Lots of good reads (and photos!) as we swing into the end of August, including a big move by the world’s best-selling diaper manufacturer!
Family Profiles
- Part photo essay, part text profile, the New York Times writes about Katie Swanger, who grew up with two moms in a “conservative, mostly white Hartford, Conn., suburb,” but whose family grew to include two Black young men. Swanger, who studied photography at Lesley University, began photographing her family—and the NYT includes many of her images in this piece. Swanger says, “Telling my story is my way of standing up for my family.”
- Lara Lillibridge, whose memoir Girlish: Growing Up in a Lesbian Home
I reviewed in April, has a piece in Ms. titled “Representation Matters—Even When It’s Not of Happy Families.” It’s a must-read that raises some very important points about representation, mental illness, and the stories we tell.
- Lora Liegel at HuffPo writes “I Had To Get A Second Parent Adoption And There’s A Ridiculous Reason Why.”
- King5 News in Seattle profiles Jennifer and Marc Schindler, who married as a lesbian couple, journeyed through Marc’s gender transition, and now are parenting a toddler.
- Gay dad Brent Almond and his family are featured in a new ad from the ACLU on why you should vote.
Family and Business
- Olympic diver Tom Daley spoke with the U.K.’s Independent newspaper about raising a son with his spouse, writer Dustin Lance Black, their relationship with their surrogate, and their new role as ambassadors for Pampers’ new Pure Protection diapers (“nappies”). Yes, that’s right: the world’s best-selling brand of diapers now has two gay dads as its spokespeople. Progress, my friends.
Information and Insight
- WHYY reports on the information sessions for prospective LGBTQ foster parents launched by Philadelphia’s Department for Human Services, the Mayor’s Office of LGBT Affairs and Philadelphia Family Pride. The campaign continues in the face of a ruckus over the city stopping placements from faith-based child service agencies that had refused to place children with LGBTQ parents.
- Lindsay King-Miller writes of “Interrogating Femmephobia As a Queer Parent” at Into. She observes, “So often, what we imagine as neutral simply reveals where our most ingrained assumptions lie. Our defaults aren’t without bias; they’re determined by what we see the most. And in our society, that means masculinity. Femininity is so marked, so alternately fetishized and degraded, that it’s almost never considered neutral.”
- Robbie Samuels, a trans dad, offers some useful advice on “Talking to Kids About Gender Experience, Identity.”
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