At a time when our community is already grieving too many of its young people, here is another story to break your heart. Frankie Valencia, Jr. was randomly shot by a gang member in Chicago last fall. As if that wasn’t tragic enough, his non-biological mother, Siu Moy, was fired from her job after his […]
Bullying is on everyone’s mind this week. I’ve been covering some of the recent happenings for Keen News Service: “Fed grants awarded to begin addressing bullying and safe schools,” coverage of some moves the federal government is making to address the problem, based on my interview with Kevin Jennings, Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office
I’m preempting my Weekly Political Roundup this week as our community grapples with the recent string of bullying-related suicides. Here’s Ellen on the subject—well worth watching if you haven’t yet. Afterwards, go check out columnist Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” project, a collection of YouTube videos with messages of hope for LGBTQ youth. May we
Gender Spectrum, which “provides education, training and support to help create a gender sensitive and inclusive environment for all children and teens,” has launched a beautiful new Web site with a ton of information and resources. Parents of transgender or gender-variant children will find the site (and organization) of particular interest, but other parents and
I’m very pleased today to publish a guest post by J.A. Madrone, who also posts at Our Big Gayborhood. Please enjoy! On Being Tolerated By J.A. Madrone My ear cocked back when I heard the kids in my carpool group all talking in the back seat on the way home from school that day. “Jane
Go read “Beyond the straight and narrow” by Australian lesbian mom Jaqueline Tomlins, about how she and her seven-year-old handled schoolyard teasing about their family. It’s one of the most thoughtful pieces on the topic that I’ve read—and I’ve read quite a few. (Written some myself, in fact.) Happy Monday!
I’m very pleased today to bring you a guest post by Lori Hahn, who has blogged at Hahn at Home for several years, and is now also a co-editor of the new GLBT blog Our Big Gayborhood. Lori writes below of teen sexuality—an area in which I have no expertise as a parent. I’m grateful
Today is World AIDS Day. AIDS has impacted many people we know and many communities of which we are part. Since this is a parenting blog, however, I want to do what I have done in previous years, and highlight some recent statistics about AIDS and children. The numbers, of course, don’t capture the personal
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. I haven’t posted much about it because I tend to take a skeptical view of the pink bandwagon that gets rolling this time of year. Nothing wrong with raising awareness and money, but some breast cancer survivors feel companies are trying to exploit them and pretty up what is
I’m judicious in my posting of press releases, especially about purely local events (otherwise, I’d do nothing but post press releases), but this one is in a major city and runs for several months, so I’m passing it along. I know nothing about the organization or their programs, but they have a good group of
