Catch up on some additional news, family stories, and more tidbits from here and there—including baby news from an NWSL soccer player, recent court wins, legislative challenges, and new research on LGBTQ youth and social media.
The Personal Is Political
- Jeffrey Bernstein writes at his Substack, Dadnails, about “Parenting While Queer,” the impact that current anti-LGBTQ attitudes and policies are having on his 8-year-old daughter, and “Why Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Isn’t “Woke”—It’s Survival.”
- Mark Smith shares with the Guardian the story of how he, his husband, and their daughter’s mother are co-parenting in Amsterdam, and how Dutch lawmakers have been slow on their promise to provide greater legal recognition for nonbiological parents in families with more than two parents.
Lawsuits and Legislation
- The Iowa Senate has passed a bill that says foster parents would not be required to affirm or accept policies about sexual orientation or gender identity that conflict with their “sincerely held religious or moral beliefs,” and that they can’t be precluded from providing foster care because of those beliefs. LGBTQ advocates worry that this would lead to discrimination against youth in care and permit so-called (and discredited) conversion therapy, as the Des Moines Register reports.
- Four youth and their parents, along with the ACLU of South Carolina, are suing Greenville County, S.C. and the Greenville County Library System’s executive director and youth services manager over the removal and restriction of LGBTQ-inclusive books, reports WSPA. The titles include the picture books Julián is a Mermaid, by Jessica Love, and Red: A Crayon’s Story, by Michael Hall, and the middle-grade title Ana on the Edge, by A.J. Sass. Meanwhile, says the lawsuit, books “that advocate against gender transition” remain on the shelves.
- Two federal courts have blocked the president’s attempt to ban transgender people from the military—an attempt that would have repercussions on both individuals and families, as I explained earlier. Judge Ana Reyes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a Biden appointee, was scathing in her ruling (PDF) for a nationwide preliminary injunction, saying, “The Military Ban is soaked in animus and dripping with pretext. Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact.” Yesterday, Judge Benjamin Hale Settle of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a second nationwide preliminary injunction, stating (PDF), “The government’s arguments are not persuasive, and it is not an especially close question on this record…. Any evidence that such service over the past four years harmed any of the military’s inarguably critical aims would be front and center. But there is none.”
- The current federal administration has rejected Biden-era guidelines around Title IX—guidelines intended to protect LGBTQ students from discrimination, but that also sought to protect pregnant and parenting students of all identities. In its eagerness to remove LGBTQ protections, the current administration is creating even wider hardships, NBC News explains.
Research and Science
- A new study from Hopelab and the Born This Way Foundation, along with a recent academic review by researchers at the Wellesley Centers for Women’s Youth, Media, & Wellbeing Research Lab, show how online spaces and social media can serve as important sources of community and support for LGBTQ youth, although they can also be sources of bullying, harassment, and rejection. But as the WCW reviewers note, “The effects of social media on youths seems dependent on their intersectional identity, and it is suggested that simply suggesting a one-size-fits-all solution such as minimizing social media time is harmful, especially for some LGBTQ+ youth who intentionally create safe spaces online that might not exist offline.” (Disclosure: I used to work for WCW, although not on this project.)
- While human reproduction is often framed as a matter of active sperm swimming to meet a passive egg, the reality is far different. Live Science explains why the female reproductive tract is actually a key, active player. (Bonus tip: Cory Silverberg’s delightful, informative, and all-gender-inclusive picture book What Makes a Baby? incorporates that idea of mutuality by explaining that “When an egg and a sperm meet, they swirl together in a special kind of dance. As they dance, they talk to each other.”)
Soccer Moms
- Team Canada and San Diego Wave soccer/football star Kailen Sheridan and her spouse Dominique Sheridan are expecting a child in September. The couple announced the news on Instagram, where Kailen also posted a video of when she told Team Canada that the team are “going to be aunties.” (Both below; watch the video through for more onesie adorableness.)