Starting a family is always a momentous decision. Doing so as an LGBTQ person often means additional complexities and considerations, especially at a time when our rights and identities are under attack. For those considering parenthood or newly decided on it, here are three things I would emphasize right now.
Being among other queer families can be affirming, reinvigorating, and strengthening for both children of LGBTQ parents and their adults. That’s why I’m happy to help GWK Academy spread the word about their 5th Annual GWK LGBTQ+ Family Spring Break.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision saying that parents have the right to opt out their children before LGBTQ-inclusive books are read in public school classrooms is awful for many reasons. I want to focus here, though, on one that may feel amorphous but that should be at the heart of our response: its attack on queer joy.
Pride Month may be over, but our pride in ourselves, our families, and our communities will be the fuel that keeps us going all year long. Here’s where I’m finding inspiration and mission right now.
“Today’s ruling threatens the very essence of public education,” said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a dissent after the court decided today that parents have the right to opt out their children before LGBTQ-inclusive books are read in public school classrooms.
Twenty years ago today, I published the first post at Mombian. My son was 2 then; last month he graduated from college. I’ve been honored to write about LGBTQ families and to see our community thrive and grow over the past two decades. We face renewed challenges today, but I’ve seen our strength and resilience before.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday to uphold Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender youth. It’s an awful outcome that reveals the hypocrisy of conservatives’ talk about “parental rights”—but trans rights advocates are vowing to keep fighting.
Pride is not just a month, but a feeling—or rather, many feelings, and I am experiencing several of them right now as I mark personal, professional, and communal milestones.
Happy Father’s (or Fathers’) Day to the dads, to all who fill that role, and to all who claim today as their own. Let’s celebrate with a roundup of recent picture books (and one board book) featuring queer dads!
It’s a Pride Month baby for Canadian Olympic gold medalist and Boston Fleet forward Jamie Lee Rattray and her spouse Whitney, who welcomed their first child on June 7.
