Watch this seven-year-old trans girl tell her inspiring story
‘Being transgender is a hard thing, but you can be who you want to be. I’m proud of who I am because I’m transgender.’
stefanieg
www.gaystarnews.com/article/watch-seven-year-old-trans-girl-tell-her-inspiring-story100515
Researchers To Drive 'Final Nail In Coffin' Of Mark Regnerus Study By Showing It Actually Supports Gay Parenting
University of Texas researcher Mark Regnerus’ discredited “New Family Structures Study” actually shows, when corrected, that children with gay parents fare as well as those with “intact biological families.”
That’s according to two sociologists who will publish research they’re calling “the final nail in the coffin” of Regnerus’ widely debunked, right-wing funded study.
The sociologists — Brian Powell of Indiana University and Simon Cheng of the University of Connecticut — cleaned up Regnerus’ data and eliminated respondents who clearly weren’t raised by gay parents.
Right Wing Watch reports:
By eliminating suspect data — for example, a 25-year-old respondent who claimed to be 7’8” tall, 88 pounds, married 8 times and with 8 children, and another who reported having been arrested at age 1 — and correcting what they view as Regnerus’ methodological errors, Cheng and Powell found that Regnerus’ conclusions were so “fragile” that his data could just as easily show that children raised by gay and lesbian parents don’t face negative adult outcomes.
“[W]hen equally plausible and, in our view, preferred methodological decisions are used,” they wrote, “a different conclusion emerges: adult children who lived with same-sex parents show comparable outcome profiles to those from other family types, including intact biological families.”
In other words, as University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen put it, “when you clean the data and fix the things that are fixable, the results just don’t hold up.”
Powell and Cheng’s work will appear in Social Science Research, the same journal that drew heavy criticism for publishing Regnerus’ flawed work.
Powell and Cheng found that one-tenth of 236 respondents in Regnerus’ study never lived with a gay parent, and another one-sixth lived with a gay parent for less than a year. Once those respondents are recategorized or eliminated, the researchers found only one negative outcome out of 40 for children raised by gay parents — they are more likely to have extramarital affairs. But Powell and Cheng say that finding is statistically insignificant.
Despite nearly universal condemnation of Regnerus’ study, including from his own sociology department at UT, he has continued to defend it and try to use it in court to oppose same-sex marriage. In Michigan last year, a federal judge rejected Regnerus’ testimony, calling it “entirely unbelievable and not worthy of serious consideration.”
No word on whether researchers also plan to look into Regnerus’ more recent claim that the “normalization of gay men’s sexual behavior” will cause a surge in the “practice of heterosexual anal sex.”
Read the full Right Wing Watch story here.
John Wright
A Gay Dad Sounds Off On The School That Canceled 'And Then Came Tango' Play
By Rob Watson | The Next Family
There was a significant hearing this week on Tuesday about same sex relationships and whether to ban them. You likely missed this one because you were focused on that OTHER hearing in front of the Supreme Court, the one on whether all states in the union should perform and recognize same sex marriages.
No, this hearing was smaller, with less attention and could have been held in what might be described as a wholly alternative universe.
This hearing was in front of a school board in Catheys Valley, Mariposa County, California. It was held in a place where same sex marriage legally exists without question.
Unlike the Supreme Court, which was surrounded by folks waving banners of equality, tolerance and the love that creates families, this hearing was full of people who wanted none of that and took offense against anyone who did not look and act like them.
The case before the school board was this: the Sierra Charter Foothill School was scheduled to host a performance of the play, “And Then Came Tango,” based on the true story of two male penguins who hatched and orphaned egg and raised the chick as their own. New York Theater Now describes “Tango” as: “Emily Freeman’s timely play for young audiences, shares the tale of six chinstrap penguins at the Central Park Zoo — and the people who care for them. More specifically and touchingly, Freeman zeroes in on Roy and Silo, two males who form a penguin bond akin to their male-female-paired peers, engaging in mating rituals and trying to hatch a rock. Even more touchingly, Lily, the young Junior Keeper, convinces Walter, the zookeeper in charge of the exhibit, to let Silo and Roy incubate an orphaned egg — which they do to loving fruition.”
The booking of the play had been in place for a year with the Fresno State Theater Troupe. The school regretted having missed out on the previous year’s performance of “The Velveteen Rabbit,” so put in their reservation early to get on the schedule for “Tango.”
Once the play’s synopsis was sent to them, the administration wretched over what they perceived as a “gay theme.” They immediately made attendance voluntary and sent out “warnings” to all their parents. This effort was not enough for many in the community who demanded that the ability to opt out was not enough. They insisted that the school needed to cancel the production all together or they would boycott it for the day.
The force of the vitriolic response shocked the administrators who then threw the decision of the play’s fate to the school board. Meanwhile, some of the students who wanted to see the play began passing out rainbow ribbon bracelets out to those willing to wear them. This “radical” action was also quickly shut down by the administration. The school leaders took on a “road theater” of their own and went into classes to perform skits. Their theme was about how trying to inspire acceptance of others was actually a divisive act. I am not sure what the reviews of the “Divisive Act” skits were, but in any case, they successfully shut down the distribution of rainbow ribbon bracelets and the “perpetrators” apologized.
At the same time the first and second graders were putting the final touches to their creative writing and a story called “Hannah’s Adventure” which was headed to a writing festival in Meced. Hannah was undoubtedly “safe” because she apparently did not have two moms. So, full steam ahead.
Mariposa County life for “And Then Came Tango” was not so fortuitous. The school board voted conclusively to end its run long before it got started.
While the first and second graders of Sierra Charter Foothill wrote their piece, I wrote one of my own. Here is my open letter to the school and the community it serves.
Dear Sierra Charter Foothill School Community,
I was horrified to read of your recent actions around the play called “And Then Came Tango,” which depicted two penguins who loved each other and then saved, hatched and nurtured an orphaned egg. Your principal stated that the play “does cross the line for what parents think is appropriate for school.”
At the school board meeting, parents made comments like “It’s about two men. They raise a baby and I don’t agree with that.” Your community members described the family image in “Tango” as “social engineering” and “promoting” homosexuality. The consensus was “I want to teach my kids what I believe in my home that’s it.”
The family depicted in “And Then Came Tango” is mine.
We are not penguins, and my sons were not hatched, but aside from those set-decorating changes, it is us. My oldest son was born six weeks prematurely to a heroin-addicted mother. My younger son was found abandoned by his drug-addicted mother in a trailer where he had been uncared for two days. My spouse and I had so much love between us that we wanted to extend it further. We adopted these two babies who needed us.
The love I have for my sons is the most profound I have ever known.
That is our story, and it is reflected in the factual story of the penguins in the play. The penguin real life story occurred in 1999 at the Central Park Zoo, and they met with the same intolerant attitude that your community is exhibiting. Homophobic people rose up and demanded that the penguin family be broken apart. They felt what had happened naturally was somehow “sending the wrong message.”
The “Tango” story is about love. My family’s story is about love. We are people, we are not ideas or theories for you to “agree” or “disagree” with. My sons are not experiments nor are they part of some agenda to “promote” a brand of sexuality. I would never disrespect your children by characterizing them as “talking points of heterosexual sex acts” and I expect the common decency from you to not classify my sons similarly.
Just for the record, my family is not alone. There are thousands like us in the state of California. We are your neighbors. Just like the orphaned egg in the story, there are also thousands of kids who have been abused or neglected in our state. A Cambridge study found that there is only one parental profile family that chooses to create a family using foster care/adoption as its first choice — that profile is a two male led household.
My sons are both wonderful boys — bright, charming, caring — and have both been taught to be good citizens in their school community. Even though it is clear that they would not be welcome, your school would be fortunate to have two such as them within it.
All your kids are going to come to school and share with others about how they came to be in their families, LGBT kids do the same. My sons, like other kids from differing family structures, fully grasp the concept of mutual respect between families. It is the principle where we listen to each other and find common ground, not a focus on our differences.
It is a concept that you have just voted down. It is a lesson you have yet to learn.
As for “Tango,” theater arts are meant to illustrate, illuminate and shake their audience from pre-conceived notions and feelings. This play was brought to you not so you can judge and censor it, or the families like mine that it represents, but so you can watch and grow from finding out about us. It asks you to consider that a family is driven more from the hearts of its members than it is from their genitals.
Last year, your school was upset that it missed out on the road tour of a production of the classic “The Velveteen Rabbit.” I wonder if you would have caught the message of that play and how it too affirms the creation of families such as mine. I am sorry you did not see it, as you might have taken a glimpse of what it means to be a “real” family. You would have heard this:
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real…It doesn’t happen all at once…You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
Tango was not seeking your approval, it was a gift for you so that you could start to see things more broadly and appreciate the diversity in this world. It was ready to show you what is truly real, something like my family.
By your actions, you have shut down a great educational opportunity.
That opportunity was not for your kids, it was for you.
Rob Watson is a writer for The Next Family and lives in Santa Cruz with his family.
More on The Next Family:
Watch: A 7-Year-Old Explains How Her Two Moms Had a Baby
Mother’s Day Through a Gay Dad’s Eyes
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
HRC Celebrates all Families and Moms this Mother’s Day
This Mother’s Day, HRC is proud to honor the thousands of moms out there who have joined in the fight for LGBT equality.
HRC.org
What Mother’s Day Is Like For Two Dads
I was at the playground with my older son when he found a toy and wanted to take it home. (It was a broken robot I’d wager was abandoned.) I told him he needed to ask around to see if it belonged to any other children and, if not, he could take it home.
He approached a nanny a few feet away. I couldn’t hear what he asked or how she responded, but as he turned away from her he said, “No I don’t have a mommy. I have a daddy.”
He took a step, turned back, and finished, “No. I have two daddies. I have Daddy and I have Tatty.”
Then he ran onto the next guardian at the playground to continue his canvassing.
The nanny turned to me and we both smiled. That was the first I’d ever heard my son reference our family make-up.
It was awesome.
My partner and I didn’t specifically discuss Mother’s Day during our months of debate over having a child. We did, however, discuss the significance of not having a familial mother in the household. He postulated, “But really — what if our kid’s missing something?”
I knew how I felt about the lack of a mother figure in our household: they wouldn’t be missing anything. We would love our kids as much as anyone else could and that was what mattered.
According to convention, and with several bottles of wine and hours of discussion, one could argue that my children might miss something by not having a biological mother in the household. What that might be is subject to animated debate. But wasn’t I “missing” something when my father passed away when I was 8 years old? Aren’t innumerable kids “missing” something when they’ve lost a parent, or their favorite grandparent passes, or they lose both parents in a tragic accident.
The “what ifs” are endless.
But what my kids might theoretically lack (according to archaic definitions) is over-shadowed by what they have: a loving family unit that will unconditionally love, support, educate, entertain, and enrich them.
My partner and I do not identify as mothers. So…how do we “deal” with Mother’s Day?
It annoys me when people joke, “Happy Mother’s Day to you! Wait. Are you the mother? Or should we say it to your partner?”
Yeah, it’s happened a lot.
Listen, I know two dads is still a novelty. But neither of us magically sprouted two X chromosomes when we became fathers. We’re two dads, not a dad and a pseudo-mom. We fill all the roles of child-rearing, whatever stereotypical gender rules have existed in the past. So…really – you don’t need to wish us a happy day. It’s not our day. You can simply wish us both a “Happy Father’s Day” in about six weeks.
My older son has been in preschool for two years and each teacher has given us a heads-up: “There’s going to be a Mother’s Day project. We hope you don’t mind.”
Of course not. How can we be offended? Our kids know that some (nay, most) other kids have mothers. In each case, though, we’ve said, “Hopefully you’ll just discuss different types of families. Not everyone has a mother.”
“Of course, of course. We definitely will discuss family types,” was the response both years.
And each year, our son came home with projects made for us: his daddies. We were delighted.
(Funny enough, last year my son came home with an adorable clay planting pot he’d painted. Attached was a pre-printed letter wishing us, “Happy Mother’s Day.” I was mildly annoyed by that. The teacher didn’t need to include the letter. But whatever.)
I wouldn’t be opposed to “Parent’s Day.” Why do parental holidays need to be separated? except stores might not as easily spread out the mass consumption of cards, flowers, spa treatments, ties and barbecues. But why couldn’t we combine these days into the celebration of “people who love their children?”
Just to be clear: I’m not offended by Mother’s Day or even wishes of Happy Mother’s Day. I know it comes from people who want to include me in everything that is the beauty of parenting. I just don’t think the Hallmark holiday really applies to me. So why not Parent’s Day?
Just a thought.
For me, Mother’s Day is a day when I think about the mother I lost at far too young an age (both hers and mine). I appreciate the increasing number of Facebook posts I see stating, “Here’s to those who’ve lost their mother and feel loss on this day.” Heck, I’m the one feeling loss, not my kids.
But for me, Mother’s Day is also a celebration of my mom’s success as a parent, without which I wouldn’t have a family at all.
So my kids aren’t missing anything. Instead, they have something equally full and rich and beautiful as any other family with two parents, two kids, a dog and piles of dirty laundry.
In a few years, we will probably have more in-depth conversations about it. Perhaps jerks will make them think they’re missing something. Or maybe they’ll grow up identifying one of us as the “mother”…and then I promise to write about a change in my own perspective.
Regardless, we will roll with the changes. Embracing our family reality will hopefully be the least of my sons’ worries.
At least that’s how I intend for it to be.
Most important: to everyone who is a mother or identifies as a mother, thank you for loving us: your children. Happy Mother’s Day. And for those who feel loss and just a tinge of sadness as they remember their wonderful mothers: you’re not alone.
[This essay was first published on DaddyCopingInStyle.]
Jeremy Kinser
feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/8NQ7gH3c9G0/what-mothers-day-is-like-for-two-dads-20150510
The Best News Bloopers of the Month: VIDEO
On-air word flubs, camera malfunctions, the Baltimore mom caught beating her son for participating in the city riots and more in this highlight reel of the best OMG news moments of April 2015.
Watch, AFTER THE JUMP…
Kyler Geoffroy
LGBT Wellness Roundup: May 10
Each week HuffPost Gay Voices, in a partnership with blogger Scout, LGBT HealthLink and researcher Susana Fajardo, brings you a round up of some of the biggest LGBT wellness stories from the past seven days. For more LGBT Wellness visit our page dedicated to the topic here.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Shape Up: Sun’s Out, Guns Out!
All bicep curls are not created equal. If you think you can curl like a beast, get ready to meet your match. Say hello to the Triple Curl.
This mind-blowing combo of curls is humbling. The idea with this exercise is it combines three common curls into one movement. The one fluid motion hits the bicep in three different ways. You will gain size, strength and definition in your arms like never before. But before we go into the “how to” of the triple curl, let’s help you prepare to do it.
First, make sure you are not working the shoulders when curling. Because we are such an inwardly-rotated society (always texting and typing), we naturally round our shoulders in. Bad idea. Before curling always make sure to roll your shoulders back and down, and keep them there.
Second, make sure you fully release when curling. The “release” means when you let the arm fall into full resting position before curling again. When you do that you are able to get full range of motion and hit the majority of the bicep.
When you’ve got these tips down, you are ready to triple your results! Here we go.
Prep: Grab dumbbells that are about five pounds less then you normally curl. These will catch up with you!
1. In a standing position, do a standard bicep curl, with the weights palms facing up.
2. Lower to resting, twist the weights vertically and raise to a hammer curl.
3. Lower to resting, retract your shoulder blades and turn the forearms up and raise to your sides for a wide curl.
Rinse and repeat. All three combined are considered one rep. Aim for three sets of eight to 10 reps.
You will see almost immediate swelling of your guns with these. Sometimes my training clients and bootcampers shake their heads in disbelief, not only because of how deceivingly hard this exercise is but also how immediate the results are.
Tip: Make sure you breathe while doing this exercise. Exhale when curling and inhale when lowering.
Good lucks, boys, and remember… summer is coming! #sunsoutgunsout
The Phoenix Effect, a metabolic bootcamp that gets you in shape fast, is offered exclusively at Mansion Fitness, 7914 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood.
Jeremy Kinser
feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/fiKjAT81DI0/shape-up-suns-out-guns-out-20150510
11 Trans Women Share What They Love About Motherhood
When a parent transitions, the whole family goes on a journey. But how these parents feel about their kids never changes.
Dawn Ennis and Mitch Kellaway
www.advocate.com/families/2015/05/10/11-trans-women-share-what-they-love-about-motherhood
