LGBT Parenting Roundup

• Adoption, LGBTQ Parenting Roundup • lisa cholodenko, the kids are all right, transgender, williams institute

Happy Monday, everyone! Here’s a roundup of what’s been going on in the news about LGBT parents.

Schools and Education

  • Joanne Herman asks, “Should we introduce children to the concept of transgender people?” and answers definitely “yes,” noting (among other things) a paper published in the December 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed Graduate Journal of Social Science.
  • Alex Blaze at Bilerico discusses a British initiative to include lessons about LGBT history in schools at all levels. Aside from the LGBT content, I think this is a great example of weaving in relevant current events while also teaching “core subjects” like math and language. The plan was developed by the Training and Development Agency for Schools, an education quango (that is, a public-private partnership—but it’s more fun to say “quango”).
  • The government of New South Wales, Australia, will be launching a AU$250,000 program to tackle homophobia in high schools.
  • The Boston archdiocese has issued a new admissions policy for parochial schools, after one school last May withdrew its acceptance of a child because he has lesbian moms. The new policy says schools will not “discriminate against or exclude any categories of students” but parents must accept that Catholic teachings are part of the curriculum.

Family Creation

Law and Politics

  • A federal circuit court heard arguments in a case that asks whether states must recognize adoptions by same-sex parents from other states—my piece on this for Keen News Service.
  • Two Utah legislators plan to introduce a bill to allow second-parent adoptions in the state.
  • Brazil’s national association of doctors has changed its rules so that same-sex couples and single people may qualify for in vitro fertilization.
  • An Australian court granted parental rights to the nonbiological father in a gay Australian couple who used a gestational surrogate in India.
  • The Connecticut Supreme Court said a gay male couple who used a gestational surrogate are both the legal parents, and may both go on the birth certificate.

Family Profiles and Demographics

  • Canada’s Troy Media has a nice little piece on gay and lesbian parents.
  • I think it’s a good sign that cities are beginning to brag that they rank near the top for places with same-sex families.
  • Following on the study that shows same-sex parents are more common in the south than elsewhere, Equality South Carolina has released the preliminary results of a study of over 1,000 of the estimated 117,000 LGBT people living in the State. Parents comprise 23 percent of respondents; 31 percent of transgender South Carolinians are parents.

Entertainment

  • The Kids Are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko’s film about two lesbian moms, their kids, and their sperm donor, was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actress (Annette Bening), Best Supporting Actor (Mark Ruffalo), and Best Screenplay (Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg). Bening also won a Golden Globe for Best Actress for her performance. The New York Times has a nice interview with her.
  • Long-running British drama EastEnders will have a surrogacy plotline involving a gay couple.
  • After Ellen’s Trish Bendix penned a good piece for AlterNet asking why all the lesbians on TV are always pregnant? It’s a question I’ve asked, too—and more specifically, when are we going to get away from the tired old “search for a sperm donor” schtick?
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