Family profiles, parenting advice, political and legal updates, and a big sports section (including some new family announcements)—this roundup has lots of stories and news you won’t want to miss!
Family Creation
- Queer midwife and parent Marea Goodman spoke with The Advocate about “How to choose a midwife if you are a trans or nonbinary parent.” (Here’s my own interview of Goodman from last year.)
Family Profiles
- Brian Rosenberg of GWK Academy shares at LGBTQ Nation the story of Antwon and Nate Chavis’s path to parenthood via foster care and adoption.
- People spoke with NYC-based actress Ella Ruth Francis about growing up with four gay parents: two moms who were her “primary” parents, their donor, and his husband.
- Francis’s Tiktok about her family recently went viral—but her situation is not unique or particularly new, as this recent anthology about lesbian families of the 1980s, 90s, and 2000s shows. Editor Margaret Mooney and her now-spouse Meg Gaines had two different known donors, one gay and one straight, each with a spouse/partner. “In the end, our kids had three dads and three moms!” they write. “Two rubber-meets-the-road parents, but six loving adults.” Still, kudos to Francis for sharing her story and reminding us of the many forms a family can take.
Politics and Law
- The Advocate spoke with Air Force enlistee and trans dad Clayton McCallister, one of 32 plaintiffs in the federal case seeking to overturn the ban on transgender people serving in the military.
- “I’m a gay dad, and I’m furious at Donald Trump for scaring people about Tylenol,” writes Michael Dru Kelley at the Advocate. (I’m a lesbian mom, and I feel the same.)
- A Hong Kong court has ruled that both women in a couple who had a child via reciprocal IVF (one’s womb, the other’s egg) must go on their child’s birth certificate, reports NBC News. Initially, only the gestational mother was placed on the birth certificate. (Here’s what my spouse and I did in our own similar situation of RIVF in New Jersey back in the early aughts.)
Books
- Congratulations to author Kyle Lukoff for having his middle grade novel A World Worth Saving named to the 2025 Longlist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Lukoff’s Too Bright to See was a National Book Award Finalist in 2021 (as well as a Newbery Honoree and a Stonewall Award winner).
Sports
- Canadian Women’s National Soccer Team goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan and wife Dominique Sheridan welcomed a baby girl.
- Retired Australian Women’s National Soccer Team (soccer) member Clare Polkinghorne and spouse Louise Persson announced they are expecting a child next February.
- U.S. Olympic gold medalist and former forward for the PWHL’s Boston Fleet, Amanda Pelkey, retired earlier this month and was just named senior advisor to the general manager for the PWHL expansion team in Seattle. Pelkey and spouse Venla Hovi (herself a two-time Olympic medalist for Finland) welcomed their first child a year ago.
- Two-time Olympic gold medalist and WNBA legend Candace Parker had her jersey retired by the Chicago Sky. The LA Sparks, whom she also played for, retired her jersey earlier this year. Parker and spouse Anna Petrakova, a former Russian national basketball player, are raising three kids. (Bonus fun fact: The only other Sky member to have a jersey retired? Allie Quigley—who is also a queer mom and has a son with teammate Courtney Vandersloot.)
- Australian soccer icon Sam Kerr recently spoke about motherhood in a hilarious reel for her Women’s Super League team, Chelsea. She opined that motherhood is “like having a dog time 100. It’s 100 times harder and it’s 100 times better.”
- New USTA President and gay dad Brian Vahaly spoke with both Outsports and NBC News about his own career, coming out, and his vision for the sport. Although at one point he did not plan to come out publicly, NBC News reported, “six months after he and his partner, Bill Jones, became parents to twin boys via surrogacy, Vahaly had a change of heart.” He elaborated to Outsports, “The driving decision behind my coming out was to share my story in hopes of being a role model to show the type of life my younger self never saw, but always wanted: a life that included being in love, having kids, and all while being an athlete.”
- Olympic gold medalist and USWNT goalkeeper Briana Scurry saw her “bonus son” Andrew off to college.
- Let’s end this roundup with pure joy. Canadian Olympic gold medalist and PWHL Vancouver goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer and spouse Geneviève Lacasse, another Canadian Olympic gold medalist, win the cute-overload prize for this reel with their son: