I’m so excited because today I’m going SWIMMING and that is easily the #1 I am able to take control of my anxiety, which is to say that its desperately needed and I cannot wait. I hope whatever joy looks like for you today, you go after it.
Queer as in F*ck You
How Do I Tell My Kids Our Family Has a Target on Our Backs? “LGBTQ families like mine are under threat. I’m trying to find the words to talk to my kids about it” by Laura Leigh Abby for The Cut — I am not a queer person with kids, but a lot of the kiddos in my life have gay parents and this is something I think about a lot. I suppose if you are a queer parent, maybe you already know the answer of how to talk to your kids about your family being targeted. I know that for Black families (this is the closest comparison I have, from lived experience), it’s something we never have a luxury of “not” thinking about. So then, by that measure, this may not feel like new news per se, but I hope maybe it at least provides comfort.
If you know me, know this, I love Noah’s Arc and as far as I’m concerned it remains a pinnacle of Black queer television, a miracle of creation. GLAAD caught up with showrunner Patrik-Ian Polk and star Darryl Stephens about the show’s legacy.
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“We are B.G.” should be a viral rallying cry, but it isn’t — and why? Is it misogyny? Racism? Homophobia? The unholy trifecta?….
I suppose I have a particular empathy for her because as a tall, tattooed, Black, queer woman, I understand that we are often invisible and overlooked despite standing out.”
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‘Stranger Things’ Star Noah Schnapp on Season 5 and Will’s Sexuality: ‘He Is Gay and He Does Love Mike.’ So on one hand… finally! But on the other hand? This is putting a lot of credit into the final two episodes of Stranger Things, when the focus is really on sci-fi monster killing and not really on the private lives of any of the characters (especially the gay ones).
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The 9-8-8 Helpline Exists In An America Full Of Broken Systems — Of Course It’s Flawed. I’ve seen so much promo about the 988 number, which is a reboot of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL), but no one has told me that when you call the number, there’s a chance the person you’re connected with might call the police. Which ok — that was also true when you called the previous NSPL 1-800 line. However, “this news was surprising to many, as 9-8-8 has been touted as a way to help reduce harmful police interventions in mental health emergencies.”
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I’m becoming increasingly afraid of how I can protect my kids. My husband and I have two sons. They’re 18 and 15. They’ve never known anything different and they’re both poor at holding their tongues.
We’re luckier than most. They go to an extraordinary Arts High School in our downtown. I tell myself they’re safer there but the SUV’s with MAGA stickers and flags that I see when picking them up erodes that confidence.
I don’t believe that Republican politicians, and they are exclusively Republicans, are stirring up this fear and animosity for any other reason than to court conservative voters who in turn are being whipped info a frenzy sure that all gays are child molesters or ‘groomers.’ It’s ignorant and awful.
My husband and I, needless to say, aren’t child molesters or groomers. Our kids are our kids no less so than anyone else’s kids. Our youngest was literally thrown away by his heterosexual parents, he being a product of statutory rape. He was abused and molested himself before being placed with us. We were the first normalcy he had been afforded at the young age of 3. We’ve stuck by him through the pain of dealing with those experiences and his diagnosis of Bipolar disorder at 7. There are times that it has been excruciating, more difficult than anything that I’ve ever done. Few parents would survive but we have and so has he. In fact, he’s thriving; exceeding the low expectations his first social workers logically had for him.
In the world of Adoption, gays aren’t rare. We’re the homes that have already had to redefine what a family looks like so we aren’t hunting for that gold standard healthy white infant. No one expects us to be parents so we come at it with the purest intentions to give love, nurturing and protection. When others are scared off by older kids with challenging histories, as most kids in foster care have, gays can relate and we stay. In the foster/adopt class that we attended by requirement when we adopted our youngest, of the easily 100 people that attended the initial meeting, only 4 remained at the end: two gay couples.
These bigots calling gays ‘groomers’ and inciting violence to us aren’t just wildly ignorant, they’re ironically cruel. In this blind claim to ‘protect kids,’ they’re hurting kids; kids of gays, kids that are gay, kids that may have no other home if denied one with couples deemed unworthy for nothing scientific or sensible but just because a political class makes that unsubstantiated claim.
Honestly the only thing you can do is move heaven and earth to get them out of this hellhole of a country while you still can… 😞 Every day looks more and more like the US is headed towards a repeat of history; a second civil war at best, a homegrown American Holocaust at worst.
I’m sorry. I wish I had something better to tell you, but we’re all fighting for our lives here.
https://www.thecut.com/2022/07/talking-to-kids-lgbtq-rights.html
This was exactly what I needed. Thank you! Raising my 4 year old who is starting school this year brings up a lot of questions and it’s so good to hear about how other families handle this. In the UK this might not feel as urgent as in the US right now but even here the only hope for a better future is actively raising our young people with values that are inclusive, support understanding and diversity to make a change in the world even if the present is bleak. Thanks for sharing this article.