Camille is a twentysomething working in the LGBT nonprofit industry. She runs an LGBT news blog at gaywrites.org.
When a child at a Wisconsin elementary school quietly came out to administrators as transgender, the school did everything right. Sadly, it’s all for naught, as Liberty Counsel intervened and ruined a valuable learning opportunity for kids. After a student came out as trans, Mount Horeb Primary Center scheduled a reading of I Am Jazz, a children’s book written by trans teenager Jazz Jennings. The principal sent a note home informing parents about the reading, explaining that a student at school was transitioning, and allowing parents to opt their child out of the reading if they so desired: Read more
Last week in Jacksonville, Florida, anti-LGBT activists threw a fit at a public forum because LGBT people dared to say they had experienced discrimination. The occasion was the first of three “community conversations” held by Jacksonville’s mayor, Republican Lenny Curry, about whether the city should extend nondiscrimination protections to LGBT people. This forum was called “Supporting the Needs and Well-Being of Families,” and as you might expect, it quickly devolved into shouting and false accusations. Read more
“I find that theatre without gays is like cooking without spices.” That’s only one brilliant line from a text that Michael Neri, a theater teacher from Birmingham, England, sent back to a homophobic parent who told him that she would be pulling her kids from his class because he’s gay. She told him that her family’s beliefs didn’t agree with his “lifestyle,” and he gave her all the reasons why that’s a ridiculous thing to say. Neri tweeted their exchange, and it caught fire online. Here’s the full text of their conversation: Read more
Some of my fondest memories from elementary school took place at the Scholastic Book Fair, the traveling marketplace of kids’ literature that would set up shop in the library every year. I loved perusing each and every shelf, figuring out what books I’d beg my mom to buy me. My brother especially treasured the Captain Underpants series, and so I started reading them too. The Scholastic Book Fair is still alive and well, and so is the Captain Underpants series. In fact, the books are evolving with the times; the latest installment, Captain Underpants and the Sensational Saga of Sir Stinks-a-lot, discusses how one of the main male characters grows up to marry another man. Eleven-year-old me would have been delighted. But not surprisingly, the mere mention of a same-sex relationship has some schools taking a step back from the book, with reactions ranging from warnings about “controversial” content to pulling the book entirely. Read more
As far as any state is concerned, Beckie Peirce and April Hoagland are model parents. They got married last year in Utah, applied to become foster parents, and recently welcomed a baby girl into their home through the foster system. They’re already raising two biological children, and they were planning to adopt the baby. But because they’re a same-sex couple, a judge in Utah has demanded their baby be taken away and placed with a heterosexual couple. Read more
