Time for another roundup of what’s happening in LGBTQ parenting that I haven’t written about already! Have a read and catch up.
Family Profiles
- Canadian actor and director Joey Tremblay recounts his and his partner’s trip to parenthood via surrogacy and the seemingly tricky question, “Who’s the mother?“
- Two gay male couples were among those participating in Washington, D.C.’s 32nd annual Adoption Day ceremony, reports the Washington Blade. The new dads finalized their adoptions along with 22 other families at the D.C. Superior Courthouse.
- “My Trans Daughter Is Not a ‘Liberal Ideology,'” writes Amanda Jetté Knox at Chatelaine. When her daughter first started to transition, she says, “I stumbled over my ignorance and made plenty of mistakes, but I eventually grew into someone she considers one of her strongest allies. That’s how it should be. That’s my job.” Knox’s spouse of 18 years later transitioned as well, and Knox observes, “From my uncommon vantage point, I see the difference between the freedom a trans person can experience when they’re able to come out and find support at a young age, versus having to hide that truth well into adulthood.” This is a pointed and powerful piece that also looks at the negative impact of recent anti-trans political moves in Ontario and the United States.
- Same-sex couples now account for one in eight adoptions in England, the highest percentage ever, according to new statistics.
Politics and Law
- Kansas is one of 10 states with a law allowing foster care and adoption agencies to cite religious beliefs as a reason to discriminate against LGBTQ people and others—but Governor-elect Laura Kelly, a Democrat, has said “she will have her staff review how far the state can go to avoid enforcing the law,” says the Associated Press.
- On a related note, Lambda Legal and 75 national and state civil rights, child welfare, and faith organizations submitted a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar urging him not to grant South Carolina’s request for an exemption from federal nondiscrimination law for faith-based, government-funded child welfare providers. The state had asked for the waiver on behalf of Miracle Hill Ministries, one of the state’s largest foster agencies, which explicitly rejects non-Protestant and LGBT people seeking to foster, adopt, or mentor children in its care.
- A federal district court heard oral arguments November 30 in the Trump administration’s effort to dismiss a case brought by Texas spouses Fatma Marouf and Bryn Esplin, who wanted to become foster parents for a refugee child, but were told by the child services agency that they could not apply because their family structure did not “mirror the Holy Family.” Working with Lambda Legal, they sued the agency’s parent organization, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and the funder of its program to place refugee children, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Entertainment
- The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade featured its first-ever same-sex kiss, as the two stars of Broadway’s The Prom musical kissed in character during their cast’s performance. The musical is about a high-school girl in small-town Indiana who wants to take her girlfriend to the prom.
- Netflix’s reboot of She-Ra: Princess of Power will include a major character who has two dads. Those involved with the show aren’t saying much about them, for risk of spoilers, but it seems they will play a significant part in the first season.
- Want to see the entire episode of the CW’s Ready, Set, Pet that I wrote about earlier, featuring a trans parent and her kids? Watch it here.
