Two relatively new picture books—one about families with two moms and one about those with two dads—are delightful additions to the growing number of LGBT-inclusive children’s books. They are particularly notable because they speak not only to children with same-sex parents, but also to children whose friends have same-sex parents.
It’s International Women’s Day, and I can think of no better way to celebrate women (publicly) than sharing the video “I Am a Full Woman” by filmmaker Linda Wolf.
As many as six million adults and children in the U.S have an LGBT parent, according to a new study, with an estimated three million LGBT Americans having had a child at some point in their lives.
I’m posting this for a colleague at my employer, the Wellesley Centers for Women. She’s part of a team doing research on how young people’s use of media influences their developing self-identity. She told me the team is particularly interested in “reaching out to young people whose voices are not always incorporated into developing new knowledge,” including those who are LGBT, are in LGBT-parent families, and/or are people of color.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments March 26 and 27 in two cases challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Parenting plays a key role in the arguments, as I explained in my latest newspaper column, below. In the week or so since I wrote it, however, even more briefs have been submitted to the court in support of parenting by same-sex couples. Marriage equality advocates have taken the opposition’s arguments apart, piece by ridiculous piece. (Arguments, I should add, that are as insulting to adoptive and other “non-traditional” straight families as they are to gay and lesbian families.)
A new study from the U.K. found that gay and lesbian adoptive families are as successful as straight ones—another piece of “we could have told you that” research, perhaps, but nevertheless invaluable for convincing those who need further convincing about these things.
It’s a mostly international edition this time, with lots of LGBT parenting news from around the world. Go world!
Dr. Seuss is great for teaching kids to read—but he’s even better, I think, at conveying lessons of inclusion, acceptance, and self-confidence. If more people took those lessons to heart as they learned to read (or taught their kids), the world would be a better place.
One in an occasional series of Lego lesbian mom tableaus. Have a funny cryo tank story? (I know some of you do.) Leave a comment or a link to your post about it!
Katie Couric did a show yesterday on “Transgender Youth,” which was really rather good, and reminded me I’d never posted about these two children’s books by author, theater artist, and parent S. Bear Bergman. Last year, Bergman launched a Kickstarter project to produce “books and more for gender-independent kids and families.” The first two picture books from the resulting micro-press, Flamingo Rampant, are colorful, fantastical tales.
