The LGBTQ community has lost a light this week. Monica Roberts, a groundbreaking transgender journalist and blogger, died in Houston at age 58. She started her blog, TransGriot, shortly after I began this one. I had the honor of meeting her at several conferences, and was always struck by her strength, knowledge, and commitment to lifting up trans youth.
Stacey and Cheralyn are a two-mom couple living in Texas with their two kids. As part of a short documentary series from Family Equality, they recently shared their story of starting a family through adoption, the effect of marriage equality on their lives, and why visibility and representation are so important.
Let’s roundup some stories I haven’t already covered—including, unfortunately, the progress of anti-LGBTQ bills in several states in the past week.
I’m thinking about courts this week, as a few recent court cases have involved same-sex parents and our right to be recognized as parents, as well as the right of same-sex couples (with or without kids) to gain the benefits of marriage. Luckily, things seem to be (mostly) in our favor.
The governor of Texas has added his state to the list of those that allow child placement agencies to discriminate against LGBTQ, Jewish, Muslim, single, divorced, or other prospective parents based on the agency’s “sincerely held religious beliefs.” This will serve to limit the number of homes available to children in need. The new law will also permit LGBTQ youth to be sent to widely discredited “conversion therapy” and allow agencies to refuse to refer people to medically appropriate reproductive health services.
The Texas legislature has advanced two bills that will cause harm to children living in the state. One keeps transgender students from using the bathroom that matches their gender identity; the other allows religion-based discrimination in adoption and foster care.
This week saw one prominent mayor and lesbian mom leave office while another one began her term.
The tension between assimilation and queerness has long hovered over the LGBTQ community. As English writer Jonathan Kemp said a few years ago, “The assimilationists want gay marriage, inclusion in the military, the right to adopt children…. Queers, on the other hand … [regard] the most vibrant and radical aspect of homosexuality as being precisely its opposition to normative sexuality and society.” Two new memoirs, however, show that these concepts do not always have to oppose each other.
Stories about LGBTQ parents and our children that I haven’t covered elsewhere!
Houston Mayor Annise Parker, politician and lesbian mom, spoke recently with local ABC affiliate KTRK about her family and four adopted children.
