Your weekly medley of LGBT parenting news. (No vlog this week; Helen and I have both been swamped with other work. Please come back for one next Thursday.) Personal stories: Transgender man Thomas Beatie and his wife Nancy welcomed their second child into the world Tuesday. All appear to be doing well. Single mom Judy
Safe Schools After reviewing the suicide of 11-year-old Jaheem Herrara, Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore, a retired Superior Court judge in Fulton County, Georgia, said the boy was “emotionally ruined” by the recent murder of his uncle and the death of his grandmother, and his school was not responsible for his death. The boy’s mother, Masika
Let’s start with a funny: Wanda Sykes is experiencing the . . . plumbing issues . . . that many of us encounter with our male infants. (Via Queerty.) School issues: School officials in Ramona, California, told sixth-grader Natalie Jones that she couldn’t share her independent study project in class like the other students. The
Family stories: SoVo talks with a lesbian and a gay man who each have lesbian moms. It’s a rare look at these “second gen-ers” who are sometimes forgotten in our haste to insist that not all LGBT parents have LGBT kids. On a related note, Brett Berk (who guest posted here last week) discusses how
Our stories told: Author, parent, and transgender woman Jennifer Finney Boylan recently told her story of transitioning in the New York Times’s column, “Modern Love.” Thanks to Family Equality for pointing out the piece. The 2009 Pride and Joy Families Weekend Conference in upstate New York was a big success, according to the Utica Observer-Dispatch.
On parental rights: A Michigan state House committee approved legislation for second-parent adoptions, splitting the vote along party lines. (Do I really need to specify which party voted in favor?) A Montana woman, Barbara Maniaci, is asking the state Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that recognized her former partner as a co-parent
Tragedy: GLSEN reports, “An 11-year-old Massachusetts boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, hung himself Monday [April 6] after enduring bullying at school, including daily taunts of being gay, despite his mother’s weekly pleas to the school to address the problem. This is at least the fourth suicide of a middle-school aged child linked to bullying this year.”
Shirley Tan, the lesbian mom in California who was on the verge of being deported and separated from her partner and twin sons by immigration officials, has been given a two-week reprieve. Congressional sponsors reintroduced the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act, which states that federally funded sex education programs in the nation’s public schools
News about kids, parenting and schools for this week: Not specifically LGBT, but still relevant: Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) reintroduced the Responsible Education about Life (REAL) Act legislation, to authorize federal funding for comprehensive and medically accurate sex education. Transgender youth face even higher levels of victimization in school
The news came fast and furious this week: The good: A Kentucky bill to ban unmarried couples from becoming foster or adoptive parents is effectively dead after not being called for a floor vote this session. Good news. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that the antigay Arizona-based Adoption Profiles, LLC and Adoption Media,
