Cricket Media Provides Contrast in Kids’ Magazine LGBTQ Inclusion

After an Internet uproar over the past few days over Highlights magazine’s initially weak response to why they haven’t included LGBTQ families in their pages, I reached out to Cricket Media, another long-time behemoth in children’s magazine publishing, to see if they had ever done so. Here’s what they said.

I received the following message from Stephanie Hoaglund of Cricket’s media relations department:

Thank you for the question.  We have indeed shown LGBTQ families and stories.  Our magazines continually feature content that tries to honestly represent the experiences of kids today.

Cicada, our magazine for kids 14+, continually strives to represent teens in the LGBTQ and other underrepresented groups. Cricket Magazine, our magazine for kids 9-14, also has many examples but you can look to the Jan 2005 issue of Cricket [actually, the Jan 2015 issue, per Danny Resner, associate editor of Cricket’s Spider magazine, via his comment below], where we answered a question by one of our young readers recognizing all types of families: (see below [image above —Ed.]) And also included an activity about creating your family tree that recognized all types of families — (see attached file).

These are just a few of the examples where we represent the lives and experiences of kids honestly.

Regards

Stephanie Hoaglund

Beyond the examples Hoaglund mentioned, I found a poem on their online forum for teen writers, the Slam, titled “My mother asked if i was ‘gay.’” In it, the author describes being in love with both a boy and a girl.

I’m fairly pleased by Cricket Media’s LGBTQ inclusion (assuming the above examples are indeed just a few of many), although I would also love to see representation in their titles for younger children, too.

It’s worth noting, too, that Highlights has posted on its website an official statement about LGBTQ inclusion, basically reiterating what Editor-in-Chief Christine French Cully posted on Facebook earlier. The key part, I think is:

We want to reiterate that we believe all families matter. We know that there are many ways to build a family, and that love is the essential “ingredient.” This conversation has helped us see that we can be more reflective of all kinds of families in our publications. We are committed to doing so as we plan future issues.

I hope you’ll continue using the #HighlightLGBTFamilies hashtag launched by author Megan Dowd Lambert to suggest ways Highlights (@Highlights) and other children’s media venues (like Sesame Street, @SesameStreet!) can better include our families. Make sure to thank Cricket (@CricketMediaInc) for being in the forefront here, too (and urge them to do even more—and in their magazines for younger children as well)!