Jenny Durkan, the U.S. attorney for Western Washington, is the first openly LGBT U.S. attorney and also a mom. She’s rumored to be a possible choice for the next U.S. attorney general now that Eric Holder is stepping down — but another likely nominee is the supportive father of a lesbian daughter.
Winners of MacArthur “genius grants” this year include Mary Bonauto, a leading attorney in the fight for marriage equality, who is also raising two 12-year-old girls with her spouse, and cartoonist Alison Bechdel, whose dad was gay and who, through her Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip, gave many of us our first look at lesbian moms.
It’s official. As rumored last week, President Obama has named Megan Smith, a Google executive and lesbian mom, to the post of Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. I consider it a good thing if I remember to backup my computer regularly. Now here’s a lesbian mom heading technology efforts for our whole country. I’m trying not to feel like a slacker.
Megan Smith, a vice president at the secretive Google X lab, is a leading candidate for becoming the U.S.’s Chief Technology Officer. She’s also a lesbian mom.
I didn’t want to let the day pass without an acknowledgment of the historic signing by President Obama of an executive order to ban federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The order also added “gender identity” to an executive order of President Clinton that banned discrimination against federal employees on the basis of sexual orientation. Today’s order will directly benefit many LGBTQ people and their families — but it isn’t enough.
Think you’re a soccer mom? Casey Stoney, who captained England’s football (soccer) team in the last Olympics, is expecting twins with her partner Megan Harris, who was also a professional player. Now THEY are going to be soccer moms.
MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, who has a new baby, spoke recently with ThinkProgress about motherhood and the need for better policies for working parents. As usual, she says a lot of on-target, sensible things — but I have to amend her on one point.
Heading to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Creating Change conference in Houston, Texas brought with it a host of questions.
The U.S. Department of Labor has issued new guidance that confirms married same-sex couples are now eligible for the same leave as married different-sex couples under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). That’s one of the very concrete Good Things to happen since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on DOMA — although I’d argue that all committed couples should be eligible, married or not. Unmarried same-sex parents should note, however, that they still have some rights under FMLA.
Yesterday, ExxonMobil shareholders for the 14th year in a row rejected a resolution to add sexual orientation and gender identity and expression to the company’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy—a policy that had been in place in the Mobil corporation before its merger with Exxon. And in a test conducted by LGBT group Freedom to Work, the company called back a less-qualified applicant over a more-qualified one, with the main difference in their resumes being that the latter volunteered with an LGBT-rights organization. So where will you fill up to take the kids to soccer practice?
