Forty-one-year-old mother Dara Torres won two silver medals last night, bringing her count to three for the Beijing Games. Her first was in the Women’s 50m Freestyle, where she missed gold by one one-hundredth of a second. The second was in the 4×100 Medley Relay, where she anchored the team and closed, but did not […]
A few weeks ago I reported on the first challenge to Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, a children’s book featuring two gay guinea pigs who marry. Today, library director James LaRue, who wrote a sensitive, balanced response to the initial challenge, reports that a second patron has challenged the book and asked for its removal from the
Helen and I have been watching the Olympics all night. Dara Torres just won her heat in the Women’s 50m freestyle. Before the race, she went over and spoke with one of the officials, an action that puzzled the announcers until they realized she was asking them to hold the race so Swedish competitor Therese
Many LGBT advocates are praising this year’s Democratic platform (not yet public) as “the most progressive major party platform with respect to LGBT issues in the nation’s history.” Some complaint that it never uses the terms “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” and “transgender,” but others argue that terms such as “same-sex couples” “sexual orientation,” and “gender identity”
Dara Torres isn’t the only older mom competing in the Olympics, and this week Helen and I tell you about some more of them. Several are previous medalists and two managed to have three kids each in between Olympic appearances. In a heartbreaking story, one mother even needed to keep competing in order to raise
A few interesting features from round and about: From The Walrus magazine in Canada comes “Frontier Families: The Complexities of Queer Parenting,” by Matthew Hays, who wrote the article after two lesbian friends of his first considered and then rejected him as a sperm donor. He turns this rejection into a broad, balanced article about
Entrepreneur Jared Polis could become the first openly gay man elected to the U.S. Congress as a non-incumbent, according to the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund. He won the Democratic primary last night in Colorado’s “overwhelmingly Democratic” 2nd Congressional District, and the Victory Fund says he is “nearly certain to win the seat in November.”
I was excited yesterday to watch Melanie Roach, a U.S. weightlifter in the 53-kilo (117-pound) category, set a new American record and come in sixth in her competition. Roach is the mother of three, and returning to competition after a five-year break and a herniated disk that required surgery. One of her sons was also
Olympian and mother Oksana Chusovitina is 33, a far cry from Dara Torres’ 41. I’m almost more impressed by her than by Torres, however, because she’s competing in gymnastics. That’s right, gymnastics, where most athletes hover around the 16-year-old minimum and there are rumors of some sneaking in at younger ages. This is the fifth
A public-service announcement for the many of you who are finding this site today after doing a search for: “Is Dara Torres a lesbian?” Nope, she’s not. She is twice divorced from men, and now lives with David Hoffman, a reproductive endocrinologist, masters swimmer, and father of her child. Yeah, I’m disappointed, too, but hey.
