resource Archives - Page 15 of 26

Divorce, Reproductive Losses, and Other Queer “Failures”

September 16, 2019

When the first same-sex couple to marry legally in the United States, Hillary and Julie Goodridge, was feeling stressed from public attention, they didn’t want to seek couples’ counseling. Julie told NPR this past May, “It felt like too much of a risk.” They divorced a few years later. Their daughter Annie, who was 10 at the time, said in retrospect, “I felt like our family let everyone down.” Their situation highlights a long-time problem for the LGBTQ community and other marginalized groups: the pressure to be perfect. Two new books, however, each look at topics often associated with failure—relationship break-ups and reproductive losses—in order to help LGBTQ people and our children better navigate them.

New LGBTQ Picture Books for Back-to-School

August 19, 2019

For back-to-school time, here are some new and soon-to-be-published picture books with LGBTQ and gender creative characters, all involving schools and classmates.

Over the Corporate Rainbow

July 30, 2019

This past Pride Month saw an explosion of rainbows on products from sneakers to snack foods, reenergizing the debate over whether and how corporate America should be involved in Pride. For me, two things come to bear here: My belief that companies should support LGBTQ equality if they are going to market to us—and the fact that my family would not exist as it does now if it was not for the benefits my spouse and I received from the companies where we worked.

J.P. Morgan and Others Boost Fertility Benefits for LGBTQ Employees

July 1, 2019

Financial giant J.P. Morgan has announced it will soon offer expanded fertility benefits aimed at helping LGBTQ employees start or grow their families. Let’s take the opportunity, then, to look at what they and other companies are doing—or should be.

Watch: A Queer Couple’s Continuing Journey as Foster Parents

June 10, 2019

Nicole Opper and Kristan Cassady’s The F Word docuseries in 2017 showed us the beginning of their journey to parenthood through the foster-to-adoption process. Now, they’re back with Season Two, which continues their story and adds in the stories of others.

Mother’s Day as an Act of Resistance

May 12, 2019

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day can be fraught times for LGBTQ parents and our children, seemingly designed to underscore that our families are different. I try to see them, however, as opportunities to remind the world that queer families exist. By raising our voices on these days—or sometimes, simply being visible—we resist the attempts of those trying to ignore or eliminate us, and we welcome all who take on the mantle of parenthood.

Passover Reflections on Faith, Freedom, and Family

April 16, 2019

I’ve been celebrating the spring holidays with my interfaith family and reflecting that Passover and Easter this year come in the shadow of ongoing and spiteful religious exemption laws in a growing number of states and in the federal government. These laws, widely seen as targeting the LGBTQ community, would allow people to cite their religious beliefs as a reason to discriminate against others. I have to remind myself, however, that we shouldn’t set religion and LGBTQ equality as necessarily opposing forces.

The Costs of Starting a Queer Family

March 14, 2019

The always wonderful Nancy podcast from WNYC has just run a series onÂ Queer Money Matters, about “the straight economy and how queer people navigate it.” Listen here to their episode on “Babies and Bills,” about the costs of starting a family when queer.

A Mutual Benefit: Letting Employees Define their Families

February 25, 2019

People and families come in many forms, as any LGBTQ person can attest. Now, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual) is using that concept to improve upon its already LGBTQ-inclusive employee benefits. The FORTUNE 100 company, which has approximately 7,500 employees around the country, is rolling out new benefits around leave, gender affirmation, family creation, and more that empower all employees and demonstrate a deep understanding of LGBTQ people’s lives.

Of Food, Festivals, and Family

December 24, 2018

My family of origin always has our biggest gathering on Thanksgiving. My spouse Helen, our son, and I pretty much party from then until Helen’s birthday in early January, marking Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year’s along the way.