A Year of Change
My spouse and I recently picked up our son from his first year at college to bring him home for our family Thanksgiving. It reminded me yet again how quickly time flies.
Family Profiles
LGBTQ Parenting Roundup
Pull up a chair and check out some of these great recent stories about LGBTQ families, including ones on donor kin, becoming a parent at an older age, and sharing household responsibilities!
HBO’s “Nuclear Family”: A Landmark Lesbian Parentage Case and a Daughter’s Search for Understanding
It is many a queer parent’s nightmare: your child’s sperm donor sues for paternity. When it happened to Robin Young and Sandy Russo in 1991, it precipitated a landmark four-year court battle that indelibly marked 9-year-old Ry Russo-Young and her 11-year-old sister Cade. Yet Ry, now an award-winning filmmaker, had never really been able to process her feelings about what happened. Her attempt to do so, and to understand the other side of the story, led her to create Nuclear Family, a three-part documentary that premieres this Sunday on HBO.
What the Buttigiegs’ Parenthood Means for All of Us
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten have become parents. This puts them among the highest-visibility LGBTQ parents in the country, and that visibility has the potential to help further the acceptance of LGBTQ parents as a whole. They cannot, however, do this alone.
Basketball Babies
Some of the most exciting recent LGBTQ parenting news is that not one but two queer couples in women’s pro basketball are expanding their families! Watch a short film about one couple’s experience and see photos here.
Looking into the Empty Nest
My spouse Helen and I drove our son to start his first year of college this week. He’s eager to begin his new adventures; Helen and I went through a few tissues on the way home. Here are a few thoughts on becoming an empty nester.
Watch: Two Moms on Their Civil Union, Marriage, and Family
Fran and Anna Simon were the first same-sex couple in Colorado to get a civil union in 2013 and the first in Denver to get a marriage license in 2014. For Pride, they spoke with the City of Denver’s “I Am Denver” project about their family, their activism, and the protections LGBTQ families still need. Watch the video here.
“How We Do Family” Is a Memoir and Parenting Guide for All
Part memoir and part parenting guide, the new book by diversity educator and speaker Trystan Reese manages to tell a story that is specific to his experience as a gay, transgender dad, while offering universal advice on parenting, relationships, and more.
Double Pride
This Pride Month, I am feeling a double sort of pride: Pride at being part of the LGBTQ community and pride in my son as he graduates from high school.
The Task Force’s Kierra Johnson on Motherhood and More
Kierra Johnson, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, is also the mother of three. She spoke with me for Mother’s Day about her experiences as a parent in “a big fat queer blended family,” her advice for other queer parents, and how being a parent has impacted her work.
