Seriously? This may be my favorite picture in the whole LesbianFamily.org album. And there are some great pictures there. We would love to include yours!

Reader, thinker, and real life friend Clare sent me (Liza) this message below, and I thought it would be a fabulous guest post here. In the interests of full disclosure, I have been close friends with Clare’s (straight) older sister since I was about 18 and full of radical organizing and world-changing ideas and Clare was about 7 and full of cuteness and love/admiration for her big sister.

From time to time there is a discussion that the blog sphere has created a good space for lesbian families, and queer people and allies in general, to connect to one another. Obviously, Lesbian Family, was born out of these connections. And, for those on the inside, this connection and safety of community is an end of itself.

However, I would like to talk about something else that Lesbian Family provides: role models. Some of you are probably not going to like to think about it this way, but role modeling and having queer role models is something I have thought a lot about lately. It is also something I was blessed to grow up with.

Growing up, even if in Wisconsin, I babysat in the early 90s for a lesbian family, my parents had partnered gay friends who they brought home, one of my sister’s best friends went on to start Lesbian Family, etc. Looking back, all of these experiences, especially the ones at an early age, shaped my view of being queer, of being out, of belonging. Over and over, however, I see that my experience may not have been the status quo—especially for bi/lesbian women of color or from other countries.

A couple years ago, I met an Asian woman who had been studying and living in middle America for 5 years. Although she was attracted to women, she told me that she never would consider a relationship because she couldn’t stand the thought of growing up and not having children. The idea that lesbian families around the world are having and raising children had never occurred to her, as she had never heard of it or seen it. After seeing Lesbian Family, and reading up a bit, her ideas changed.

Another friend from the southern hemisphere tells me that although she is queer and dates women, she can’t imagine seeing it back home. She can only imagine lesbian families in the middle/ upper class America or other western nation sense (she also admits that the image she still holds in her head is that of white America). Although she knows there must be queer people in her home country, she has never seen them nor can she imagine that they have a space in her society.

Back in America, a friend just last week told me two things that shocked me: 1) that she had never met a well adjusted, settled down, lesbian couple and 2) that there was no place in corporate America for out lesbians.

Over and over my mind returns to the idea of role models. If a person hasn’t seen it, how hard is it to imagine? If a person sees a solid lesbian couple with kids, how easy is it to see that path as viable? How important is it that these role models, these lesbian/queer/trans couples, look like us (economically, physically, racially, religiously, etc.)? And, how have role models or lack thereof influenced your struggles in creating a family?

One of my favorite bloggers outside of the Lesbian Family blogosphere is Isabel, of Hola, Isabel. By simple description, we might be utterly different — she’s a churchgoing west-coaster whose husband is building their second house from scratch! I only recently became a regular churchgoer, live in the south, and between Jill and me, we can pretty much build Ikea furniture. I started reading Isabel’s blog when we were both pregnant, and stayed for the good storytelling. Plus we just like each other, you know?

This week, Isabel wrote a series of posts on her experience and feelings about having a gay brother who (finally) came out to his family in his late 20s.

These posts were so interesting to me, because they tell the story of an emotionally difficult and draining coming out, from the perspective of a family that had long known that the brother in question was gay, and who weren’t particularly uncomfortable with the idea. Yet the gay son is still alienated from his family of origin. And they are alienated from him.

What I walk away from Isabel’s story with is how much homophobia hurts families.

It doesn’t just hurt the gay members of those families, and it doesn’t just hurt if the straight family members are homophobic. Fear of homophobia, expectation of homophobia, perception of homophobia even when there might be another explanation — all of those things are part of the air we breathe when we are living our lives, especially when we try to live them as out GLBT people.

What I imagine, reading between the lines of Isabel’s story, is a brother who spent a long time afraid of being rejected by his family. I imagine that he heard the relative non-reaction of his family as something like silent judgment, and I imagine that he pulled away from his family defensively, because that was the reaction he was listening for. I don’t KNOW any of that — her brother might just be a straight-up jerk, who happens to also be gay, and he might have skipped out on family weddings even if he were a zero on the Kinsey scale.

And of course, he might be a gay jerk who WAS interpreting his family’s “reaction” (or lack of same) in the most negative and homophobic possible light, regardless of their intent.

Our straight friends and families don’t magically know how to reassure us that their feelings towards us haven’t changed. They probably have no idea that we’d like that reassurance.

They also want to know that the core of who we are hasn’t changed — we’re still the human being we always were. How to share both the changes in our lives and the consistency is hard.

A lot of us go through a sort of second adolescence shortly after coming out, and much like actual teenagers, we may think that we’re Finally Being Who We Really Are, that may not be entirely true. That’s something else I imagine from Isabel’s story.

Fortunately, most of us calm down again after the novelty of feeling free to tell the truth about our romantic & sexual lives settles into the normalcy of dating and living life.

The question is, how do we keep the lines of communication open with our families during all that tumult? And how do we give them the benefit of the doubt and keep them “in the loop” without oversharing. Or how do we rebuild those relationships after our irrational exuberance calms down? How do we share our lives in all their complexity with our families, in spite of our fears?

I don’t think there’s “an answer” to that, but I think communication, in spite of fear and resistance, is at the core of whatever the answers are. At least if we want to continue those relationships.

[A shorter version of this piece is cross-posted over at LesbianDad.]

It was bedtime, and I thought I was going to have to mount a lengthy campaign to extirpate the lil’ monkey from her downstairs cousins’ room (we live upstairs from my partner’s brother and his family). Daily she ransacks her cousins’ bedroom in a never-sated hunger to fiddle with (disassemble, rearrange, touch, or simply breath upon) their toys and books. Then the fairy goddesses arrived and extracted her for me, effortlessly.

We call our known donor’s daughters our kids’ special cousins, and they had come to visit toward the end of a day of mega-wide extendo family/community fun in our back yard. The two girls simply entered the house (gliding in on feet that I’m sure didn’t even move), slipped their magic fairly fingers into our daughter’s, and led her out. They then proceeded to glide as a nymph trio across the lawn toward us, swirly filaments of fairy dust wafting behind them. They were so beautiful playing together that we postponed putting the girlie to bed ’til the special cousins went home. The love they share is unique, and palpable.

I had no idea the fruits of our extended family-making would turn out to be this sweet. I remember a conversation with the very first friends I know who had a kid with a known donor, probably like eight or ten years ago, when I was living in Minnesota. I expressed the classic fear that there’d be this dangling connection out there, which could be used to burn back into our family in some terrible way, like a line of gunpowder.

“Aren’t you worried? Think of all the terrible things that could happen!” was my refrain. Because, after all, let’s admit it, it’s all too easy to think of those terrible things. Maybe even more so if you’re not the one giving birth, and therefore stand to be made somehow invisible or irrelevant to the whole process (one can think these things, when one lets one’s wildest fears run amok.) My friend — who was the non-birth mom, after having tried unsuccessfully to conceive for several years — said something to the effect of, “Yeah, you know, I was worried, too, at first. And then our daughter was born and I realized: That’s just more love for her in the world.” And in a moment, a line that looked like gunpowder became a cord through which love passed.

Things are not always this rosy. We in the extended lesbian family family are well aware of the horror stories about custody battles with donors who’ve reversed their initial intentions to relinquish legal custody. Or somehow their families go haywire. These are the stories that are well-telegraphed, I think both because they serve as cautionary tales, but also because it’s a well-worn fact that bad or scary news sells more papers/ magazines/ web ads/ what have you. Or something to this effect. The actors are clear, the threat is clear, etc.

The stories of love and harmony may draw less attention, but I have to believe they’re more the rule than the exception. (They may say I’m a dreamer, but I’d like to think I’m not the only one.) So now I ask the following questions not just to stir up dialog, but to help dig up some more folk wisdom for a friend in Vermont who just gave birth (Congrats again, M2!). Those of you who have made your family using known sperm donors: how has your connection evolved? If they have kids, have any of you actively woven your family into theirs? How do you name the connection between your kids, and his, and how do you talk with them about it? Are you in touch with other families for whom he’s been a donor (if he’s been a known donor for other families)? If so, how is that family connection going?

 (This post is cross-posted over at Round is Funny)

My wife, NSG’s, step-grandfather died last week, and the family has been busily planning a memorial service for him and making plans to fly in from Kentucky, Hawaii, and other far-flung places.

The emails have been flying between NSG’s stepmother and her siblings, and the other day she sent out the obituary she had submitted to the paper.

She waxed poetic about her dad, about his struggle with Alzheimer’s, his love of music, his fervent environmentalism. She listed those left behind: his wife, his four children and each of their spouses, his 5 grandchildren, and Roo, his great-grandchild.

Conspicuously absent: me, and my sister-in-law’s wife. The lesbos. When they’ve mentioned 15 other family members by name - and included those who are family by marriage, what other reason would there be to leave the two of us out?

Are we not past this bullshit? NSG and her sister have their own difficulties in her relationship with their stepmother, but, to my knowledge, it’s never been about this. This is the very same stepmother who busted her hump to GROW the flowers for our wedding. What the hell?

It occured to me when I was complaining to my sister-in-law about this that the same thing happened when my grandmother died four years ago. My mother did the obit and listed every single person by name - but there was no mention of NSG. We’d been together for several years and were living together. When I confronted her about it - with exquisite timing, the same week my grandmother died and my father totalled his car - she got defensive, I realized my timing was going to get me nowhere, and I dropped it. Neither of us ever touched it again, but I realized this week how hurt I still am about it. The anniversary of her death is approaching, which probably has something to do with it.

I still want an apology from my mother. It just occured to me that I have to ask for it or I’m never going to get it.

I know: I live in happy queer-land, where we have rights and protections and family support that many people can’t dream of. Truly, I count my blessings. I think because of all this, and because our life truly is such the mundane queer life - Grocery shop! Change diapers! Go to work! Get an oil change! - that when something like this comes up it’s just a smack in the face.

I truly believe that NSG’s stepmother supports her stepdaughters, and my own relationship with her only underscores that. I think she choked: she was under stress, and was putting something about her family in the newspaper, and she panicked. I don’t mean to make excuses for her: I’m pissed. But I get it.

We’re bathed in these concepts of certain issues as being secrets, or shameful or embarassing, or something that one generation can accept but another can’t. And we try consciously to move past all that garbage, but I think sometimes consciously squashing our first instinct so we can do what we consciously know is right is as good as it gets.

We learn our lessons well.

I’ve written about getting more involved in my local queer community here before, and last night I got to experience something new in that arena.  Last night I attended my first PFLAG meeting.  Upon meeting all the lovely folks at the meeting, my first thought was (even though she is TOTALLY wonderful and supportive,) “Damn, I wish my mom was a PFLAG mom.”  But that’s something that won’t ever happen as my mother has proclaimed “I’m not a joiner,” on many many occasions.  But still, the meeting wasn’t just parents. In addition to “just” parents, there was a mother/son team, a young transman, and most surprisingly (to me, anyway) a “new” lesbian mom who brought the most adorable photos of her 5 month old daughter.

The reason that I was actually in attendance last night was because my wife had been asked to speak about the GLBT program she coordinates at a local university.  It was really incredible to me how knowledgeable these parents were (especially on GLB issues) and how eager they were to learn about things with which they were struggling, mainly “T” and gender issues.  There was no….judgment at all, just questions. It was totally awesome to see the support that these parents had for each other. I guess I never really thought about “their” process so much – one parent’s journey started with being in denial for over a decade and a half – before reaching a place of acceptance and love for his son.

I was truly touched to see that through any of the…confusion these parents may have been feeling, there was genuine love and pride for their kids, as well as the other GLBT folk who attended the meeting. I know that we are all scholars in our own truths – and that there are people out there who wish to learn about them.  I encourage you to check out PFLAG’s website to find your local chapter – and maybe even go to/volunteer at a meeting.

Ok, I admit it, I’m a geek. My favorite kind of “music” is NPR.

In moments like this morning, I know why. This morning, Morning Edition ran a Story Corps segment that made me cry in my car. While I was driving.

The interview was between a 14 year old girl and her mother. The mother, Sue Hyde, told the story about how hard it was to grow up in rural Illinois in a large nuclear family, knowing that she liked girls. At 19, Sue came out to her own mother, whose first reaction was to ask “what did I do wrong?”

I’m sure many of us can relate.

Several years later, Sue’s mother became gravely ill. Sue and her partner sat up with her the night before she died, and during one of her last moments of being awake and aware, Sue’s mother told her and her partner that she wanted them to be happy. (Listen to the story. I am NOT doing it justice.)

By this time in the interview, Sue is crying and telling her own daughter, Jesse, that she doesn’t want Jesse to have to wait so long for her blessing. And Jesse, in turn, assures her mom that she knows, and she is.

It was one of those moments that are almost indescribable – it was the universal story of how much we want our parents to love and approve of us, and the joy and relief that comes with getting that love and approval after uncertainty or even denial. To listen to it being shared through yet another generation was so sweet. I wish I had enough money to give those StoryCorps geniuses a million dollars to keep up the amazing work.

Possibly the most surprising thing about this interview is the fact that the word “lesbian” is never even uttered – perhaps especially remarkable since Sue is a professional organizer in our community. But this story is all about being a human being, a daughter, and a mother. And yet, the fact that Sue is a lesbian is critical to her human struggle, and clear in the context of the interview.

Please listen. Don’t read the essay, or do, but don’t stop there. The written version doesn’t begin to convey the touching, difficult, love and loss in the interview.