Charting LGBTQ Parenting Through Memoir and Research
Three new books variously offer insight, inspiration, and social science rigor as they chart the contours of queer parents’ lives.
Books for Parents
Announcing the Mombian Database of LGBTQ Family Books, Media, and More
I am thrilled to reveal a project I’ve been working on for months (and in some ways, years): the Mombian Database of LGBTQ Family Books, Media, and More: over 500 books, music albums, movies, games, and toys for and about LGBTQ families. This is not just a booklist: you can search and filter by categories, tags, and more. Want board books with queer dads? Picture books starring Black transgender girls? Memoirs by queer moms about adoption? You can find them, among many other combinations!
“What’s in a Name?” Anthology Gives Voice to Nonbiological Queer Parents
A must-read new anthology about queer women and nonbinary people who are nonbiological and nongestational parents looks at their paths to parenthood, their experiences as parents, and the evolving meanings of what it is to be a mother.
“If These Ovaries Could Talk” Book Brings Podcast Humor and Insight to LGBTQ Family Making
A new book by the hosts of a popular podcast captures the lively spirit of the show and the insights of their many guests as it explores LGBTQ family making.
A Lesbian Mom’s Memoir of Cancer and Life
A new memoir by a lesbian mom interweaves the strands of her life from San Francisco in the 1960s through teaching, law school, coming out, starting a family, and surviving two types of cancer.
Books for Children and Adults About LGBTQ Adoptive Families
November is National Adoption Month, so let’s kick it off with a look at some of the books for children and adults—storybooks, memoirs, and social science studies—that feature LGBTQ adoptive families.
Divorce, Reproductive Losses, and Other Queer “Failures”
When the first same-sex couple to marry legally in the United States, Hillary and Julie Goodridge, was feeling stressed from public attention, they didn’t want to seek couples’ counseling. Julie told NPR this past May, “It felt like too much of a risk.” They divorced a few years later. Their daughter Annie, who was 10 at the time, said in retrospect, “I felt like our family let everyone down.” Their situation highlights a long-time problem for the LGBTQ community and other marginalized groups: the pressure to be perfect. Two new books, however, each look at topics often associated with failure—relationship break-ups and reproductive losses—in order to help LGBTQ people and our children better navigate them.
Fertility Expert and Lesbian Mom Pens New Book on Assisted Reproduction
When my spouse and I first tried to start our family 17 years ago, we searched vainly for a book on assisted reproduction that was both authoritative and inclusive. There were queer parenting books, to be sure, but they covered such a range of topics that details of the actual babymaking processes and procedures were somewhat scanty. There were more detailed guides, but they omitted families like ours. A new book by a fertility expert—who also happens to be a lesbian mom herself—is just the book we would have hoped to have.
A New Book Explores Genes, Choice, and Donor Kin
Many queer families, including my own, began with one parent’s eggs and donor sperm—and donor conception is also an option for many single parents and non-queer fertility-challenged couples. But the sperm of a single anonymous donor may be used to create children for numerous families—and many of these them are connecting to create new networks of kinship that sit at the intersection of chosen and genetic family. A thoughtful new book explores how these networks have evolved and the benefits and challenges for children and parents in them.
Zach Wahls and the Values His Moms Taught Him
Zach Wahls made history last week as the first known person with LGBTQ parents to be elected to a state legislature, gaining a seat in the Iowa Senate. Six years ago, though, he wrote a book about his two moms—and I wrote a review, published elsewhere, that I never posted on this blog in full. Here it is, with an addendum.