LGBTQ family news and stories from hither and yon. Pull up a cup of something and enjoy!
Politics and Law
- Two-mom couples in Ireland are in a “legal quagmire” since even though they can marry and conceive children through assisted reproduction, only the biological mom can be recognized on the birth certificate. Nebraska still has this problem, too. And Ontario. And Arkansas is asking for birth certificate equality to be overturned. (Florida, however, just got with the program.) As one new mom in Ontario put it: “Every new parent feels fraudulent. But it is much harder to feel that way when the law is suggesting you are fraudulent.”
- The European Parliament has said that same-sex parents should have equal rights to parental leave.
- Reverend Canon Mpho Tutu-Van Furth, daughter of South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, has chosen to give up her ministerial duties after the South African Anglican Church said it would revoke her license to preach because she married a woman. Mpho and her spouse Marceline Tutu-Van Furth are parents of four children.
- MomsRising has launched a campaign urging U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Sylvia Burwell, to issue a mandate prohibiting child placement services that receive federal funding from discriminating against children and adults on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression.
- Trinity Academy, a private Christian high school in Wichita, Kansas, is getting flack for its policy that allows it to deny admission or expel students who live in a home that has an LGBT family member and/or promotes LGBT equality.
Family Stories
- Let’s segue from the political stuff by noting that Republican U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and her husband Dexter Lehtinen, a former U.S. attorney, have launched a bilingual campaign in support of transgender rights and expressing love for their transgender son, Rodrigo.
- San Francisco magazine’s Rachel Levin asks, “What’s It Take for Two Women to Get Pregnant Around Here?“
- Katharine Clover writes at She Knows about why choosing a known donor was right for her and her wife.
- Katy Chatel writes at the Washington Post about her intersecting identities as queer and a mom.
- The Root speaks with several same-sex couples and their kids about their families.
- Allegra Hirshman at Mutha Magazine asserts, “Don’t Tell Me My Daughter Is Lucky To Have Two Moms.”
- Finally, if you haven’t yet watched any of the “Living Room Protest” videos by author, performer, and single lesbian mom Staceyann Chin talking with her young daughter Zuri about various aspects of identity, social justice, and human rights, go do so now! Their discussions are both adorable and good models of how to approach such topics with our own kids. (H/t Raising Race Conscious Children.)
