protection.”
- Playwright Dave Deveau’s The Papa Penguin Play, inspired by the classic picture book And Tango Makes Three, will be at the at the Waterfront Theatre in Vancouver until June 2. The show is a combination of puppetry, drag, and more, and sounds like a lot of fun, per the coverage in The Stir. Deveau asserts, however, “I’ve worked in theatre for young audiences for about 25 years now, and I have never seen a show that depicts a family like mine”—and while that may be true for him personally, I’ll point out And Then Came Tango, another play based on the same book, which premiered in 2012.