LGBT Parenting Update

Rockin’ gay dads, another pregnant transgender man, and actual Good News on the political front in a couple of areas this week.

• First, some food for thought: A new study from the always insightful Williams Institute at UCLA found that same-sex couples are “significantly” more likely to be poor than opposite-sex married couples. Even more sobering for readers here: “Children of gay couples are living in poverty at a rate that is twice as much as the children of straight married couples.” There are racial and geographic components, too, with black and/or rural same-sex couples more likely to be poor than white or urban ones. Interestingly, though, same-sex couples are more likely than straight ones to receive government support, since their partners’ income and assets aren’t counted when they are assessed for need.
• The New York City Board of Health voted to allow married lesbian couples to list themselves both as parents on their children’s birth certificates without the non-biological mother needing to adopt. (Keep in mind, of course, that an adoption is still a good idea, as not all jurisdictions will recognize the non-bio mom’s right to be on the birth cert.) Married male couples still need to adopt in order to be legal parents. Keep in mind that the couples still need to travel out of state to get married, a situation I hope will soon change.
• The Minnesota Senate Education Committee passed the “Minnesota Safe Schools for All Bill” to address bullying and harassment in schools. The bill adds sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories, along with “physical characteristics,” and adds an “association with” provision that will protect children of LGBT parents, among others.
• U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan met with GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard and a delegation of students and teachers “to discuss the importance of anti-bullying efforts to the Administration’s education reform agenda. . . . Secretary Duncan affirmed a commitment to make schools safe for every student, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression.”
• Chance Nalley, a teacher in New York City, has invited the the entire seventh grade of his school to his upcoming commitment ceremony. Nalley told the New York Times that the class kept asking if they could attend. He refused until he found a venue big enough, then invited their parents, too. Many of you will recall that a first-grade class that showed up at the wedding of their lesbian teacher in California last year, much to the delight of Prop 8 supporters (and much to the surprise of the teacher, who was not privy to their plans). Will the reaction be different this time, since the kids are older, and it won’t be a legal marriage? Stay tuned. (Thanks to the Gay and Lesbian Leadership SmartBrief.)
• 365gay.com has a video report of the West Virginia case involving a child who has been fostered by two lesbian moms, but whom a court wants to place with an opposite-sex couple.
• A transgender man in Spain goes Thomas Beatie one better and is pregnant with twins.
• “Marriage Equality Strengthens Families” writes Christopher J. Curtis in the Rutland Herald. He should know; his married mother and father divorced and each came out. “Making marriage available to those gay and lesbian families who choose it for the support and well-being of their families will help reduce stigma and broaden acceptance for the children of gay and lesbian parents,” he writes.
• On a related note, “Kids Feel the Impact of Prop 8,” as many of us have said before. The Bay Area Reporter puts out another series of profiles.
• Last, on a lighter note, Bay Windows profiles rockin’ gay dad Derek Nicoletto, front man for the New York-based rock band Telling on Trixie, which is promoting their new album Ugly, Broke & Sober at the South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin, Texas. Not afraid to tell it like it is, Nicoletto says “In 2006 we did the whole spooge in a cup thing and chucked the embryo up the hoochie-cooch and it stuck. Now we have the most wonderful, hilarious baby boy in the world.” He and his spouse DJ Hanson take their son on the road with them. “He’s a rock and roll baby!” he declares. It’s good to see an article on gay dads that’s positive, but not just another paean to LGBT parents in suburbia.