Here’s what’s been happening that I haven’t already posted about, including an inclusive ad from Germany, a classic children’s book author whom you might not know was a gay dad, and more.
Family Profiles
- Check out the adorable and humorous pictures from photographer Juliet Cannici of the two sets of twins she and her wife are raising.
- Rabbi Joel Alter is director of admissions for the rabbinical and cantorial schools at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York—and also a single gay dad to twins. The Jewish Chronicle profiles him.
- Heather Osterman-Davis, whose husband Doug is transgender, explores what extended family means through her story of visiting the dying mother of one of their sperm donors. Beautiful and poignant.
Politics and Law
- Venezuela has issued its first birth certificate with two moms listed as the legal parents of a child.
- A South Dakota Senate committee approved a bill to allow faith-based foster care and adoption agencies to deny child placement to same-sex couples and single parents. It now moves to the full state Senate.
- Over 800 parents of transgender children wrote a letter to President Trump condemning the Justice Department’s announcement that it will no longer try to overturn a district court’s hold on protections for transgender students that were instituted by the Obama administration. The department’s action means the hold stays in place and the protections remain in limbo.
- The child custody case between Janet Jenkins and Lisa Miller has been going on for over a decade (I first reported on it in 2006), and tragically morphed into a kidnapping case. The Southern Poverty Law Center gives us a lengthy examination of “The Kidnapping of Isabella.”
Schools and Education
- Teachers have told children at an Orthodox Jewish school in the U.K. not to communicate with a classmate because she has a transgender parent. A British judge last month also banned the woman from any contact with her children.
Media and Entertainment
- The New Yorker profiles Arnold Lobel, author of the classic “Frog and Toad” children’s series, and a gay dad who came out later in life. His daughter Adrienne says of the series, which began in 1970, “[Frog and Toad are] of the same sex, and they love each other. It was quite ahead of its time in that respect.”
- A new doll from Tonner Doll Company, based on transgender teen and advocate Jazz Jennings, has debuted at the New York Toy Fair.
- In Germany, Deutsche Telekom’s new ad campaign, “Für alle, die Familie sind” (“For all who are family”), features a two-mom couple and their baby as well as drag queens and many other family types. (There’s singing, but no dialog, so even though it’s in German, non-German speakers should be able to enjoy it.)