Politics and Law Uruguay’s Senate approved a bill to allow same-sex couples and unmarried opposite-sex ones to adopt children. It now goes to President Tabare Vazquez, who is expected to approve. Uruguay would then become the first Latin American country to permit same-sex couples to adopt. In other happy news, same-sex female couples in the […]
A compilation of what other people have been saying about LGBT families: Personal stories: CNN.com has a must-read article on the perspective of children growing up with gay parents. Thanks to Abigail Garner, one of their interviewees, for the tip. (And if you haven’t read her book, Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell
Safe Schools After reviewing the suicide of 11-year-old Jaheem Herrara, Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore, a retired Superior Court judge in Fulton County, Georgia, said the boy was “emotionally ruined” by the recent murder of his uncle and the death of his grandmother, and his school was not responsible for his death. The boy’s mother, Masika
Our stories told: Author, parent, and transgender woman Jennifer Finney Boylan recently told her story of transitioning in the New York Times’s column, “Modern Love.” Thanks to Family Equality for pointing out the piece. The 2009 Pride and Joy Families Weekend Conference in upstate New York was a big success, according to the Utica Observer-Dispatch.
Today marks the 13th annual Day of Silence, an event where students from middle school to college take some form of a vow of silence to bring attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment. Last year’s event was in memory of Lawrence King, the California eighth-grader shot to death by a classmate because of his
“It’s not just a gay issue,” said Sirdeaner Walker, mother of 11-year-old Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, who died by suicide last week after months of anti-gay taunts. “It’s bigger.” The Advocate has a long interview with Walker. It’s an emotionally tough read, but worth it. I mentioned in my roundup yesterday that GLSEN’s upcoming National Day
Tragedy: GLSEN reports, “An 11-year-old Massachusetts boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, hung himself Monday [April 6] after enduring bullying at school, including daily taunts of being gay, despite his mother’s weekly pleas to the school to address the problem. This is at least the fourth suicide of a middle-school aged child linked to bullying this year.”
The U.S. State Department declared its support for the UN Statement on “Human Rights, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity,” joining 66 other UN member states who have done so, condemning human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity wherever they occur. The Washington Post endorsed the Uniting American Families Act that would allow
(Originally published in Bay Windows, February 26, 2009. I did this piece to cover a local event, but I thought it might be of wider interest. Phillips Academy Andover has the second-oldest gay-straight alliance in the country—though it is perhaps better known for being the school of George H.W., George W., and Jeb Bush. Stay
Today marks the start of No Name-Calling Week, “an annual week of educational activities aimed at ending name-calling of all kinds and providing schools with the tools and inspiration to launch an on-going dialogue about ways to eliminate bullying in their communities.” The event was created five years ago by GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight
