Debra Chasnoff, the Academy Award-winning film director of Choosing Children, about the first generation of out lesbian moms, and a number of award-winning LGBTQ-inclusive educational films, has died at the age of 60 from breast cancer.
The Fosters, ABC Family’s drama about two moms raising their five children, ended its very successful first season at the end of March. But The Fosters — and many real-life two-mom families — owe a debt of gratitude to a film that premiered 30 years ago and is now newly remastered and available on DVD: Choosing Children, the first documentary to look at lesbians who became parents after coming out.
(Here’s another column I originally published last year, but which I think bears repeating as part of my parenting-related contribution to LGBT History Month. A few bits revised slightly to bring them up to date.) With Eric Stonestreet winning an Emmy last year for his portrayal of a gay dad in ABC’s Modern Family, and the
If you don’t yet know the films of Groundspark’s Respect for All project, you really should—and now you can do so for free. Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Debra Chasnoff and her team have created a lauded series for students and educators about family inclusion, gender stereotypes, and bullying. In response to the recent media attention
With Eric Stonestreet winning an Emmy Sunday for his portrayal of a gay dad in ABC’s Modern Family, and the summer movie about two lesbian moms, The Kids Are All Right, garnering early Oscar buzz, it is easy to forget what things were like just 25 years ago. Then, people both inside and outside the
The ultra-conservatives trying to revoke marriage equality in Maine look set to use the excellent LGBT-inclusive diversity-education film That’s a Family!, by Academy Award-winning filmmaker (and lesbian mom!) Debra Chasnoff for their own bigoted purposes, Frank Hogarth of San Francisco’s Beyond Chron reports. (Jeremy of Good As You independently confirmed a payment to Chasnoff’s Groundspark
I’ve written many times before about the excellence of the LGBT-inclusive diversity-education films by Groundspark, the organization headed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Debra Chasnoff. (Here’s my interview of Chasnoff about her latest film, Straightlaced, and an earlier one about the 10th anniversary of It’s Elementary.) Now comes the happy news that trailers for all of
(Originally published in Bay Windows, July 29, 2009. Stay tuned for another post on what an ultra-conservative group had to say about this article.) The number of resources for LGBT families is, like my own son, small but growing. Here are some recent highlights for a variety of children’s ages: Mommy, Mama, and Me and
(Originally published, with slight variation, as my Mombian newspaper column.) “I felt that teenagers in particular were really affected by anti-gay prejudice,” said Academy Award-winning filmmaker Debra Chasnoff, “but so much of the conversation that’s been had to date about that prejudice has been solely focused on how homophobia affects youth who are self-identified as
I wrote the other day about an escalating situation in Alameda, California, where some conservative parents are objecting to including materials about LGBT families in the elementary school diversity curriculum. This morning, at 11:15 a.m. Eastern, 9:15 a.m. Central, 8:15 a.m. Pacific, Brad Dacus, founder and president of the conservative Pacific Justice Institute will be
