April 2013

From Boston, Thinking of My Family and All Our Families

My thoughts today are with the victims of the Boston Marathon tragedy, their families, and friends. My family and I live outside of Boston, and we consider the city almost as much our home as we do the suburb where our house stands. In college, I proudly joined the Wellesley College “Scream Tunnel” to cheer on the runners. Two days ago, my spouse and I spent the afternoon walking around the city, noting the crowd-control barricades already in place for the race in Copley Square.

The Most Powerful Lesbian Moms in America 2013

Out magazine just published its seventh annual “Power List” of the most powerful gay people in America, which means it’s time for my seventh annual list of The Most Powerful Lesbian Moms in America—as seen, I’m thrilled to say, in the New York Times.

Give OUT to LGBTQ Organizations on May 9

May 9 is the first national Give OUT Day, an event to encourage people to make charitable donations on a single day in support of the LGBTQ community.

Egg and sperm

A Loss for Parents LGBT and Not: IVF Pioneer Robert Edwards Dies

Robert Edwards, one of the pioneers of in vitro fertilization—the procedure to which my spouse Helen and I owe our child—has died at the age of 87. I learned of his death via a lovely eulogic article by Elizabeth Comeau, the first “test-tube baby” born in the United States (in 1981). (Louise Brown of the U.K. was the first in the world, born in 1978.)

LGBTQ Parenting Roundup

LGBT Parenting Roundup

Here’s what’s been going on in the past week or so while we (or at least I) have had our NCAA women’s basketball brackets totally upset:

Help Improve Programs for LGBTQ Families

Our Family Coalition, the San Francisco Bay Area organization for LGBTQ families, is looking to improve their already great programming and advocacy initiatives. They’re asking people to take a short survey (with raffle prizes!) to help them determine the direction of their programs. The survey seems to make the most sense for folks in the Bay

Food and Family Shape Tasty New Memoirs

Not one, but two memoirs by lesbians have come out recently that weave together stories of food, family, and personal growth. Like two dishes at a well-planned meal, each has its own flavor, and they complement each other well. A third new memoir, though not food-related, adds yet another flavor with the tale of a lesbian couple facing the ups and downs of infertility during the height of California’s marriage equality battle.

Finding Dory’s … Moms?

Ellen DeGeneres and Disney/Pixar announced Tuesday that they would be making a sequel to the 2003 hit Finding Nemo, entitled Finding Dory, and starring her character from the original film. Did anyone else’s gaydar start beeping at director Andrew Stanton’s pronounless comment, “One thing we couldn’t stop thinking about was why she was all alone in the ocean on the day she met [Nemo’s dad] Marlin. In Finding Dory, she will be reunited with her loved ones, learning a few things about the meaning of family along the way.” Could it be that Dory has lesbian moms or gay dads?

“Science Led to Gay Families”? Not Exactly

An article for CNN yesterday ran the headline “Science led to gay families: Law should follow.” I’m the last person to argue that our families shouldn’t have equal legal rights—but the headline is overstating science’s role and inadvertently perpetuating a dangerous myth about same-sex parents. The article’s author, Debora L. Spar, is president of Barnard

10 Non-Lesbian Things on My Mind

I’m sometimes afraid that in writing this blog, I give the impression that LGBT issues are all I think about. To counter that, here are 10 things on my mind that have nothing to do with being a lesbian.

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