First, Lawrence King, then Simmie Williams, Jr., gender-nonconforming teens shot to death in the last three weeks. Both shootings appear to be hate crimes. Yet Lawrence King was not the first, as the long list of names honored during the Transgender Day of Remembrance and in the Wikipedia entry for Violence Against LGBT People makes […]
OK, this could be possibly the most awesome moment I’ve seen at the Academy Awards in a long time. Freeheld, the documentary about New Jersey police Lt. Laurel Hester’s fight to receive pension benefits for her partner, Stacie Andree, when Hester was diagnosed with terminal cancer, won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject. It
Helen and I start our vlog this week by explaining the difference between parenthood and lesbian Turkish oil wrestling. Our main topic, however, is storytelling. We discuss the surreal and whimsical works of Caldecott-winning author David Wiesner, which force parents to become storytellers, and recommend a book featuring a boy with two moms that celebrates
Yet another school district has made a fuss over And Tango Makes Three, the book about the chick hatched by two male penguins, and the American Library Association’s Most Challenged Book of 2006. The school superintendent of Loudoun County, Virginia, has instructed county elementary schools to take the book out of general circulation and move
Lawrence King, a 15-year-old eighth grader, was declared brain dead after being shot by a fellow student in what police are calling a hate crime. King was gay and often came to school in feminine clothing and makeup. This churns my stomach. I don’t need to tell readers here of the pervasiveness of anti-LGBT bullying
A few weeks ago, I wrote of the American Library Association’s new Rainbow List of LGBT-themed children’s books. School Library Journal this week has an interview with retired school librarian Nel Ward, the Rainbow Project’s chair. She talks about the process of choosing books for the list, how LGBT books have changed over the past
In our vlog this week, Helen and I wonder if ABC’s Cashmere Mafia has not one, but two, lesbian pregnancies up its oh-so-fashionable (but thankfully turkey-baster-free) sleeve. We also discuss The L Word’s portrayal of an older daughter dealing with a mom’s coming out, the newly domestic Bette Porter, and scary foods from childhood. Finally,
In this season of primaries and The L Word, I can’t help reprising and revising a post from last year: What if the characters on the show ran the U.S. government? We might get something like this:
