Black LGBT families are an unfortunate rarity in the media, but the Washington Post this week showcased not one, but two, black lesbian couples with kids. Taken together, the stories show that just maybe, we are moving towards several different types of acceptance in this country.
The first couple, Julie Garnier and Charlene Evans, are in an article on the efforts of schools in Washington, D.C., to teach about all types of families, including ones with two moms or two dads. It’s particularly notable because the article isn’t “about” black lesbians per se; Garnier and Evans are just the couple they’ve chosen to focus on. Nice to see that white isn’t always the default, especially when recent demographic work by UCLA’s Williams Institute and others shows that a high percentage of lesbian and gay people, including parents, are in fact people of color.
The second, Jane Ladson and Pat Body, are raising Body’s great-granddaughter, and appear in an article on the struggles of some black women to help their extended families during the economic recession. The article does focus on black families—but this time, it is the fact that Ladson and Body are lesbians that is the “incidental” part of the story. The writers could have chosen an opposite-sex couple just as easily, but didn’t.
It’s great to see these intersecting images of acceptance.
(Thanks to reader Jackie for nudging me to write about these stories in a separate post, rather than waiting for my next roundup.)
I’m happy to hear this. It’s only natural, given DC’s Black majority population including among queers. And given that the DC public schools also have a Black majority, they ought to be seeing Black adult examples.
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