Gina Trapani is best known as the founder of the Lifehacker blog, but also began a much more personal venture this year—her own family. She wrote recently about her and her wife’s path to parenthood in “How to Make a Baby” for The Magazine. When a piece begins, “Choosing a sperm donor is a little bit like setting up an Xbox avatar,” you know it’s worth a read.
Michigan has 14,000 children in foster care at any moment, over 5,000 of whom need homes because their biological parents’ rights have been terminated. A Michigan House committee, however, has passed two bills out of committee that would allow adoption agencies to deny an adoption placement based on the agency’s moral or religious beliefs. While agencies could use that to deny placements with many people, it’s pretty clear the main targets are LGBT people.
New mom A wrote this week at Two Mothers McGill about her “Non-Biological Perspective” before, during, and after the birth of her daughter with partner T. She gives voices to feelings I’ve heard from many nonbio moms—worrying if she will bond with their child, being hurt by others’ comments about how much the baby is like her partner, thinking about when their daughter will someday meet her donor. Even if you’ve experienced or read about similar sentiments before, however, you should go read her post for the eloquence with which she expresses them.
He probably doesn’t know it’s National Adoption Month. But when U.S. District Court Judge Robert C. Jones ruled that Nevada’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples did not violate the U.S. Constitution, he insulted not only same-sex couples, but also adoptive and single-parent families.
How time flies. It’s been two years since Florida overturned its ban on gay men and lesbians adopting children. In that time, over 200 children have been adopted by gay or lesbian parents, according to the ACLU. Two hundred children! The ACLU led the legal fight against the ban, and recently created this video showing plaintiff Martin Gill and his sons, along with Vanessa and Melanie Alenier, another Florida couple who were fighting in court to adopt their son.
November is National Adoption Month, and while it’s certainly not the only time we talk about adoption around here, it’s a good time to re-emphasize the many stories and resources by and for LGBT adoptive parents. I’ll be putting up extra adoption-related posts throughout the month. I hope you’ll stop by, whether you’re an adoptive parent, considering adoption, or simply want to show your support for one of the many ways we create our families. Let’s start at the beginning, with a lovely letter by a prospective mom to the child she and her partner hope to adopt.
A new study has shown that adopted children of same-sex parents are “significantly less” gender stereotyped in their play habits than adopted children of opposite-sex parents. That news is likely to be seen as a Bad Thing by many on the extreme right—but as the study notes, many scholars, parents, and educators today believe a more flexible attitude towards gender roles is less limiting to children’s development. Such openness may thus have psychological benefits—and that’s a Good Thing.
Foster children do equally well no matter the sexual orientation of their parents, a new study has found. While many of us might have guessed as much (or known from the evidence of our own lives), research like this continues to provide necessary hard evidence to convince courts, politicians, and others that our families deserve to be treated with equal respect and legal recognition.
Stories can be told in many ways. Two new works—one poetic, one academic—take strikingly different approaches to telling the stories of LGBT people and families.
Lesbian moms Victoria Greene and Theresa Huebler of Alaska were recently named “Angels in Adoption” by Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and attended a gala for themselves and other “Angels” in Washington, D.C.
