California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) signed legislation yesterday updating the definition of “infertility” to make it more inclusive of LGBTQ and single people, and requiring large insurers to cover the diagnosis and treatment of (in)fertility services, including in vitro fertilization (IVF).
This edition includes two (!) stories about queer moms both giving birth and gaining doctorates within ridiculously short time frames; two involving reciprocal in vitro fertilization (RIVF); legal inequalities in fertility care and parentage; the profile of a beloved bisexual children’s author; and more that I haven’t covered elsewhere.
Laphonza Butler has been named by California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) to complete the Senate term of the late Senator Dianne Feinstein (D). Butler, president of EMILYs List, will become the first out Black lesbian member of Congress and the first out LGBTQ parent senator.
Out & About Bookshop, a mobile bookstore offering LGBTQ children’s books, story times, youth book clubs, and community events, is launching this Saturday in San Francisco. One of the two queer educators behind its creation shared some insight about the project with me.
Drag queen storytimes are under attack from politicians and white supremacists. Drag queen and children’s book author Lil Miss Hot Mess has been a target, but also a leading voice opposing this onslaught. She thinks kids and drag have a natural rapport.
The home where pioneering LGBTQ and civil rights activists Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin lived for more than five decades may become a local historic landmark, as the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has taken the first step towards giving it that designation. The two women may be best known as the first same-sex couple to marry legally in San Francisco, but the legacy of these mothers of our movement is bigger than that.
Marriage equality has been the law nationwide since 2015, but married and unmarried LGBTQ couples who use third-party assisted reproductive technologies (ART) still face significant obstacles in most states to securing ironclad legal parentage for both parents. Progress in a few states, most recently in New England, may point the way forward.
LGBTQ civil rights icon Phyllis Lyon died yesterday from natural causes at her home in San Francisco. She was 95. She and her spouse Del Martin were the first same-sex couple to marry legally in San Francisco in 2008—but her contribution to LGBTQ equality goes far beyond that.
Judy Appel, president of the Berkeley School Board and former executive director of Our Family Coalition, and her spouse, attorney Alison Bernstein, were critically injured in an accident Saturday.
California Governor Jerry Brown (D) signed legislation Friday that updates state laws so they offer the same protections to all parents and their children, including same-sex and transgender parents. Read on for details—and importantly, what this means for second-parent adoptions.Â
