Tomorrow, July 28, marks the start of Family Week, the annual event in Provincetown, Mass. hosted by the Family Equality Council for LGBT families and our children. I won’t be there in person this year, alas, but in honor of the event, I’ll be bringing you two special guest posts next week.
My son loves his stuffed bear in a way that makes me hope that when he’s older, he marries someone he loves just as much. (The bear, I suspect, may be his best man.) I was therefore touched by a heart-warming story in early June about a Boston transit worker who stopped a train in order to rescue a little girl’s stuffed bunny that had fallen onto the tracks. I saw the story on several mainstream news channels, including the NBC Nightly News—but I somehow didn’t make the connection that the family involved was that of lesbian moms Casey and Michelle and their daughter Roozle, whose adventures Casey chronicles at Life with Roozle.
She broke barriers, sonic and otherwise, when she flew into orbit as the first American woman in space. She broke another when she died of pancreatic cancer yesterday, at age 61, and her family let it be known that “Dr. Ride is survived by her partner of 27 years, Tam O’Shaughnessy.”
Florida Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll responded to accusations that she had an affair with a female aide by stating, “Usually black women that look like me don’t engage in relationships like that.” Responses from the LGBT community have been both strong and clever.
LGBT parenting memoirs are few and far between. You’d think any publisher’s marketing and design team would take the time to investigate what’s already been done. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to take drastic measures here and declare a moratorium on LGBT parenting memoir covers with blue gradient backgrounds, all-lowercase white titles, and Ken dolls.
Felix Bermea, his partner Roy, and their four children have been harassed in their hometown of Gilbert, Arizona for almost three months. It started with epithets scrawled on their house and car, led to someone setting their bushes on fire, and has escalated to a home break in and vandalization of the children’s furniture. The children are afraid, and the parents are afraid for them. Now, the Family Equality Council wants to do the family a kindness and send them, free of charge, to the organization’s annual Family Week in Provincetown. But they need our help.
“Mya and Her Moms” is a 10-week video series from CafeMom Studios featuring Florida lesbian moms Lisa and Laura and their eight-year-old daughter Mya. The videos give us a charming look at a lovely family—and the positive depiction of an LGBT family on a mainstream parenting site always has tremendous value. The way the site is positioning the videos, however, is a bit problematic.
A big congratulations to Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the Family Equality Council, her spouse Cheryl Jacques, and their sons Tim and Tom as they welcome little brother Matthew Wade into their family!
My son is turning nine soon, and it frightens me. Nine is perilously close to ten, first of the double digits, rubbing shoulders with that phantasm of every parent’s nightmares, puberty. Nine seems like the last hurrah of young childhood before it gradually starts to give way to the moods, interests, and concerns of an older phase of life.
A new California bill would allow a child to have more than two legal parents, including two lesbian moms and their sperm donor. This may be new for the U.S., but one Canadian province is already leading here.
