As summer winds down this Labor Day, let’s take a look at some of the stories of LGBTQ parents and our children that have been making headlines lately.
Family Stories
- Jenni and Sarah Barrett married and had two kids before Sarah, assigned male at birth, realized she was a woman, and before Jenni realized she was gay. They came out to each other on the same night. Four years later, and they’ve stuck together; their sons support them (one is gay himself); and they’re sharing their story as inspiration to other families experiencing major changes. Some of the media coverage has been a bit sensationalized; LGBTQ Nation’s take is more temperate.
- “Pandemic parenting in a two-mom family means twice the maternal guilt,” writes Sarah Liss in Xtra. “My queer family might have allowed me to avoid an unequal, gendered distribution of labour within our home, but queerness offers no protection against living in a culture that refuses to take care of its youngest, oldest and most vulnerable members.”
- Wei Wei, a professor of sociology at East China Normal University, writes at Sixth Tone about “How Grandkids Are Changing China’s LGBT Family Dynamics.” He says, “For same-sex couples … the new focus on grandkids can create unexpected room for negotiation with their parents, while providing opportunities for new kinds of family relationships.”
- In the Guardian, writer Ben Fergusson talks about adopting a child with his husband and the differences he’s noticed in how society treats mothers and fathers. “Mothers can do everything right, but be told they are doing everything wrong, whereas we are congratulated for doing the bare minimum,” he observes.
- Javier and Amon Seabaugh share with the Dallas Voice their story of becoming parents through adoption.
Politics and Law
- Maricopa County, Arizona, is reversing a policy that was spawned by homophobia. The county provides free legal services to parents doing uncontested adoptions. After marriage equality became law in 2015, however, then-County Attorney Bill Montgomery said same-sex parents weren’t eligible for the free services. Rather than face legal challenges, he moved legal work for any uncontested adoption to outside firms. Current County Attorney Allister Adel is now bringing that work back to her office, saving the county $750,000 a year.
- Canada’s Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino has said the government will now allow nonbiological Canadian parents who are their child’s legal parents at birth to pass down Canadian citizenship to their children born abroad, reports the CBC. (Compare how the U.S. State Department is opposing similar recognition for U.S. parents.)
- A proposed German law would recognize nonbiological mothers in partnerships with the biological mother, without the nonbiological mother having to adopt. Nonbiological fathers in two-dad couples would still have to adopt, however.
- The Washington Blade profiled lesbian mom “power couple” Claire Lucas and Judy Dlugacz, who are working to help elect Joe Biden. Lucas is a senior Democratic National Committee member; Dlugacz is the founder and president of Olivia Travel and co-founder of the groundbreaking Olivia Records, both for queer women.
- Forty-seven percent of employers still require demonstration of infertility among same-sex couples before providing fertility benefits; 45 percent require it among single parents by choice and 55 percent for different-sex couples, reports consulting firm Willis Towers Watson from their “2020 Emerging Trends in Health Care Survey.” Requiring it for same-sex and single parents, who may be medically fertile but still need to use assisted reproduction, is ridiculous. This may slowly be changing, however, as some companies are eliminating the requirement for everyone. (See also my pieces on MassMutual and J.P. Morgan, which have both done so.)
Schools and Education
- As so many of our children head back to school with at least some virtual component, Ty Marshall’s piece at Rethinking Schools on “How Google Classroom Erases Trans Students” is required reading. (Among other things, it should make us realize that improving a school’s LGBTQ friendliness isn’t just a matter of adding LGBTQ-inclusive books to the English and history curricula; there’s a technological component, too.)
- Fan Yiying at Sixth Tone looks at challenges and solutions for same-sex parents and their children heading back to school in China.
Entertainment and Media
- A recent episode of the Disney Channel’s animated series The Owl House confirms that Luz Noceda, its teen protagonist, is Disney’s first bisexual lead character.
- Lizzy Lemieux writes at Lambda Literary about “‘Goodnight Moon’ and the Queer Love Story of the Great Green Room.” Things I didn’t know when I was reading the book to our son!
- And not exactly “entertainment,” but certainly on the lighter side, a same-sex penguin couple in Valencia, Spain, have hatched an adopted egg and become moms.
Research Request
- Cate Desjardins, a Ph.D candidate at the Institute for Clinical Social Work, is seeking participants for their research on “how trans* gestational parents make meaning of gendered experiences during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.