Halloween trick-or-treating peanut, Berkeley, CA (2010).

Visual coda to yesterday’s post, in which I mentioned our boy’s Halloween costume choice of last year. I wrote a few words about it at the time, here.  If I were to have to guess now, I’d say there’ll be a long gap ’til the next such outfit makes a Halloween appearance, though of course I could be wrong. In the intervening year, his haberdashery pace car has shifted from Big Sister to Main Boy Chum at Preschool.  For all the complex reasons that are behind such evolving self-understandings. Advancing years, increased exposure to peer groups, push of culture, pull of self, survival instinct; you name it.

The costume  above met a glowing reception throughout the neighborhood last year, though, and not just because there were blinky red lights underneath the tulle (yes there were).  I mean, really. The kid looks better in that outfit than I ever could.  Also? At least the grown-ups in our neighborhood love kids unconditionally and clearly share our conviction that the best thing we can do for them is clear the runway ahead and help them take flight.

Re: clearing the runway and helping kids take flight (into a world they’re in the process of making) – below, I’ve collected a smattering of nifty resources by and for parents of gender nonconforming kids. Halloween’s pretty much the primo occasion for this, since it’s the one day of the year kids have a wide(r) berth to explore performing different identities.

Here’s one of my favorite blogs on one family’s journey, genderwise: Labels are for Jars.  After you check out her extremely thoughtful posts, you can go on to check out the blogs on her blogroll.  Sarah Hoffman writes about her “pink boy.” Like so many (mostly mothers, but some fathers, Accepting Dad a stellar voice among them) writing about nonconforming boy kids, also has amassed a great list of valuable resources and done a lot of work at her kid’s school, which she’s written about. She’s got a book in the works, and if blog is prologue, we can expect it to be very good. Transparenthood, also very thoughtful, explores parenting a boy child born in a girl body; Sam’s now 15.

Like Sarah Hoffman, Cheryl Kilodavis, author of My Princess Boy, has done an enormous amount of consciousness- and awareness-raising, after she did some on herself as her son began to follow his own path. I met and interviewed her last February when she was on book tour locally, but had just become job-smacked and had to put the interview in the can, where several other notable ones are moldering. (Ordinary people have backlogged scrapbook and family photo album projects; bloggers have backlogged blog posts.) The succinct thing I can share from that chat with her is that she is enormously sincere, very very smart and open, learning all the time, and evangelical about spreading understanding among parents like her who were previously totally unprepared for nonconformity like this in her child. Check out her Acceptance Groups page.

No post on kids in gender nonconforming Halloween outfits would be complete without reference to Nerdy Apple Bottom, who blew the top off this topic last year when she posted about her son’s Daphne outfit and its reception at his (then) school.  And yes: comment count on that post is accurately reflected at over 47,000.  So not kidding about the “blew the top off”; the Today Show had her on as a result. Sarah (the blog’s author) is a phenomenal person, as I can attest now after having had the pleasure of meeting her last August in San Diego. This year she’s done a photo project, Just B, in which she’s taken portraits of her kids and their friends having a nondenominational blast with a box of costumes. (Whole series here.)

As to organizations, Gender Spectrum is the best one I know of, founded by (who else) a loving mother of a gender nonconforming child. Said mother, Stephanie Brill, just happened to be a midwife / educator / author of two books about conception, childbirth, and queer parenting, so she hit the ground running, as a perusal of Gender Spectrum’s resources will make clear. Their page Understanding Gender is a great first stop for folks, and her book The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals, cowritten with author/educator Rachel Pepper, is top-notch and one-of-a-kind.

Collecting this list of online resources has made it evident to me: parents (mostly mothers) are becoming transformed and expanded by their kids, and are turning around and working to transform and expand the world so it can fit them. Which I consider a pretty neat trick.

But this week I’m pro-Babble: the capital-B kind.  Two different juries of my peers gathered by that website have seen fit to honor what I’ve been doing online with recognitions.  [Point of info: Babble is a widely-read resource website "for a new generation of parents."]  The honorifics (and the attendant challenge I feel to retroactively actually earn them) couldn’t have arrived at a better time, relative to the ebb and flow my work life.  For the past nine months it has been gushing, rather than flowing, and dadgum it I think it’s about to ebb for the first time since I started it.  Enter, stage left, in the after-work hours: much-neglected writing life!

Babble Honorific #1: I was named one (okay, 47th) among Babble’s 50 Top Twitter Moms.  I wanted to turn right around and at least Tweet my thanks.  But when the news hit, I was still too busy chasing around after my work with buckets and mops (c.f. recent gusher imagery).   I think in actuality I was flying cross-country with some buckets and mops, and was just running out of battery juice on my laptop when I read the email.  To be 47th in a group of 50 is a delightful combination of fortunate and humorous.  It’s more humorous than 48th or 49th, since those numbers have some cachet.  You know, one’s an even number, which is always cool, and the other’s almost-50.  But forty-seven is just, well. Sitting there.  Hopeful. Feeling lucky to be there.

I was also named ninth “most inspirational” Twitter Mom, which had a much greater thrill than humor value.  Because contarn it half the reason I bother to put fingers to keyboard, at least in my writing life, is to inspire. Both self and other.  Either to greater compassion or greater awareness or even to laughter.  Needless to say, right away I wanted to Tweet nine inspirational Tweets.  But first I ran out of laptop battery, and then I ran out of time.  Story of my life, of late.  (For a bit of analysis and critique of last year’s such list, check out Annie’s post at PhD in Parenting last year.)

Babble Honorific #2: Lesbian Dad was named among Babble’s Top 50 Dad Blogs.  Holy ovaries! Especially on the heels of the Twitter Mom deal!  The juxtaposition of these two honorifics – mom + dad – speaks volumes to the capacities of this imaginative, communicative space, where I’ve worked so hard to explore that very overlap.  Kindred spirits and open minds can and do find each other here; a person can assay an undertaking as unlikely as define a heretofore absent parental space between two seemingly immutable, biologically-rooted “givens,” and not only find a sympathetic ear, but helping hands, even thoughtful collaboration.

I had hoped for something like this understanding from my home community – that is, other parents like me, gals not quite mother, not quite father, but a bit of both, who would find something familiar in my stories or my vantage point.  I was seeking out their insight and wisdom when I had no idea what this parenting path would be like.  What I didn’t expect those five or six years ago, when I started doing all this, was that my “community” would include so many allies.  Or, rather, that the people I might once have thought of as allies would in actuality be my community.

I have had the good fortune not just to read, but to come to know a number of the other dad bloggers who’ve been called out as among the Babble Top 50 this year.  I think of Doug French and Andy as friends as much as colleagues, and was honored to have shaken Mike Adamick’s hand in Chicago in 2009, right before he went on to read a post as one of BlogHer’s Voices of the Year (for which I was a reader that year, and yes, I adamantly inked in Mike’s beautiful post “Don’t all kids play in vacant warehouses?” on my “Absolutely Must Be Recognized” list).

Thanks to blogging conferences (run by women; Doug & Andy’s is coming up!), I’ve met  and have appreciated the work of  Jason Mayo,  Rob Rummel-Hudson, Shawn Burns, Whit Honea, John Cave Osborne, Jim Highley, Jim Lin, and Caleb Gardner, and and look forward to reading many of the others called out in the list.  I think Jeremy Adam Smith has done a whole lot for contemporary understanding of 21st century parenthood, the male version, but I know the Babble list was for solo-authored blogs, so his Daddy Dialectic didn’t have the chance to be recognized. Each of these men parent in different ways; each stretches conventional understandings of masculinity and caregiving to varying degrees. No matter what, I’m glad they’re all writing about their parenthood, because it’s fertile ground much in need of tilling. For the sake of their peers who are parenting, and for folks in the generation coming up like my son, who will likely be a parent when he grows up, and my daughter, who will likely (who knows! just an educated guess!) be parenting alongside a man when she grows up.

As I was telling my Pops yesterday, when I told him the news about this recognition: I was nervous when I first staked out this blog name and this space, virtually and actually.   All I could imagine, when I thought of my public reception by other straight men in particular, was indignation, based on the all-too familiar presumptions that (a) the universe is about stasis, rather than expansion, and (b) there is never enough room at the table, never a pie big enough, and so on.  Usurper! Interloper! Fraud!  At that time I couldn’t imagine the faces of friends, fellow parents who, not just in spite of but also because of their being men, saw we had much to offer one another.  I couldn’t imagine that they saw what I saw: that when someone like me elbows more space for my parenthood, it’s not like I’m poking them in the gut.  I’m making more space for them, too.  We’re all helping each other, when we stretch and redefine understandings of parenthood for our generation.  I’m hugely honored to be doing so as an ally to these guys.

I mean really? Is any commentary even needed?

This was the first Amazon review of Julianne Moore’s new kids’ book in her Freckleface Strawberry series (this one: Freckleface Strawberry: Best Friends Forever).  I learned of the book whilst reading a post at Dominique Browning’s Slow Love Life blog: “A Two-Mom Couple Confronts Noisy, Rude Questions: Julianne Moore Has Some Answers.”

So quite naturally I bopped over via the link to check out the book.  And see what greeted me? Tautological homophobia.  Self-cancelling phrase. Ignorance, ignorant of itself.

If any of y’all are registered Amazon reviewers and interested in buying and reviewing Julianne Moore’s book, I’m sure it would improve the discussion juuuuuust a bit.  I have already decided where our family’s next kid’s book purchase is going.

Meanwhile! A few notes on the occasion of Dana’s 6th Blogging for LGBT Families Day! First, here are things I contributed to her 1st, 2nd, 3rd, & 4th. & 5th.  We’ve both been at this a while. In fact, I still remember where I was (in the living room of the beloved’s and my first wee home, on a laptop) when I ran into Mombian.com for the first time, and shouted “Eureka!” What a revelation. I was  just a half-year into my parenthood at the time, and was already starved for what she had to offer, astounded that she was offering it up. For free. On the internet. (Nostalgic? Here’s her first post.)

I’d snagged my own domain name nearly a year before Dana’s first post at Mombian, but promptly sat on it, since a few weeks after I squatted LesbianDad-dot-everything, my nephew was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, and our world tilted on its axis.  A year after that I made a peep, and nearly a year after that I began to write into this thing.

Over the past six years, it feels like both my parenthood and the collective presence of LGBT families — not just for target practice on ballot initiatives, but in the news and in the culture around  us, on Emmy-Award-winning TV shows, bit by bit in many places — has grown enormously. Six years into this journey I am no longer in the least petrified about the things I was totally petrified about, way back when I had nary a clue about changing diapers (much less confidence in the fact that my kids would, indeed, lovingly rely upon me as their bona fide parent).

Plenty of things unnerve me and concern me as a parent, plenty of which are still tied to the LGBT-ness of my parenthood and therefore my kids’ family. But the insecurity I once had is by and large a sweet artifact of the very early days.  Like the sheet we taped on the wall of our bedroom, parenthood week two, noting our daughter’s nursing and elimination schedule. Kid you not. We had no clue it was all going to turn out okay.

Well, I am here to tell you, it has all turned out okay.  Or at least, with a six-year-old about to graduate from first grade, plus a four-year-old utterly thriving in preschool: so far so good.

Last week, at the girlie’s school’s Open House, she was as thrilled as she was the year before, at her Kindergarten one. (Above, a rare moment in which she was not jumping up and down and grabbing at my wrist to show me something else.) While I was wracked with guilt that I’d spent so little time at the school since I got my big fat full-time job in late February, she was totally unperturbed. I used to volunteer in the school garden every ding-dong week, supporting the lessons and work and play there, not to mention doing ongoing maintenance. Used to pick up the girlie every afternoon but one (Grandma Day), talking to her teacher and the other parents, lingering around the classroom. This Open House, the class was far more unfamiliar to me, and for every pang that gave me it gave my girlie a frisson.

“It’s way better that you haven’t been here all that much, Baba! I have more stuff to show you now!”  Holy christ. Is all I can say. Kids. I will never, ever, be capable of aiming high enough to properly estimate them.

She grabbed my hand, pulled me to the colored rug on the floor, and proceeded to read me the entirety of Desert Giant: The World of the Seguaro Cactus (by Barbara Bash). She had dropped the beloved’s and my jaws one evening a few weeks back when she recited, from memory and in the bath, at least 30% of the book’s contents, down to minutia regarding the fauna, fowl, and insects that found food and shelter in the mighty seguaro.  The in-person reading was destined, and though the book was 28 pages, there was no question we were going to squeeze every droplet of enjoyment from the experience.

All the while, the little brother soaked it all in: colorful displays, educational posters, kid projects, book-lined bookshelves, puffer fish in the aquarium.

He was utterly at home in his big sister’s classroom, the way all younger siblings are in the spaces their older siblings pioneer for them.  Imagining, imagining: one day, this will be mine.

During a moment when Mama was the object of the girlie’s attention, I was able to pour heartfelt thanks all over her teacher for what she’d done to ignite — or, really, just keep aflame, and fan and fan — our daughter’s love of learning over the past year.  She returned my thanks with a story.

At one point some weeks back, during a discussion of one thing or another (I forget the details now), the word “gay” came up in the classroom. One kid said, “That’s a bad word!” To which the teacher said, “Well, that depends.” And she took it as an opportunity to reflect on the double meaning of many words, given their context and the intent of the speaker.

The teacher told me that she began to explain the various meanings of the word, and then said that when she was in the middle of describing the factual (as vs. pejorative) usage of the term, all of a sudden my girlie burst out, “That’s me! That’s my family!”  She was filled with the enthusiasm you’d get when you all of a sudden looked down at your card and realized you got a BINGO.

The teacher was so heartwarmed by our girl’s mixture of discovery, excitement, and pride. But not so much as she was by her classmates’ enthusiastic chiming in: “Yeah, that’s right!” Like: wow, yay, you count in this discussion. Which of course is a very special thing.

You count in this discussion.

That’s where we need to be now. In a discussion, in the classroom, where our kids’ formative sense of community is built. Our kids, inclusive of the families they come from, need to be in this discussion. Of family. Of community. Of civil rights leaders (Harvey Milk Day, in California, is only beginning to be celebrated, and boy could we use Harvey to inspire us in the journey that will take to becoming an ordinary thing from school to school.)

My own kids are very, very fortunate to be in the first school district in the country to implement materials from the Human Rights Campaign’s Welcoming Schools guide district wide, as part of its educational policy.  Beginning this fall, when the girlie enters second grade, each school will integrate grade-appropriate lessons designed to help students (and school communities) understand and embrace family diversity (in all its forms, including LGBT families), avoid gender stereotyping, and end bullying.

Those who have worked very hard on this — the Berkeley Unified School District Family Diversity Task Force, comprising parents and teachers and administrators, with the tireless support of Judy Appel and Our Family Coalition — don’t expect the curriculum to unfurl without a hitch. Not in the least. We know from first hand experience at our own school that when conversation in the school opens up these areas, kids feel more free to express themselves honestly. Which means all kids, the gender-nonconforming and the bullies alike. It will not be an easy door to open, but open it we must, with care and and courage, like our kids do when they go to school the first day.

I was asked by someone sometime recently how things were for us, being a lesbian-headed family in Berkeley.  And I recall saying something to the effect of, “You know, it feels about as good as it could, given our modest numbers.” There’s always the huge gap to make up between the gobs of us and our kind that we’re accustomed to seeing in the lesbo-centric social spaces of our courtin’ years.  Come parenthood, the spaces we move in are largely kid-centric ones (except for date nights!).  For most of us, our kids occasion a decided bump back out into our demographic truth, which is that there really still isn’t a ton of us out there (here’s your Williams Institute study link, in case you forgot it; operative synopsis: LGBT folk are comparable in percentage of US population more to Jews than to African Americans). Even here, in one of the most queer-friendly towns in the nation, we still constitute a puny percentage of the families in any given school. Puny.

Two years at school and our girlie has not  yet been in a class with any other kid with same sex parents; it’s only remotely possible she will: one other girl at school in her class has two moms; she has an older brother, and there’s one other girl in the fourth grade who has two moms. That’s it. For the whole school.

I realized as I was describing our lot, which I consider phenomenally fortunate, that we have thusfar experienced no malice. Which I am glad to report, because I know that’s not a given. But absence of malice is not enough. What I followed that up with was also key: we have been, as yet, just marginally visible in the curriculum and close to completely invisible in the representative culture our kids know. Families like ours are totally invisible in the pop and commercial culture pitched to our kids, and so to counteract that, we’ve purchased nearly every single picture book we can (or at least the good ones; just got Donovan’s Big Day last week), plus the one Dottie’s Magic Pockets DVD and the one Buddy G, My Two Moms and Me DVD. Wore holes in ‘em.

It mattered that our girl’s Kindergarten teacher made it a point, when they were doing a unit about family, to bring in several great books, some of which were hers, some of which were mine on loan. It matters that when our girl’s first grade teacher matched up her students as pen pals with those of a teacher friend in Washington, she matched our girl up with a gal in a third grade class who also has two moms. It matters that in the hallway near our daughter’s classroom hangs a poster from Our Family Coalition, just like the one we have in our home. It matters that the preschool director and teachers our daughter has had thusfar have not only been understanding and supportive, but curious to learn more about how our kids see and need to see their families. Such gestures are more than vital. They’re godsends.

It’s only together with people like this — allies: each of these women has been a hetero ally — that we move past the absence of malice which should be a given for every loving family and into the presence of rich understanding of our families’ uniqueness, toward full-hearted celebration of it and what it’s giving our kids. Which is a lot, because of, not in spite of who we are.  So far, so good. Now let’s spread the good around, and do even better.

It is as grim a coincidence as fifteen year-old Lawrence King’s dying on Valentine’s Day last year, after having been shot by a male classmate whom he had asked to be his Valentine a few days before.

The Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN)  has sponsored the Day of Silence as a consciousness-raising event for thirteen years now, and describe it this way on the Day of Silence website:

The National Day of Silence brings attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools. Each year the event has grown, now with hundreds of thousands of students coming together to encourage schools and classmates to address the problem of anti-LGBT behavior.

Predictably, if still appallingly, a number of anti-gay organizations oppose the day. [Late-breaking example: Seattle, today.]

Parents of an Ohio teenager who took his life two years ago, after enduring the same kind of harassment as Carl Walker-Hoover, are now suing their son’s school to implement anti-bullying program.  GLSEN’s coverage of their story includes much data supporting the need for such programs, and warrants extensive quotation:

Nearly two-thirds of LGBT students (60.8%) who experience harassment or assault never reported the incident to the school, according to the GLSEN’s 2007 National School Climate Survey of more than 6,000 LGBT students. The most common reason given was that they didn’t believe anything would be done to address the situation. Of those who did report the incident, nearly a third (31.1%) said the school staff did nothing in response.

Anti-LGBT taunts are also widely used against all students, not just LGBT-identified. Two of the top three reasons students said their peers are harassed in school are actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender expression, according to the 2005 GLSEN/Harris Interactive Report,  From Teasing to Torment: School Climate in America.¹

The problem is even worse for LGBT students. Nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT youth (86.2%) reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation, nearly half (44.1%) reported being physically harassed and about a quarter (22.1%) reported being physically assaulted, according to the 2007 National School Climate Survey.

Additionally 60.8% of LGBT students said they felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation, and nearly a third (32.7%) said they had missed a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe.

GLSEN recommends four simple and effective steps that schools can implement to improve school climate and make school safer for every student.

• Adopt a comprehensive anti-bullying policy that enumerates categories such as race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender expression/identity. Enumeration is crucial to ensure that anti-bullying policies are effective for LGBT students and those targeted with anti-LGBT bullying.
• Provide staff trainings to enable school staff to identify and address anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment effectively and in a timely manner.
• Support student efforts to address anti-LGBT bullying and harassment on campus, such as the formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance or participation in the National Day of Silence on April 17.
• Institute age-appropriate, inclusive curricula to help students understand and respect difference within the school community and society as a whole.

Any discussion of the issue of bias in the schools warrants a mention of  The Respect for All Project (RFAP), a program of Groundspark.  RFAP “seeks to create safe, hate-free schools and communities by giving youth and the adults who guide their development the tools they need to talk openly about diversity in all of its forms.” And in California, we have AllyAction, a “safe schools organization” that provides “comprehensive approaches to eliminating anti-LGBT bias and violence in local school communities.”

These matters are critical for all of us, regardless of whether our children go to school on the coasts or in between them.   At the schools our kids will be attending in the Berkeley Unified School District, two kids (that I know of) have been victim to homophobic assaults this past year alone: one in our future elementary school, one in our future middle school.  Both were boys beaten up by groups of other boys; one was gender non-conforming, another had endured anti-gay harassment for months.

None of this is new. But I fear, as do many others, that harassment in the schools will increase as LGBT civil rights issues continue to spark national-level storm and stress. Our kids watch us and learn.

For this reason, every LGBT parent — as well as every ally of LGBT families, and everyone who cares for the safety of young people  – should not just educate themselves, but take it upon themselves to educate others.  There can and must be a day when the voices and hands reaching out to support and defend kids like Carl and Larry outnumber and overpower those that would do them harm. But this will only happen if we work to make it so.

¹ The top reason, GLSEN reports, is physical appearance.

_______________________

I’m reminded by Ellen DeGeneres on her blog of The Trevor Project, “the only nationwide, around-the-clock crisis and suicide prevention helpline for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth.”  866-4-U-TREVOR.

_______________________

* Here are some other blog posts today on the topic:

• “Impact: Day of Silence,” at The Longest Road — Yet Untraveled
• “Silence — Then Not,” at Mombian
• “Silence Speaks,” at Musings from inside, outside, and underneath
• “Day of Silence,” at Shuck and Jive
• “Laurie Higgins Endorses the Bullying of Gay Kids,” at Box Turtle Bulletin
• “‘Getting Real’ About Bullying-Related Suicides,” by Debra Chasnoff at Huffington Post
• “Friday is the Day of Silence,” by dsc999 at Pam’s House Blend
• “Their Blind Eyes are DEAD Wrong,” at Good As You
• “The Day of Silence Walkout Coalition” and “We ARE Intolerant of Bigotry,” at Joe. My. God.
• “Day of Silence,” at Womanist Musings

We were given license to marry in May 2008. It was new to feel welcomed into the protective embrace of the state. But not walking into your new home new; more like stepping onto an alien spacecraft new. Granted, it was an alien spacecraft I had seen a lot on television and in movies. But I had never been on the inside of it, and it felt strange being in there.

New, too, was the feeling that a very powerful entity which was once one of my people’s greatest enemies was now our protector. The state  and homophobic/heterosexist people hiding behind it   had been the single most likely thing to tear us asunder in our hour of need. Ask the family of Lisa Marie Pond, a Washington woman on an R Family Vacation cruise two years ago.  She was rushed ashore to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami following a heart attack. Her children and her partner of 18 years, who had medical power of attorney and every other document they could conjure, were denied access to her as she lay dying of an aneurysm, for eight hours, in their emergency room. Not legally recognized as immediate family. A homophobic/heterosexist law gave a hospital social worker all the power needed to enforce what can only be described as a craven bigotry. “Florida is an anti-gay state,” Pond’s partner was told. Indeed.

But once I felt that the law was behind my partner and me, and not in front of us,  a deep well of anger opened up that I had not yet taken the measure of.  Yes, anger.  Because it was only when I truly, deeply realized what I had been missing for all these years, that I realized what I had been putting up with.  And to paraphrase Churchill, it was bloody nonsense up with which I could no longer put.  

Our entitlement to legal recognition didn’t have much of an opportunity to become old before it came under well-funded, highly coordinated, long-premeditated attack by a cabal of religious right-wing and anti-gay organizations.  The campaign on behalf of Proposition 8, looking to repeal the recognition of same-sex couples’ constitutional right to marriage, exposed something else new, something I hadn’t felt to this degree in over forty years of living in this state (half of them as an out gay person).  Call me naïve (though I think I’m not), but I was unprepared for the vehemence, the depth, the breadth, the conviction of the anti-gay hatred we saw.  These sentiments may well have felt just as novel to those in whom they were being frothed up.  After all, we gay folk had only been newly entitled, just freshly recognized as the legal equals to heterosexuals. It’s quite easy not to take stock of your feelings about a group of people so long as they’re kept safely in their place.

In response to this I saw something else novel: volumes of strong support from so many heterosexual allies, not just family, or friends, but people far far away, whom I’ve met once or twice, maybe, or even not at all.  My suspicion is that we’ve not felt this before because the need had never yet been so focussed on such a dramatic, simple point.  Likewise, I suspect for many, it was only when the California Supreme Court shined the light on this previously dark corner of the state’s constitution that they realized: Daggone, it could have been like this all along!  It should have been like this all along!  We could have been standing up next to them, fighting with them and for them, all along!  Four state supreme court justices, after years of scholarship and deliberation, lit a bunsen burner under the behinds of gobs of people, friends and foes alike.

But as Matt Foreman has said, and I agree with him, it was an uphill climb from the beginning.  It was arduous, though every moment of unexpected brutality was met with an unexpected moment of grace.  One such string of them: my 87 year-old father stood with my sister and her 10 year-old son on chilly afternoons in our home town, some rainy, holding signs and bearing witness.  And experiencing something new to them: homophobic epithets, flung in their direction.  The fight we all fought together gave each of us a more intimate appreciation for one another, what we withstand every day and what we’re capable of, both queer folk and straight allies standing alongside us.  Of all the new things uncovered by the Supreme Court decision and its roller-coaster aftermath, this is one of the most precious.

Early November 2008 brought the last in a string of novelties: following the passage of the anti-gay marriage initiative, a feeling of disillusionment and fatigue on a scale I’ve not yet known as a result of a political battle.  This one took more out of more of us than anything has yet, and many of us are still trying to piece together why.  Something about a juxtaposition.  A right, finally recognized, and then so quickly — and visciously — taken away.  The bitter, bittery irony: the need to “protect our children” was one of the primary arguments used to remove our children’s legal protections.  An old injustice, newly vanquished, then just as quickly, resurrected again.

Like what you just read?�� Best Parenting/Wedding Blog.

And don’t forget Up Popped a Fox for Best Overall Lesbian Blog.  So’s I don’t feel guilty.  And ’cause she deserves it.  

[Here are the other Somethings new at Robin's carnival.]

 

[next in this marraige equality series: Some/thing borrowed]

Well, surprise surprise, the American Family Association, whose job it is to disrupt as many of our families as they possibly can, is trying to punish Campbell’s for this.  They’re asking haters to find out if their kids’ schools participate in a thirty-year-old program in which Campbell’s makes donations of educational equipment in exchange for soup labels. Dana writes:

If schools participate in the program, the AFA says, parents should ask them to stop, because the company “openly supports homosexual marriage.” (Never mind that marriage is never mentioned in the ads, and the ads were targeted at an LGBT audience. Not that it should matter even if they were in a mainstream publication.)

GLAAD’s blog post on the issue here.

How to support Campbell’s, other than serve up their goods to your kids morning noon & night? Dana says:

You can express your support to Campbell’s by writing to Douglas R. Conant at Campbell Soup Co, Campbell Place, Camden, NJ 08103, (800) 442-7684 or (800) 257-8443, douglas_r_conant@campbellsoup.com, or by using the feedback form on the Campbell corporate website. 

How many years until an organization with this name (American Family Association) and this agenda (basically, hate-hate-hate), is considered a  scourge and an embarrassment by more than we members of the communities they target (and our bleeding heart liberal friends)?  In a just nation, every single organization on this list ought to be out of business, simply because people no longer find them credible or conscionable.

PS: How ’bout serve some Pepsi up with that soup?  ’Cause the AFA is after them, too, for being kind to us.

Whilst perusing the Gay Tax Protest site, I saw a piece on this November 18 American Psychological Association press release: “Anti Same-Sex Marriage Amendments Spark Psychological Distress Among GLBT Adults and Their Families, According to New Research.”  

To which I know most of you will react: Doy!  Many of us have been writing about this from an anecdotal standpoint (Terrence’s recent piece, “What It’s Like For Our Children,” for instance, springs right to mind).  But having bona fide research data to back it up, from the APA, kind of sinks it all in deeper.  

Three studies were reported on.  In one,

Participants reported feeling not just alienated from their communities, but fearful that they would lose their children, that they would become victims of anti-gay violence or that they would need to move to a more accepting community.

Yup.  Sounds familiar.

“Minority stress” is the term used to describe the “chronic social stress that minorities experience as a result of social stigmatization.”  Any of us queer folk and our families who lived through an anti-gay marriage campaign in our home state, or an anti-gay people as foster child adopter campaign, as the case may be, can show you our scars from this particular brand of it.  

That’s one third of the story.  Another third is that we can and do all help each other a great deal:

Social support from religious institutions, families, GLBT friends and heterosexual allies led most of the participants “to greater feelings of safety, happiness and strength,” the researchers wrote.

Y’all people who wrote me, for instance, online and off, helped me feel less utterly battered down that I would have without that support.  I am very very fortunate. 

The last third of the story is that one the studies also corroborated the ripple effect of of the anti-gay marriage campaigns on our families.  

My sister, for instance, and my father, felt attacks on me very directly: I am their family, therefore the attacks are on their family.  From the APA press release:

“Some participants identified so deeply with their family member’s experience that they felt equally attacked by these movements and policies,” the researchers wrote. “They considered themselves members of the GLBT community and experienced rejection by others for being a GLBT family member.”

“Typically, we tend to think of anti-GLBT policies such as marriage bans and Proposition 8 as affecting only GLBT people. However, our research suggests that others in addition to GLBT people are also impacted by this legislation and sometimes quite negatively. For example, we learned that some family members experienced a form of secondary minority stress. Although many participants displayed resiliency and effective coping with this stress, some experienced strong negative consequences to their mental and physical health,” said Jennifer Arm, M.S.

Puts the stamp of APA approval on the aphorism, “None of us is free when one of us is chained.”  Also provides, one hopes, a little more context for the powerful feelings of anger and resentment we’re seeing in the wake of the outcomes of these campaigns:

“This information is especially timely, as we see the emotionally charged reactions from GLBT people in the wake of the Proposition 8 passage in California,” he said. “Psychologists serving GLBT clients and their families need to be aware of the real impact of these political forces on the everyday lives of the people most directly affected.”

Again, the APA Press Release:  ”Anti Same-Sex Marriage Amendments Spark Psychological Distress Among GLBT Adults and Their Families, According to New Research.” 

When the battle for social change entails an electoral one, at least in contemporary politics, money makes a difference. A huge difference.  And a few hundred LD readers (and their friends, and friends of LD), honored below, doled out a heaping helping of support on behalf of the effort to preserve the California Supreme Court’s recognition that (a) marriage is a fundamental right, and (b) there’s no defensible reason to prohibit same-sex couples from exercising it (nor, for that matter, is there any defensible reason to treat this group unequally under the law, period). 

This is not the only LGBT social justice battle of the day, but it sure as sh#t has become the biggest one. It’s where anti-gay forces  – from national organizations to religious entities to activist individuals —  are pouring their resources and attention. Fortunately, so have you. Since September 11, when I initially posted the fundraising graphic and link, all the way up until a day before election day, two hundred and twelve of us, many donating multiple times (some up to four), collectively raised $16,763 to try to fight No on 8.

Four times I upped the goal, always on the cajoling of one or another of you. Started with $5,000 (thanked a bunch of you back then), went to $7,500, then to the highly obscure $13,758, and finally $18,000.

Other blogs with higher traffic pulled in gobs more money for the No on 8 campaign (Daily Kos folks pulled in a huge amount one weekend; Towleroad readers hauled in a ton as well), and of course other fundraising means (house parties, events) helped individual donors contribute at least that much in one night. But I’m very proud to say that of the various individual fundraising pages that the No on 8 website hosted, the LD Love Train thermometer jobbie saw the greatest number of contributors bringing the greatest amount.

Dozens of other bloggers either put the thermometer up on their blog (check ‘em out here) or posted Looky, Daddy’s promo photos with the link for donations. Or just included a link in a post. I do hope, over the coming weeks, that I can scare up a definative list to archive over at my LD Love Train Hall of Fame, simply for posterity.

But I can’t begin to convey how dearly I wish your generosity was better rewarded. Since the election I’ve often thought about this group of people, most of whom are unknown to me. To you, I feel both indebted and apologetic. Many of you dug very deep, I know; some to the bone. For many, this was on top of active engagement as a volunteer for the campaign. The pain I feel is magnified every time I read some fresh critique about how the No campaign was conducted. I was very very far from the war room, and only saw how g_d d___ed hard people at the regional community level were working. People tried as hard as they could, I can say that.

I also get the sense that the critiques of the shortcomings of the No on 8 campaign are being thoroughly examined and duly noted. At least if blog chatter is any useful guide. So much so that the one sound bite I’ve heard from two different No on 8 sources is: “Lesson learned.”  There will be ample opportunity to deepen the learning, and walk that talk in the coming months and years.  Any of us now kibitzing will have the opportunity, too, to put on our walking shoes.  Since it’s not like this time around we couldn’t see it was a battle royale from the beginning.  And unless one tried and tried in vain to offer wise counsel during the campaign, and was rebuffed, well.  Any among us who is squeaky-clean of complicity is welcome to cast the first kibitz. 

(In other words, like this.  Step one: What I didn’t do.  Step two: What they didn’t do.  Step three:  What I commit to doing, together with others, the next time.)

Yet and still, regardless of whether No on 8 lost — by a bare margin — rather than won by it (500,000 votes, and the difference is LESS THAN that, is 1.3% of the state’s population),  your support went far.  Together you bought heaven knows how many lawn signs and club cards, underwrote hours of data gathering on most promising potential voters to call.  You worked to combat the TV ad lies, by helping screen the No on 8 counterpunches in times and places they’d be most effective.  And  you bought people coffee and donuts on election day morning.

You answer to the names of Abigail, Alex, Alice, Alicia, Alison, Amanda, Angela, Angelina, Ann, Anne, Ann Lyn, Anna-Maria, Anne, Bebhinn, Brian, Brianna, Caitlyn, Cari, Carolina, Carolyn, Carrie, Casey, Catherine, Chelsea, Cheryl, Cheyenna, Cheyenne, Chip and Lisa, Cristianna, Cristina, Crystal, Curtis, Dana, Daniel, Darren, David, Deborah, Diana, Diandra, Dodie, Donna, Dorothy, Doug, Elisabeth, Eliza, Ellen, Emily, Ericka, Erika, Erin, Evan, Gibson, Ginger, Harmony, Heather, Jacqueline , Jaime, Janet, Jayme, Jeanette, Jen, Jennifer, Jessica, Jim, Joceline, Jody, JoEllen, Jojo, Julia, Julie, Justine, Karen, Karon, Karrie, Kate, Katherine, Kathleen, Katy, Kellie, Kelly, Kelsey, Kendra, Kim, Kimberley, Kristin, Laura, Lauren, Laurie, Lea, Lesley, Leslie, Linda, Lindsey, Lisa, Lorraine, Lucy, Luisa, Lynda, Lynn, Lynn, M.E., Maggie, Marcey, Maria, Marissa, Mariya, Martha, Mary, Matthew, Megan , Megin, Melissa, Melody, Meredith, Michael, Michelle L., Moira, Nancy, Nicole, Paul, Phyllis, Polly, Rachel, RC, Rebecca, Renee, Robert, Ryann, Sandy, Sara, Sarah, Scott, Skye, Sonja, Stephanie, Susan, Susannah, Suzanne, Sybil, Tamara, Tania, Tanyia, Tara, Taylor, Teal, Tessa, Timothy, Todd, Traci, Tracy, Valerie, Vikki, Wendy, Zach, and Zachary.

The occupations you’re engaged in include Accountant, Actor/composer, Administrator, Administrative Assistant, Administrator, Advertising, Anesthesiologist, Architectural Designer, Artist, Artist/Art Teacher, Assisstant Professor, Assistant Editor, Associate, Asst. Professor of Microbiology, Attorney, Audiology Technician, Bookkeeper, Bookseller, Chef, Childcare, College Professor, Computer Technician, Consultant, Conventions Coordinator, Designer, Development Assistant, Director, Director of Pricing, Directory, Student Publications, Editor, Editorial Assistant, Education Consultant, Educator, Educator & Facilitator, Engineer, Environmental Scientist, Epidemiologist, Event Manager, Extension Specialist, Public Health Initiatives, Finance Director, Forensic Accountant, Foundation Relations Manager, Freelance Videographer/Editor, Freelance writer, Full-time grad student, Part-time Non-profit Development Asst., Grad Student, Graduate Research Assistant, Graduate Teaching Assistant, Graduate Teaching Fellow, Graphic Designer, Historian, Home Builder, Homemaker, Instructor, Investment Operations, IT, IT Manager, Lawyer, Legal Secretary, Librarian, Library Tech, Licensed Clinical Social Worker/ High School Counselor, Lifestyle Editor-in-Chief, Manager, Marketing, Marketing and Communications Coordinator, Marketing Manager, Mom, Mother, Musician, Naturopathic Physician, Network Administrator, Nonprofit Admin, Non-profit mgr., Not Employed, Nurse, Nursery Mgr/buyer, Opera Singer, Paralegal, Paramedic, Paraprofessional, Pharmacy Technician, Photographer, Physician, Physicist, Post Doctoral Associate, PR, PR Director, Producer, Product Complaints Specialist, Professor, Professor of Mathematics, Program Director, Programmer, Programmer/Analyst, Project Administrator, Project Manager, Psychologist, Registered Nurse, Research Administrator, Research Assistant, Research Manager, Residency Program Administrator, SAHM, Sales Associate, Sales Operations Analyst, Sales/Service Rep, Scholar /Teacher, Self-employed, Senior Financial Analyst, Server, Singer/Actor/Teacher, Small Business Support, Social Services, Social Worker, Software developer, Sound Editor, Speech-language Pathologist, Student, Student/Librarian, Teacher, Teaching Assistant, Technical Team Lead/Senior Engineer, Television Host/Reporter, University of Nevada, Reno, Voice over actor, VP/Director, Delivery Management, Waitress, Web Developer, Web Master, Writer, Writer and Lawyer, Writer and Teacher, Writer/Editor, Writer/Professional Development Specialist, Writer/Tutor (PT), and Yoga Instructor.

You hail from Agoura Hills, CA; Alameda, CA; Albuquerque, NM; Alexandria, VA; Anaheim, CA; Ann Arbor, MI; Annandale, VA; Arlington, MA; Arlington, VA; Astoria, NY; Attleboro, MA; Austin, TX; Baltimore, MD; Berkeley, CA; Bloomfield, NJ; Boise, ID; Boonton, NJ; Boulder Creek, CA; Branchburg, NJ; Brockon, MA; Brookline, MA; Brooklyn, NY; Buellton, CA; Burlington, VT; Burnaby, BC; Cambridge, MA; Canton, MI; Castro Valley, CA; Champaign, IL; Chapel Hill, NC; Chicago, IL; Cincinnati, OH; Danville, CA; Decatur, GA; Denver, CO; Douglaston, NY; Edison, NJ; Emeryville, CA; Escondido, CA; Eugene, OR; Everett, MA; Falls Church, VA; Fayetteville, NY; Felton, CA; Ferndale, MI; Fort Worth, TX; Fredericksburg, VA; Glen Ridge, NJ; Greeley, CO; Greenfield, MA; Greensboro, NC; Happy Camp, CA; Harrisburg, PA; Hartford, CT; Higginsville, MO; Highland Village, TX; Holyoke, MA; Houston, TX; Huntington Beach, CA; Huntsville, AL; Idaho Falls, ID; Iowa City, IA; Jersey City, NJ; Kansas City, MO; La Crescenta, CA; Las Vegas, NV; Lees Summit, MO; Lenexa, KS; Lexington, KY; Los Angeles, CA; Malden, MA; Minneapolis, MN; Montpelier, VT; Moore, OK; Moscow, ID; Mount Vernon, NY; Nashville, TN; Natick, MA; Nevada City, CA; New Haven, CT; New York, NY; Newtown, PA; Normal, IL; North Olmsted, OH; North Reading, MA; Northport, NY; Northridge, CA; Oakland, CA; Oceanside, CA; Old Zionsville, PA; Olympia, WA; Omaha, NE; Palo Alto, CA; Pasadena, CA; Philadelphia, PA; Pine Grove, CA; Pittsburgh, PA; Portland, ME; Portland, OR; Prairie Village, KS; Princeton, NJ; Providence, RI; Raleigh, NC; Reno, NV; Richmond, IN; Ridgewood, NJ; Rockville, MD; Rockville, MD; Royal Oak, MI; San Anselmo, CA; San Francisco, CA; San Jose, CA; Santa Ana, CA; Santa Cruz, CA; Santa Fe, NM; Santa Monica, CA; Santa Paula, CA; Sarasota, FL; Saratoga, CA; Scotts Valley, CA; Seattle, WA; Sharon, MA; Sherman Oaks, CA; Silver Spring, MD; Smyrna, GA; Snohomish, WA; Somerville, MA; Sonora, CA; Soquel, CA; South Pasadena, CA; South Pasadena, CA; South Portland, ME; St. Johns, MI; St. Joseph, MN; St. Louis, MO; Studio City, CA; Tampa, FL; University City, MO; Vancouver, BC; Walnut Creek, CA; Washington, DC; Watertown, MA; Waxahachie, TX; White River Jct., VT; Whittier, CA; Wilmington, NC; and Worthington, MA.

And I thank you all.  For everything: support both monetary and emotional, organizing both virtual and actual,  work both widely visible and known only to you (and the person whose heart you might have just touched).  One of my two oldest friends — the Special Auntie to my children — brought me a fresh-baked loaf of cinnamon bread the morning after the election, wrapped in a cloth, and sealed with a No on 8 sticker (she did GOTV the day before) and a note saying “Yes we can.”  Gestures like this, along with this LD microcosm of the larger community engaging this battle, give me the best hope that this statement might actually be true.

Please stay ready to engage the next phase of this fight, when it begins to emerge.  You can pledge your support here, and sign up to be notified of what work is needed next, as it becomes clear. 

Meanwhile please consider joining the Fight the H8 protest nearest you this Saturday, November 15.  

Yes we can.

Outside my polling station at Totland, our kids’ favorite local haunt.  

Being a pessimist is supposed to inoculate one against disappointment, but the dirty little secret is that we’re still disappointed.  

Regarding the personal (denouement): Won’t be easy to come by for a while.  So much, too big, too sad.  So many worked so hard, to come so close.  All of which, so hard to process, amidst the blinding light of Obama’s triumphant win.  A dream deferred for 232 years, then come true.  Racial barrier broken at the highest point imaginable, and on the same day another barrier is erected at the most emotionally intimate point imaginable. 

Also, regarding the political (denouement): so far as I know as of this point (wee hours between Wednesday and Thursday), No on 8 continues to await the final count of the remaining absentee and provisional ballots.  Out of some ten million votes cast, less than half a million (roughly 400,000) separate yes from no.  Some speculate (know?) that the counties from which these are expected had not otherwise “trended” significantly enough against the proposition that they would swing the election.  Regardless, No on 8 continues to wait for these results. [*see below for mid-day update, 6 Nov.]

Three law suits were filed against the proposition before the end of the day on Wednesday.  Covered at the Los Angeles Times here on 5 Nov., and also here at Kos, and here at Pam’s House Blend.  San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, filing one of the three lawsuits on Wednesday, says:

The issue before the court today is of far greater consequence than marriage equality alone … Equal protection of the laws is not merely the cornerstone of the California Constitution, it is what separates constitutional democracy from mob rule tyranny. If allowed to stand, Prop 8 so devastates the principle of equal protection that it endangers the fundamental rights of any potential electoral minority — even for protected classes based on race, religion, national origin and gender. The proponents of Prop 8 waged a ruthless campaign of falsehood and fear, funded by millions of dollars from out-of-state interest groups. Make no mistake that their success in California has dramatically raised the stakes. 

The legal consequences to families, whither the final official result, are unclear.  Family law attorney Deborah Wald comments on the legal limbo Post-8 here.

Still to come: what we gained, even amidst the loss.  Along with abundant thanks to all you who lent your vocal support and your supportive dollars (US or Candian!) to the battle.  All that, when the numbness dissipates and the feeling returns to the tips of the typing fingers.

*[This just in: a final statement from the No on 8 campaign.  And this slightly longer one at EQCA.  So.]