I slept better last night knowing that the U.S. nuclear codes were in the hands of someone not likely to make ego-driven decisions. I woke up refreshed thinking about the first vice president who is a woman, Black, and of South Asian descent. And I was delighted for LGBTQ families, who have a number of reasons to celebrate today.
Dear President-elect Biden:
I’m writing you this open letter as you prepare to take office as president. My son was just a few months too young to vote in the last election, but watched it with great concern, for its results would directly impact him and his family. Would the next administration be one that treated our family with equality? Would it view families like ours as part of the rich fabric of American diversity or as aberrations?
President-elect Joe Biden has nominated Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine, who has led the state’s COVID-19 response, as assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services. Levine, a transgender woman, is also the parent of two grown children. Her nomination comes days after President Trump’s HHS finalized a rule that would allow schools to misgender and discriminate against transgender students. Do you sense change?
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos made sure she struck one more time at LGBTQ youth as she stepped down last week, with her department issuing a memo saying that “gender identity” was not protected under laws that ban discrimination on the basis of sex, and that schools are within their rights to misgender transgender students and force them to participate in programs and use facilities based on their biological sex.
Not letting a little thing like insurrection stop them, the Trump administration on Thursday finalized a rule that will allow foster care and adoption agencies, along with other public health and social service organizations receiving taxpayer funds, to discriminate against LGBTQ people and others.
“This is not normal,” I tell my son. At 17, he’s old enough to understand that logically, even if he barely remembers a time when our president wasn’t an egomaniacal, violence-enabling, reality-show host. Even though our leadership will change for the better on January 20th, though, I worry as he heads towards adulthood in a country still deeply divided. Can we adults give him, and all young people and children, the country they need to grow into happy, healthy adults? Will the ideals of freedom and equality for all ever be more than distant visions?
In a year like no other, LGBTQ families, like all others, struggled with the physical, mental, and economic challenges of the pandemic. And with children of LGBTQ parents much more likely to live in poverty than those with non-LGBTQ parents, the pandemic may have hit many LGBTQ families, like those of other marginalized groups, particularly hard. Pandemic aside, there were many political and legal challenges—and a few victories—directly related to LGBTQ parents and our children in the U.S. this year. Here are the highlights, good and bad.
In the latest of a series of anti-LGBTQ moves, Hungary’s parliament has changed its constitution to ban same-sex couples and most single people from adopting children.
Even as the year winds down, there’s still plenty of news about LGBTQ parents and our families. Here’s a roundup of some recent stories from around the world that I haven’t yet covered.
