Our stories told:
- Author, parent, and transgender woman Jennifer Finney Boylan recently told her story of transitioning in the New York Times’s column, “Modern Love.” Thanks to Family Equality for pointing out the piece.
- The 2009 Pride and Joy Families Weekend Conference in upstate New York was a big success, according to the Utica Observer-Dispatch. Brian and Steven at Green Dads offer an inside look into their experiences at the event.
- Family Equality points out recent stories featuring LGBT families in Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota papers.
Political and legal issues:
- The Social Security Administration reversed a decision to deny benefits to the children of a disabled gay father. Lambda Legal fought for three years on behalf of the family. Nancy Polikoff has more on the case, including a warning about why adoption decrees still trump parentage orders from a legal standpoint.
- The Florida Supreme Court considered whether a section of the Florida Bar can submit an amicus brief on an adoption case involving gay father Frank Gill (and his partner, I might add, who is absent from the case only to make it more likely their foster children will be legally bound to one of them).
- The Scottish Government will introduce regulations to allow same-sex couples to jointly foster children (and split infinitives).
Education matters:
- University of Colorado at Colorado Springs students voted to impeach the sitting student body president and vice-president, who refused to sign off on funds sought by the LGBT student group for a coming out day project. The students instead elected an openly gay student body president and vice president.
- One can hear the outrage in the headline, “Pupils aged 11 to learn about gay sex.” One might expect this from Britain’s tabloids, but not from the venerable Times. The children won’t be learning about “gay sex,” of course. As the body of the article states, “Compulsory sex and relationships lessons for 11-year-old children are to include classroom discussions on gay unions and civil partnerships.”
- Elsewhere in the U.K., a Christian teacher was suspended after complaining about a training day presentation by a representative of Schools Out, which campaigns against homophobia in education. He said he was “harassed and intimidated — for expressing my religious views.”
- Charles Robbins, Executive Director & CEO of The Trevor Project, and Eliza Byard, Ph.D., Executive Director, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) write in the Salt Lake Tribune about why we need better anti-bullying programs.
- Straight elementary educator and parent Tamy Ojala writes about why she used the LGBT SAFE Schools curriculum in the San Leandro Unified School District and supports its inclusion in the Alameda Unified School District. She notes, “Contrary to this popular belief, the elementary curriculum does not mention “sex” at all. The curriculum consists of wonderful lessons about bullying and what makes a family, and respecting that everyone is different.”