New Research Calls for a Revolution in Public Policy for LGBT Children and Youth

Dr. Caitlin Ryan and her team at the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University have generated a wealth of new data over the past decade on the impact of family acceptance and rejection on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, or LGBT, children and youth. The findings of this research are dramatic, clear, and, above all, surprisingly hopeful. They have profound implications for virtually every public policy issue affecting LGBT youth and their families, and call for a revolution in the way public and private agencies serve this population. This issue brief provides background information on the Family Acceptance Project and outlines how the project’s findings and a new family-based approach can help radically improve the way a wide range of social and public services respond to and serve LGBT youth. In particular, we discuss the project’s implications for the child welfare system, family courts, schools, and the juvenile justice system. Family Acceptance Project overview The Family Acceptance Project is a community research, intervention, education, and policy initiative that works to decrease major health and related risks for LGBT youth such as suicide, substance abuse, HIV, and homelessness. This is all done within the context of their families. Project staff use a research-based, culturally grounded approach to help ethnically, socially, and religiously diverse families decrease rejection and increase support for their LGBT children. There is an increasing amount of information about the risks and challenges facing LGB youth (although very little information about transgender youth), but we know little about their strengths and resiliency, including the strengths of families in supporting their children’s health and well-being. There have been no previous efforts of this type to understand how family reactions affect their LGBT children’s risk and resiliency, even though the family is the primary support for children and youth, and family involvement helps reduce adolescent risk for a wide range of negative outcomes. Little information was available prior to the project’s research to show how families respond to an adolescent’s coming out and how family and caregiver reactions affect adolescent health, mental health, and development for LGBT young people. Attention to family reactions is critical since youth are increasingly coming out at younger ages, which significantly increases risk for victimization and abuse in family, school, and community settings. But this change also provides opportunities for helping to support and strengthen families to provide a nurturing environment for their LGBT children. Family rejection and youth victimization have long-term consequences for their health and development, and affect families as well as the targeted individuals. These consequences include higher risks of dropping out of high school, abusing drugs and alcohol, or contemplating or attempting suicide. Early intervention can help families and caregivers build on strengths and use evidence-based materials to understand the impact of acceptance and rejection on their child’s well-being. Dr. Ryan’s research has identified more than 100 specific accepting and rejecting behaviors that families and caregivers use to express acceptance or rejection of their LGBT children. Dr. Ryan and her team have linked each of these behaviors—such as trying to change an ado- lescent’s gender expression or advocating for youth when they are discriminated against by others—with physical and mental health concerns in young adulthood, such as depression, illegal drug use, suicidality, access to social support, and risk for HIV. These family behaviors form the basis of the project’s new behavioral approach that empowers ethnically and reli- giously diverse families to decrease rejecting behaviors that put their LGBT children at risk and to increase supportive behaviors that protect against risk and promote their well-being. The project has four key components. They are: 1. Studying parents’, foster parents’, families’, and caregivers’ reactions and adjustment to an adolescent’s coming out and LGBT identity; and studying the experiences of LGBT youth and young adults and how specific family accepting and rejecting reactions affect their physical and mental health and well-being. 2. Developing training and assessment materials and family intervention strategies for health, mental health, and school-based providers; child welfare, juvenile justice, and family service workers; and community service providers on working with LGBT youth and families. 3. Creating research-based resources to strengthen diverse families to support LGBT children and adolescents. 4. Developing a new evidence-based family model of wellness, prevention, and care to improve health and mental health outcomes for LGBT adolescents and to promote their well-being The project is being carried out in collaboration with key community groups, providers, and organizations that work with youth in schools, health care settings, and families. LGBT youth in the child welfare system Perhaps more so than in any other area, the project’s research calls for dramatic changes in how child welfare workers respond to LGBT and gender-nonconforming children and youth whose families abuse and neglect them. The high rates at which LGBT children and youth experience family rejection are well-known and are increasingly documented—as are related high rates of homelessness, attempted suicide, and other associated health risks. Both LGBT groups and child welfare agencies (public and private) have reacted to this real- ity by creating alternative structures of support for these youth. The near-universal underlying assumption has been that family hostility and rejection are intractable. In essence, we have treated families as the enemy of LGBT children and youth, and have assumed this will continue to be true. As a result, there are very few programs or resources focused on helping diverse families accept, support, and better understand their LGBT children and youth. And few LGBT youth organizations or services provide oppor- tunities for youth and their families to socialize or interact. Our failure to see families as potential allies has a particularly negative impact in communities of color, where families play an especially important role. The project’s research calls for a dramatic reversal of this paradigm. For example, interven- tion work with diverse families indicates that even families who initially reject their children will modify their behavior when presented with objective information about the devastat- ing effect their actions will have on their children’s lives. These findings pave the way for new policies that have the potential to change the lives of future generations of LGBT youth by keeping them in their families, communities, and schools. To put Dr. Ryan and her team’s research and new family approach into practice will require a major effort to re-educate child welfare agencies and to reorient training of child welfare and early childhood professionals. Advocates and service providers need to know how to recognize and help parents decrease damaging rejecting behaviors, and how to effectively intervene with families to prevent irreparable harm to LGBT youth. They also need to learn how to help maintain LGBT children and youth in their homes by implementing family intervention strategies, rather than automatically removing these children and youth from the home when family conflict arises. Supporting the development of this new behavior-based family approach to care should be a high priority for child welfare agencies and the public and private entities that fund them. It will require creating new programs and resources for families, including those that are culturally competent and meet the needs of specific racial and ethnic communities. Suicide Rates of attempted suicide and other suicidal behavior have been consistently high among a proportion of LGB youth in community-based studies and, more recently, population- based research. School-based studies have reported distressingly higher rates of attempted suicide among LGB adolescents, compared with their heterosexual peers. Recent media reports have also reported on children and adolescents who were assumed to be gay and who experienced very high levels of peer victimization and took their own lives. However, even though suicide professionals and many providers have been aware of the high rates of attempted suicide among LGB adolescents for years, suicide prevention strategies to decrease suicidal behavior and risk among LGBT youth are extremely limited and lack out- come data to show their effectiveness in reducing suicidal behavior and attempts. At the same time, consensus has grown that social stigma, prejudice, and discrimination play an important role in increased suicide attempts among LGB populations. And systems-level problems require a systems-level intervention. Dr. Ryan’s culturally grounded behavioral approach operates at the family-systems level to help families, foster families, and caregivers decrease rejecting behaviors that put LGBT youth at risk and to increase supportive behav- iors that protect against risk. This approach promotes a supportive family environment to buffer LGBT youth from social prejudice and stigma and to teach parents and caregivers how to advocate for their LGBT children in families, schools, and communities. This research shows the dramatic impact of specific family rejecting behaviors (such as preventing an adolescent from having an LGBT friend, preventing them from participat- ing in LGBT activities, or excluding them from family events and activities because of their identity) that are associated with a nine-times-greater likelihood of attempted suicide. Moreover, family accepting behaviors (such as supporting a child’s gender expression and welcoming their child’s LGBT friends) help protect against suicidal behavior and other risks, and promote good self-esteem and overall health in young adulthood. One of the most important aspects of the project’s family intervention approach is that it can impact multiple negative outcomes—including suicide—with one kind of intervention at the family-systems level. Addressing harassment and bullying of LGBT youth in schools The national media and national LGBT organizations have focused an enormous amount of attention on the harassment and bullying of LGBT youth in schools, especially in the wake of recent news stories about young gay men taking their own lives who had suffered harassment (related to their known or perceived sexual orientation) at school. While the increased focus on this issue is a positive development, the project’s work provides a con- text that is essential if we are to truly understand and address this issue. It is impossible to understand school-based harassment apart from the critically important factor of whether an LGBT child has family support. Dr. Ryan and her team’s research shows that children who are able to turn to their families for support in dealing with harass- ment at school are at less risk of suicide, depression, and other negative outcomes. This research is clear that family support and intervention are critical—and yet existing approaches to dealing with school-based harassment generally omit families entirely. This is a serious omission and one that must be addressed immediately if we are to make genuine progress on this issue. For example, the project’s family approach teaches parents and other caregivers about the importance of advocating for their children in schools and shows practical ways to do so. We also need to design and implement school-driven inter- ventions that know how to work with the families of LGBT youth. The project also has a related body of research—the first of its kind—about the prevalence and impact of the harassment of gender-nonconforming LGBT youth in schools. The project’s research found that gender-nonconforming youth are at high risk of being targeted for harassment and bullying and that the negative impact of such harassment is lasting. Gender-nonconforming youth who are targeted in school continue to suffer significant negative effects into adulthood. This research has significant implications for school-based policies. It shows in particular the urgency of including gender identity and expression in nondiscrimination policies. It also allows us to broaden the conversation beyond moral and political frames, and show that adopting and implementing effective nondiscrimination policies is essential to protect the health and well-being of all students. LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system Research has shown that LGBT youth are more likely to end up in the juvenile justice system and that, once there, they are likely to experience serious mistreatment by other youth and by staff. Dr. Ryan and her team’s research has direct implications for every aspect of this issue. At the front end, it is critical that district attorneys, judges, and public defenders understand the negative impact of family rejection on LGBT youth. Dr. Ryan’s research has shown that not only does family rejection drive many LGBT youth from their homes but it also increases negative coping behaviors including illegal drug use and other unlawful behavior. But, perhaps more importantly, her research indicates that even modest changes in family rejecting behav- iors can decrease health risks even if the family is not moved to full acceptance. Understanding this reality will enable district attorneys, judges, and public defenders to address the root cause of the factors and behaviors that cause LGBT youth to end up in the juvenile justice system. Juvenile justice officials can draw on the project’s empirical evidence to recommend interventions that keep LGBT youth in their families instead of pushing for incarceration. The project’s research also provides a scientific basis for why juvenile justice facilities must adopt policies to ensure LGBT youth are supported and treated with respect. Thanks to decades of advocacy, LGBT and mainstream juvenile justice organizations largely agree on what constitute the best policies and practices in this area. And thanks to the project’s work, we can now show data supports these policies since LGBT youth who experience fewer family rejecting behaviors report better physical and mental health as young adults. Moreover, by engaging in specific supportive behaviors mea- sured by Dr. Ryan’s research that help reduce risk and promote the positive development of LGBT youth in custodial care, the state can benefit from substantially reduced costs required to care for a range of serious but preventable health problems in adulthood. This fact provides a powerful tool for advocates working to protect these youth through litigation, legislation, and general policy advocacy. A federal court already relied on the project’s research in a class-action lawsuit in Hawaii that successfully challenged the mistreatment of LGBT youth in Hawaii’s juvenile justice system. Advocates have also used Ryan’s work to support legislation protecting LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system in California. Recommendations and conclusion The Family Acceptance Project’s approach to improving the lives of LGBT youth and their families is data driven and is informed by the experiences of ethnically, economi- cally, and culturally diverse LGBT young people and their families, so we believe it is a hugely important tool for anyone who cares about improving the lives and life chances of our nation’s youth. As we discuss above, the project has important implications for a wide range of policies and programs that support and serve LGBT youth. Because of those implications, we urge policymakers to learn more about the project and think of ways that its approach, materials, and findings can be incorporated into existing pro- grams, services, and systems of care. Further, we believe there is a very compelling need to take the project to scale and greatly expand the number of families that have access to the kind of support Dr. Ryan and her colleagues have found to be so important to the well-being of LGBT youth. To date, Dr. Ryan and her team have designed, built, and implemented the project on a very limited budget. A modest investment of federal funds could have a disproportionately large impact on reducing some of our nation’s most expensive and seemingly intractable problems, such as homelessness, poor mental health, suicide, and the spread of HIV. Specifically, we recommend that Congress appropriate $3 million over three years to support the project and to help it expand its reach and impact. Families have been left out of the care giving and support equation for LGBT children and youth for far too long. The Family Acceptance Project’s work and research show why this is a costly mistake—in both human and financial terms.

For a copy of this memo, go to: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/02/pdf/families_matter.pdf/

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Parenting by Gays More Common in the South, Census Shows

January 18, 2011
New York Times
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Being gay in this Southern city was once a lonely existence. Most people kept their sexuality to themselves, and they were reminded of the dangers of being openly gay when a gay church was bombed in the 1980s. These days, there are eight churches that openly welcome gay worshipers. One even caters to couples with children.

The changes may seem surprising for a city where churches that have long condemned homosexuality remain a powerful force. But as demographers sift through recent data releases from the Census Bureau, they have found that Jacksonville is home to one of the biggest populations of gay parents in the country.

In addition, the data show, child rearing among same-sex couples is more common in the South than in any other region of the country, according to Gary Gates, a demographer at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gay couples in Southern states like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are more likely to be raising children than their counterparts on the West Coast, in New York and in New England.

The pattern, identified by Mr. Gates, is also notable because the families in this region defy the stereotype of a mainstream gay America that is white, affluent, urban and living in the Northeast or on the West Coast.

“We’re starting to see that the gay community is very diverse,” said Bob Witeck, chief executive of Witeck-Combs Communications, which helped market the census to gay people. “We’re not all rich white guys.”

Black or Latino gay couples are twice as likely as whites to be raising children, according to Mr. Gates, who used data from a Census Bureau sampling known as the American Community Survey. They are also more likely than their white counterparts to be struggling economically.

Experts offer theories for the pattern. A large number of gay couples, possibly a majority, entered into their current relationship after first having children with partners in heterosexual relationships, Mr. Gates said. That seemed to be the case for many blacks and Latinos in Jacksonville, for whom church disapproval weighed heavily.

“People grew up in church, so a lot of us lived in shame,” said Darlene Maffett, 43, a Jacksonville resident, who had two children in eight years of marriage before coming out in 2002. “What did we do? We wandered around lost. We married men, and then couldn’t understand why every night we had a headache.”

Moreover, gay men who have children do so an average of three years earlier than heterosexual men, census data shows, Mr. Gates said. At the same time, there are fewer white women of childbearing age nationally, according to demographers, while the number of minority women of childbearing age is expanding.

Jacksonville was a magnet for Ms. Maffett even before she moved here. While its gay residents remained largely hidden, it had a gay-friendly church. In 2003, she spent her Sundays driving 90 minutes each way to attend from the town where she worked as a school bus driver.

Ms. Maffett appreciated the safety of the church in Jacksonville. Her father was a Baptist preacher, and her former husband was a member of the Church of Christ, so she knew how unwelcoming some churches could be for gays. Even so, she felt little connection to the gay congregation in Jacksonville — mostly white, male and childless.

“The pastors were all white guys,” said Ms. Maffett, who is black. “They were nice to us, but we weren’t really feeling that they knew how to cater to kids.”

Then she met Valerie Williams, a customer service worker with a sunny personality and a booming voice. Ms. Williams, 33, had been part of the city’s gay community for years, and when the first African-American, gay-friendly church opened in 2007, she thought it needed to go one step further.

“People were looking to do stuff with their kids, and they had no place to go,” she said.

So last summer, Ms. Williams became pastor of St. Luke’s Community Church, one of the oldest gay-friendly churches in the city, and immediately set up a youth program. Attendance by the mixed-race congregation swelled to more than 90 from 25 in just a few months.

“All of a sudden you started seeing all of these women coming out,” Ms. Maffett said. “All of them had children.”

In 2009, the Census Bureau estimated that there were 581,000 same-sex couples in the United States, Mr. Gates said; the bureau does not count gay singles.

About a third of lesbians are parents, and a fifth of gay men are. Advocacy groups argue that their children are some of society’s most vulnerable, with fewer legal protections and less health insurance than children of heterosexual parents.

Even so, their ranks have been mostly left out of national policy debates, because the Census Bureau did not conduct its first preliminary count of same-sex couples until 1990. This year, the bureau will count married same-sex partners for the first time.

“We don’t know a lot about this group,” Mr. Gates said. “Their story has not been told.”

About 32 percent of gay couples in Jacksonville are raising children, Mr. Gates said, citing the 2009 Census data, second only to San Antonio, where the rate is about 34 percent.

Some gay parents here say that family life can be complicated. Cynthia, the mother of a talkative 9-year-old, can be herself at her daughter’s cheerleading practice, because it is far from their home. But at her daughter’s school, she tells no one that she is gay, because her partner, Monique, teaches there.

Their daughter, they said, ends up with a mixed message at school.

“We tell her, ‘Be honest, don’t lie, but keep this in the closet,’ ” said Monique, who asked that the couple’s last names not be used to protect her privacy at work, “It gets confusing for her.”

Ms. Williams confronts those troubles directly with a program called Youth Power Hour, a kind of group counseling session for children of gay parents. This month, the group of about 20 young people discussed their problems after a free spaghetti dinner cooked by one of the adult moderators.

“This girl at school is always bullying me,” said a 9-year-old named Diantra.

Ms. Williams responded, her voice filling the room: “Remember what we said? Tell an adult.”

Cynthia’s daughter, also part of the group, said the sense of community it provided helped her.

“It feels good to be around people who don’t just have moms and dads,” she said, pulling her braids nervously. “I like it because I’m not alone anymore.”

Married same-sex parents face legal hurdles. Florida does not recognize same-sex marriage, and its domestic partnership recognition, while growing, is an uneven patchwork, and still leaves many spouses uninsured.

Even when employers agree to cover domestic partners, those couples pay higher taxes, because without federal recognition of their status, health coverage is considered income and is taxable. Until recently, Florida was one of a handful of states that expressly prohibited adoption by gay couples.

But money is often a more immediate problem.

Ty Francis, a bank customer-service worker here with a sharp sense of humor, supports six children together with her partner, Rosalyn Cooley, a health care worker.

“I’m one check away from being on welfare,” Ms. Francis said.

But that kind of financial difficulty does not dampen enthusiasm for coaxing along acceptance in this conservative city of more than 800,000 people. A recent billboard supporting gay and lesbian youth drew no public scorn or boycotts, and gay pride parades have been held for several years.

Ms. Williams compares the community’s efforts to the struggles of the civil rights movement.

“Slowly but surely, all this will pass,” she said. “I truly believe that.”

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Supreme Court lets stand New York ruling for Debra H.

Beyond Gay and Straight Marriage – Nancy Polikoff – January 11, 2011
I wrote extensively about the dreadful New York Court of Appeals decision last year that refused to recognize parentage of a nonbio mom based on the couple’s creation of a two-parent family. That court did, however, find that Debra H. was the parent of the child born to Janice R. because the couple was in a Vermont civil union when the child was born. The fact that a child in New York has two parents if the couple is married or in a civil union but otherwise has one parent, no matter how much that couple planned for and raised the child together, was a major impetus for the conference I’m hosting in March on the “New Illegitimacy.”

Anyway, Janice asked the US Supreme Court to hear her case, claiming that granting parental status to her civil union partner violated her Constitutional right to raise her biological child. Yesterday, the Court denied her petition. That’s what I expected. The Court hears very few cases at all, and very few specifically in the area of family law, which is generally a matter of state law and varies so much from state to state. Other nonbio moms have also been turned away when they’ve asked the Court to hear their cases. Refusing to hear a case — which is called a denial of certiorari in legal-speak — has no legal significance. In other words, it doesn’t add anything to the New York ruling or make it more meaningful in any way. It just leaves it alone.

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Landmark State Supreme Court decision establishes parentage for Gay Parents

Boston, Massachusetts January 7, 2011 — In an unprecedented decision, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that two gay men could be recognized as legal parents on the birth certificate of their twins born through surrogacy. This is the first time in U.S. history that a state high court has acknowledged the parentage of two men while stating the relevant statute “confer(s) parental status on an intended parent who is a party to a valid gestational agreement irrespective of that intended parent’s genetic relationship to the children.” It “has created a new way by which persons may become legal parents.”

“This is the single most important decision in the history of gay men having children through surrogacy,’ said John Weltman, Esq., president of Circle Surrogacy, and author of an amicus brief in the case. “For a state high court to recognize the right of two gay men to be legal fathers of a child from the outset of the surrogacy process sets an incredible precedent. Furthermore, it positions Connecticut as one of the best states in the country for couples – gay and straight – to pursue gestational surrogacy with egg donation to create their family.”

Anthony Raftopol and Shawn Hargon, an American couple residing in Hungary, had a daughter through surrogacy, and were both recognized as her child’s legal father on the birth certificate. They then had twins in April 2008 through the same gestational surrogate and egg donor. When the couple petitioned the court to be named as the children’s legal parents, the court granted their petition. However, this time the Attorney General, acting on behalf of the Connecticut Department of Health, attempted to block the creation of the birth certificate, stating that parentage could only be established through conception, adoption or artificial insemination.

The Supreme Court rejected this claim, noting that according to the Department of Health’s argument, a child born to an infertile couple who had entered into a gestational agreement with egg and sperm donors and a gestational carrier would be born parentless. “The legislature cannot be presumed to have intended this consequence,” the Court declared, “which is so absurd as to be Kafkaesque.” The revolutionary decision acknowledges that entry into a valid gestational agreement creates a fourth method to establish parentage, regardless of biological relation.

in Legal / Parenting / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

LGBT Parenting Roundup

Mombian – January 4, 2011

I’m still recovering from the holidays, so let’s be different and start with some celebrity news before diving into politics:

Celebrity News

  • Elton John and his partner David Furnish are now proud parents. “Elton John and David Furnish became first-time fathers on Christmas after welcoming a baby boy via a surrogate,” says the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Just once, though, I want to see a newspaper headline say, “[Male celebrity] and [Female celebrity] welcomed their new baby via sexual intercourse.”Much coverage of the new dads has also mentioned that John is listed as “Father” and Furnish as “Mother” on the child’s birth certificate, as if that somehow explained their parental roles. Fact is, of course, it may or may not coincide with their roles—but they might just have filled them out at random, as the forms clearly haven’t caught up with the reality of families today. “Parent” and “Parent” really isn’t that hard, folks.
  • Meanwhile, Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka spoke with People about raising their twins (and After Elton has a copy of the adorable photo spread).
  • Jane Lynch, lesbian mom and Glee actor, and Dan Savage, gay dad and “It Gets Better” campaign founder, talk with Newsweek about gay rights and being parents.

International News

  • Eleven-year-old Aspen Drewitt-Barlow, son of the first gay couple in Britain to have a baby via surrogate, has a sweet piece in the Mirror about life with his two dads. In a separate story, his parents are planning to set up a surrogacy center focused on same-sex couples.
  • The U.K.’s Guardian newspaper profiles four lesbian couples with children.
  • Since the U.K. changed its law requiring fertility clinics to consider a child’s “need for a father” before providing services, the number of lesbian couples seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF) has doubled, and the number of single women has tripled. The number using donor insemination at registered clinics has stayed about the same.
  • In Argentina, a baby girl was registered with the last names of both her biological and non-biological mothers, as the first child of a legally married lesbian couple in the country.
  • A gay couple in Johannesburg, South Africa gay has won a seven-year-battle for permission to have a child via a surrogate.
  • On a similar note, the Jerusalem Family Court ruled that a baby born to a surrogate may be adopted by the biological father’s partner.
  • Volker Kauder, the parliamentary leader of Germany’s ruling Christian Democrats, said same-sex couples have no right to have children.

U.S. Politics and Law

  • I’ve done an in-depth piece for Keen News Service on the recent awful North Carolina Supreme Court ruling that has jeopardized all existing second-parent adoptions in the state.
  • From the Dallas Voice, via Pam’s House Blend, comes the tragic news of lesbian mom Debie Hackett who died by suicide after losing a custody lawsuit with her former partner. As Pam points out, “It’s hard to pinpoint any one cause other than a person in crisis didn’t get the help she needed in time,” but the stress of the custody battle likely did not help her emotional state. I’ll take a cue from the Dallas Voice and provide a link here to the LGBT-friendly American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Warning Signs for Suicide.
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Eleven LGBT Parenting Resolutions for 2011

Mombian.com – January 1 2011

(Happy 2011 to all! I’ll be back on a regular posting schedule next week. In the meantime, here’s a piece that was originally published as my Mombian newspaper column. Feel free to add your own resolutions in the comments.)

The end of November through early January is one big party in our multi-celebration family, with Thanksgiving leading to Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year’s, and my spouse’s birthday in quick succession. In between finding room for our son’s new Lego sets and making sure the cats don’t eat the tinsel off the tree or knock over the menorah, however, I like to think about resolutions for the coming year. Here are 11 for 2011 that I offer as suggestions for other parents as well—some generic, some with an LGBT twist.

Travel someplace new. One of the great joys of parenting for me is sharing new places with our son. And while I like taking him to places I already love, I also think there are lessons to be learned when we go someplace new to all of us—local or farther afield—and get to explore it together. If your child is old enough, have him or her help with the planning.

Teach someone something about your family. We don’t all have to be outspoken advocates 24×7—but if we each commit to saying even one thing during the year that helps a non-LGBT person better understand LGBT families, we’ll be making progress. Share what it means to have books and other media that reflect LGBT families. Explain how a certain piece of legislation would affect you. Suggest how another parent might discuss your family to her/his kids.

See more things from your child’s perspective. It is a cliché to say that parenting helps one see the world through a child’s eyes, but it is also all too easy to spend so much time in “responsible parent” mode that we forget to do so. Make a point of trying to see your child’s view. Even if you don’t agree, it will help you communicate more effectively.

Take time for your partner/spouse/a date. I often joke that if the right wing wants to stop gay sex, they should be encouraging us all to become parents. I also firmly believe, however, that a healthy relationship between parents leads to a happier, healthier home environment. A little time away from the kids (whether in bed, at the movies, or otherwise) helps us refresh and recharge. And if kids think that becoming a parent means giving up the rest of one’s life, then they’ll never want to become parents themselves. Set an example of good balance.

Help another LGBT family. Whether in-person or online, share something that has helped you as an LGBT family—a referral to a friendly lawyer or doctor, an approach to discussing donors, surrogates, or birth parents with your child, an inclusive book you have loved. Whatever stage you are at in your parenting journey, someone else is less far along, and might benefit from your advice.

Read a book about a different type of family. Pick out one—or one for yourself and one for your children—about a family of another race, religion, nationality, or that brought children into their lives in a different way. LGBT parents often urge others to learn more about us; we should return the favor.

Volunteer at your child’s school. At least once each year, raise your hand to help out in the classroom, at the book fair, on field day, or with a fundraiser. Yes, it’s hard if you’re also employed full-time, but your kids will appreciate the effort—not to mention that having LGBT parents who are visible, valuable members of the school community helps us all.

Support a small LGBT cause. Support the big organizations, too, if you wish, but don’t forget the smaller ones like local community centers and youth groups, HIV/AIDS service organizations, health initiatives like the Mautner Project (mautnerproject.org), and youth education organizations and initiatives like Groundspark (groundspark.org) and the Family Acceptance Project (familyproject.sfsu.edu).

Build things with your kid(s)—often. A paper airplane, a cake, a tower of blocks, a new deck—whether a one-time affair or an ongoing project, creating things together can be a world of fun—as well as an exercise (for both of you) in how to follow directions, share, overcome frustration, and ask for help.

Make sure your legal documents are up to date and accessible. Are your wills, powers of attorney, and other legal documents in order? Have there been any major life changes (like moving to a new state or becoming married or civil unioned) since you last made out your wills? Do you have copies of your powers of attorney and adoption papers or parentage orders that you bring with you when you travel? A new year is a good time to check all of this and see a lawyer if necessary.

Thank your family. However you define it, whoever is included, make sure to tell them that you value their role in your life, despite the annoyances, arguments, piles of laundry, and tacky holiday gifts.

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Gay Teens Face Harsher Punishments

December 6, 2010

By TARA PARKER-POPE  – New York Times –

Gay teens in the United States are far more likely to be harshly punished by schools and courts than their straight peers, according to a new study published in the medical journal Pediatrics. The findings, based on a national sample of more than 15,000 middle and high school students, come at a time of heightened attention to the plight of gay teens. While several high-profile bullying and suicide cases around the country have revealed the harassment of gay teens by their peers, the new data suggests gay teens also suffer a hidden bias when judged by school and legal authorities. “Gay, lesbian and bisexual kids are being punished by police, courts and by school officials, and it’s not because they’re misbehaving more,’’ said Kathyrn Himmelstein, the study’s lead author, who initiated the research while an undergraduate student at Yale University. Ms. Himmelstein, now a high school math teacher in New York City, began the research after spending time working in the juvenile justice system during a leave of absence from college. She noticed a disproportionate number of gay and lesbian teens in juvenile court. After co-workers confirmed the trend, Ms. Himmelstein searched the scientific literature but didn’t find any studies evaluating whether gay teens were more likely to be involved in criminal activity or more severely punished. As a result, she began conducting her own study for her senior thesis at Yale University. She used data collected from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which followed middle and high school students for seven years beginning in 1994. The study is a broad overview of adolescent health but contained information on teen sexuality and both minor and serious misconduct. The study asked teens about nonviolent misdeeds like alcohol use, lying to parents, shoplifting and vandalism, as well as more serious crimes like using a weapon, burglary or selling drugs. Notably, teens who identified themselves as lesbian or gay or who experienced feelings of same-sex attraction were less likely to engage in violence than their peers. However, they were far more likely to be expelled from school, stopped by police, arrested or convicted of a crime. Girls who labeled themselves as lesbian or bisexual appeared to be at highest risk for punishment, experiencing 50 more police stops and about twice the risk of arrest and conviction as other girls who reported similar levels of misconduct. The study wasn’t designed to determine the reasons that behavior by gay and lesbian teens is more likely to be punished or criminalized. However, the authors speculated that the more severe punishments meted out to gay teens may reflect a bias by school and court officials. It may be that gay teens encounter homophobia in educational and child welfare systems and are less likely to receive support services than their straight peers. Or educators and court officials may be less likely to consider mitigating factors, like self defense against bullying, when dispensing punishment against a gay teen. Ms. Himmelstein said that instead of protecting gay teens from bullying and abuse by their peers, authority figures may actually be contributing to their victimization. “Our data show that lesbian, gay and bisexual youth are being excessively punished, but the data don’t say why,’’ says Ms. Himmelstein. “We weren’t able to figure out the circumstances of the punishment, but that’s something that should be investigated more in light of recent events involving bullying and harassment of gay teens by peers.’’

in Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

New Published Report Finds 0% of Adolescents Raised by Lesbians Have Been Physically or Sexually Abused by Parent

 

 

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Los Angeles, CA – The Williams Institute, a research center on sexual orientation law and public policy at UCLA School of Law, announces new findings from the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS), the longest-running study ever conducted on American lesbian families (now in its 24th year). In an article published today in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, the 17-year-old daughters and sons of lesbian mothers were asked about sexual abuse, sexual orientation, and sexual behavior. The paper finds that none of the 78 NLLFS adolescents report having ever been physically or sexually abused by a parent or other caregiver. This contrasts with 26% of American adolescents who report parent or caregiver physical abuse and 8.3% who report sexual abuse. According to the authors, “the absence of child abuse in lesbian mother families is particularly noteworthy, because victimization of children is pervasive and its consequences can be devastating. To the extent that our findings are replicated by other researchers, these reports from adolescents with lesbian mothers have implications for healthcare professionals, policymakers, social service agencies, and child protection experts who seek family models in which violence does not occur.” On sexual orientation, 2.8% of the NLLFS adolescents identified as predominantly to exclusively homosexual. The study was conducted by Nanette Gartrell, MD, Henny Bos, PhD (University of Amsterdam), and Naomi Goldberg, MPP (Williams Institute). Principal investigator Nanette Gartrell, MD, is a 2010 Williams Distinguished Scholar, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at UCSF, and affiliated with the University of Amsterdam. For more information about this study, please see Archives of Sexual Behavior: DOI 10.1007/s10508-010-9692-2 — Or, visit the NLLFS website at http://www.nllfs.org

 

 

The Williams Institute advances sexual orientation law and public policy through rigorous, independent research and scholarship, and disseminates it to judges, legislators, policymakers, media and the public. A national think tank at UCLA Law, the Williams Institute produces high quality research with real-world relevance. For more information go to: http://www.law.ucla.edu/williamsinstitute/home.html

View the full study at: http://www.law.ucla.edu/williamsinstitute/pdf/Gartrell-Bos-Goldberg-2010.pdf

in In the News / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

In Schools’ Efforts to End Bullying, Some See Agenda

November 6, 2010
New York Times
By ERIK ECKHOLM

HELENA, Mont. — Alarmed by evidence that gay and lesbian students are common victims of schoolyard bullies, many school districts are bolstering their antiharassment rules with early lessons in tolerance, explaining that some children have “two moms” or will grow up to love members of the same sex.

But such efforts to teach acceptance of homosexuality, which have gained urgency after several well-publicized suicides by gay teenagers, are provoking new culture wars in some communities.

Many educators and rights advocates say that official prohibitions of slurs and taunts are most effective when combined with frank discussions, from kindergarten on, about diverse families and sexuality.

Angry parents and religious critics, while agreeing that schoolyard harassment should be stopped, charge that liberals and gay rights groups are using the antibullying banner to pursue a hidden “homosexual agenda,” implicitly endorsing, for example, same-sex marriage.

Last summer, school officials here in Montana’s capital unveiled new guidelines for teaching about sexuality and tolerance. They proposed teaching first graders that “human beings can love people of the same gender,” and fifth graders that sexual intercourse can involve “vaginal, oral or anal penetration.”

A local pastor, Rick DeMato, carried his shock straight to the pulpit.

“We do not want the minds of our children to be polluted with the things of a carnal-minded society,” Mr. DeMato, 69, told his flock at Liberty Baptist Church.

In tense community hearings, some parents made familiar arguments that innocent youngsters were not ready for explicit language. Other parents and pastors, along with leaders of the Big Sky Tea Party, saw a darker purpose.

“Anyone who reads this document can see that it promotes acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle,” one mother said at a six-hour school board meeting in late September.

Barely heard was the plea of Harlan Reidmohr, 18, who graduated last spring and said he was relentlessly tormented and slammed against lockers after coming out during his freshman year. Through his years in the Helena schools, he said at another school board meeting, sexual orientation was never once discussed in the classroom, and “I believe this led to a lot of the sexual harassment I faced.”

Last month, the federal Department of Education told schools they were obligated, under civil rights laws, to try to prevent harassment, including that based on sexual orientation and gender identity. But the agency did not address the controversy over more explicit classroom materials in grade schools.

Some districts, especially in larger cities, have adopted tolerance lessons with minimal dissent. But in suburban districts in California, Illinois and Minnesota, as well as here in Helena, the programs have unleashed fierce opposition.

“Of course we’re all against bullying,” Mr. DeMato, one of numerous pastors who opposed the plan, said in an interview. “But the Bible says very clearly that homosexuality is wrong, and Christians don’t want the schools to teach subjects that are repulsive to their values.”

The divided Helena school board, after four months of turmoil, recently adopted a revised plan for teaching about health, sex and diversity. Much of the explicit language about sexuality and gay families was removed or replaced with vague phrases, like a call for young children to “understand that family structures differ.” The superintendent who has ardently pushed the new curriculum, Bruce K. Messinger, agreed to let parents remove their children from lessons they find objectionable.

In Alameda, Calif., officials started to introduce new tolerance lessons after teachers noticed grade-schoolers using gay slurs and teasing children with gay or lesbian parents. A group of parents went to court seeking the right to remove their children from lessons that included reading “And Tango Makes Three,” a book in which two male penguins bond and raise a child.

The parents lost the suit, and the school superintendent, Kirsten Vital, said the district was not giving ground. “Everyone in our community needs to feel safe and visible and included,” Ms. Vital said.

Some of the Alameda parents have taken their children out of public schools, while others now hope to unseat members of the school board.

After at least two suicides by gay students last year, a Minnesota school district recently clarified its antibullying rules to explicitly protect gay and lesbian students along with other target groups. But to placate religious conservatives, the district, Anoka-Hennepin County, also stated that teachers must be absolutely neutral on questions of sexual orientation and refrain from endorsing gay parenting.

Rights advocates worry that teachers will avoid any discussion of gay-related topics, missing a chance to fight prejudice.

While nearly all states require schools to have rules against harassment, only 10 require them to explicitly outlaw bullying related to sexual orientation. Rights groups including the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, based in New York, are promoting a federal “safe schools” act to make this a universal requirement, although passage is not likely any time soon.

Candi Cushman, an educational analyst with Focus on the Family, a Christian group, said that early lessons about sexuality and gay parents reflected a political agenda, including legitimizing same-sex marriage. “We need to protect all children from bullying,” Ms. Cushman said. “But the advocacy groups are promoting homosexual lessons in the name of antibullying.”

Ellen Kahn of the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, which offers a “welcoming schools” curriculum for grade schools, denied such motives.

“When you talk about two moms or two dads, the idea is to validate the families, not to push a debate about gay marriage,” Ms. Kahn said. The program involves what she described as age-appropriate materials on family and sexual diversity and is used in dozens of districts, though it has sometime stirred dissent.

The Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, which runs teacher-training programs and recommends videos and books depicting gay parents in a positive light, has met opposition in several districts, including the Chicago suburb of Oak Park.

Julie Justicz, a 47-year-old lawyer, and her partner live in Oak Park with two sons ages 6 and 11. Ms. Justicz saw the need for early tolerance training, she said, when their older son was upset by pejorative terms about gays in the schoolyard.

Frank classroom discussions about diverse families and hurtful phrases had greatly reduced the problem, she said.

But one of the objecting parents, Tammi Shulz, who describes herself as a traditional Christian, said, “I just don’t think it’s great to talk about homosexuality with 5-year-olds.”

Tess Dufrechou, president of Helena High School’s Gay-Straight Alliance, a club that promotes tolerance, counters that, “By the time kids get to high school, it’s too late.”

Only a handful of students in Helena high schools are openly gay, with others keeping the secret because they fear the reactions of parents and peers, students said.

Michael Gengler, one of the few to have come out, said, “You learn from an early age that it’s not acceptable to be gay,” adding that he was disappointed that the teaching guidelines had been watered down.

But Mr. Messinger, the superintendent, said he still hoped to achieve the original goals without using the explicit language that offended many parents.

“This is not about advocating a lifestyle, but making sure our children understand it and, I hope, accept it,” he said.

in Legal / Legislation / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

New Award for LGBT Children’s and Young Adult Books

Mombian.com – November 4, 2010
Go librarians. The American Library Association (ALA) this week announced it will add an annual award for “English-language works for children and teens of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered experience.” The Stonewall Children’s and Young Adult Literature Award will become part of the ALA’s Youth Media Awards, which also include the Newbery and Caldecott medals and multicultural awards such as the Coretta Scott King Book Award. It also joins the original Stonewall Book Award (for adult readers) that began way back in 1971.

Since 2008, the ALA has also produced an annual Rainbow Bibliography of children’s and young adult books with LGBT content. (See my interview with the head of the Rainbow Project, Nel Ward.) The Bibliography aims to be a broad but selective guide for librarians, bookstore managers, and readers. It includes books chosen for quality as well as LGBT content, but is not as exclusive as the new award will be.

I probably don’t need to tell any of you how important it is to have stories that reflect our families. Both the Bibliography and the Stonewall award are encouraging signs that not only are there books out there, but there are also ones of sufficient quality to please a whole bunch of librarians. The first award will be made in January.

in Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments