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.
Among the little-known deeds of comedian Robin Williams, mourned by many of us this week, is that he helped launch a groundbreaking children’s film that included same-sex parents.
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day—but it also kicks off 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.”
Only two out of ten elementary school students have learned about same-sex-headed families, according to a new study commissioned by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). Combine this with the fact that same-sex families with children live in 96 percent of counties in the United States, and we clearly have a failure to teach children about the world and people around them.
The media has been full of stories about bullying and its damaging effects—but most stories have centered around middle-school and high-school students. Less has been said of bullying in elementary schools. A new study from the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), however, shows that such bullying does exist—including bullying and teasing based on homophobia and gender-nonconformity. Those
(Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column the first week of September.)
Hurricane Irene raged up the East Coast this past weekend, sending people scrambling to the stores for bottled water and canned tuna. Of course, hurricanes weren’t the only thing I prepared for this week. Back-to-school time is here, so I’ve been buying pencils and erasers alongside the flashlight batteries. And because I am an LGBT parent, I’ve also been thinking about the “emergency supplies” we should have as we navigate the sometimes-stormy weather of our educational system, in case our children encounter anti-LGBT prejudice, bullying, or simply exclusion.
(Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column, October 13, 2010.) Children in the LGBTQ community are dying. As LGBTQ parents, we need to be on the front lines working to help them. We’ve all heard by now of the string of suicides by youth bullied because they were LGBTQ or perceived to be. Children of
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
Let’s start the week with a roundup. Politics and Law Iceland’s Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir and her partner, Jonina Leosdottir, transformed their civil union into a marriage Sunday as the country’s marriage equality law went into effect. Sigurdardottir has two grown sons from a previous marriage. A Wisconsin appeals court ruled that a woman seeking
