Let us first take a moment to remember Lawrence King, the eighth grader who was shot and killed two years ago today by another student whom he asked to be his Valentine.
Politics and Law
- The Florida Department of Children and Families agreed to provide state Medicaid insurance, subsidized college tuition, and other benefits to the adopted son of gay Key West resident Wayne LaRue Smith. Smith became the first gay person to adopt in the state, after first fostering the boy and then being named his legal guardian. The DCF did not challenge the adoption, because it came after a legal guardianship, but because of the guardianship, they refused to provide the benefits normally given to children adopted from state care.
- Lesbian moms Angela Alfarache and Ivonne Cervantes are the featured couple in a New York Times story about marriage equality in Mexico City.
Schools and Youth
- The San Francisco school board voted in favor of $120,000 for instruction and services related to gay and lesbian issues. District staff must seek outside funding to cover the costs, but the measure guarantees at least a half-time position and other services, including the tracking of bullying based on sexual orientation.
- Change.org is running a petition asking Montgomery County Schools, near Washington, D.C., to stop allowing “ex-gay” organization Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) to distribute literature to high school students telling them that if they were LGBT or knew someone who identified as LGBT, they could change. (Much as I abhor the thought of such distribution, I wonder whether, from a legal perspective, they could ban PFOX but not PFLAG. Any lawyers want to weigh in? Could the PFOX material be proven fallacious or hateful, for example?)
- After a public hearing, the Tulsa County Union Public School District voted to keep the book Buster’s Sugartime
on library shelves. The book is the print version of the television episode in which rabbit Buster visits a two-mom family at their maple sugar farm in Vermont. The episode caused an outcry a few years ago from President Bush’s Secretary of Education.
Personal Stories
- NPR’s StoryCorps has a wonderful, touching piece in which MJ Seide talks to her granddaughter Genna Alperin about falling in love with her partner, Genna’s other grandmother. Go listen, but have tissues handy.
- Haaretz.com has a good feature on gay and lesbian families in Israel, and in particular, their interactions with schools. (Thanks, Alex!)
- Thomas Beatie, who made headlines two years ago as the first pregnant transgender man many people had ever seen, is now pregnant with a third child for him and his wife Nancy.
- Chicago Now’s Lavender Menace column has a fun piece on “How to Throw a Lesbian Baby Shower“—during the Super Bowl.
Resources
- Trans Youth Family Allies has a very useful set of Frequently Asked Questions about gender variant and transgender youth.
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