Facebook took a positive step forward today by offering users the ability to indicate a gender option other than just female or male. Now one can choose transgender, trans woman, trans man, trans person, intersex, genderqueer, gender fluid, and many other variations — about 50 in all. But the range of choices to indicate family members who are also on Facebook remains traditionally gendered.
This post is all about our kids. First and most practically, COLAGE, the national organization for people with LGBTQ parents, has launched the KidSafe blog, an online safe space “to document the struggles, rewards and experiences that come along with having one or more LGBTQ parent.” Read on to learn more, along with a few additional recent tidbits about those with LGBTQ parents.
For Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, it seemed appropriate to mention two recent Internet postings that highlight issues of race and parenting.
Identity is a funny thing. Sometimes we think we will be known a certain identity, only to find out that is not the case, as a recent encounter with a neighbor reminded me.
If you read just one piece today, make it “Coming Out as a Modern Family,” by actor and activist Maria Bello (ER, Coyote Ugly, The Jane Austen Book Club, Prisoners, and the unfortunately short-lived U.S. version of Prime Suspect, among others). Bello writes in the New York Times about her relationship with another woman, coming out to her son, and why she refuses to put a label on her love.
Today marks the 15th International Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. My thoughts today are with all of the transgender community, their parents, children, and friends.
Jehanne McCullough is 17, a senior at the Maryland School for the Deaf, and has two moms. She recently gave a presentation at the 2013 Jr. NAD (National Association of the Deaf) Conference, in which she discusses her moms and what schools can do to be more inclusive of children with same-sex parents. Watch the video below.
Next Wednesday (Nov. 20), the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) will premiere the documentary “Growing Up Gayby,” which follows a filmmaker with lesbian moms as she herself interviews “a slew of ‘gaybies’” and right-wing pundits “in an attempt to make sense of what ‘family’ is in the 21st century.”
I have a new post up at HuffPo that I hope you’ll pop over and read (and please “Like” it over there if you enjoy it): “In the Sandbox.” It’s a revised version of an old piece from when my son was younger, describing the first time another child asked him, “Where’s your dad?”
Taking a selfie today isn’t narcissistic. For the third year in a row, The Advocate is compiling photos depicting “A Day in LGBT America,” and they want people to take and share their pictures. Let’s make sure lots of us parents participate! Here’s how.
