Raising My Rainbow

RaisingMyRainbow.com is a blog about the adventures in raising a slightly effeminate, possibly gay, totally fabulous son. Raising My Rainbow has earned loyal readers in more than 31 countries around the world and its content is syndicated on Queerty.com, a leading source of LGBT news online. Raising My Rainbow is written by C.J.'s Mom, a feisty, sassy girl-woman trying to have it all and usually feeling like she is failing miserably while all those around her are none-the-wiser. She works part-time as a business consultant, full-time as a mother and overtime as a walking panic attack. And it's about raising C.J. (age 4), the most enchanting child you will ever meet with an insane knack for art and color, interior design and dance. His passions include Barbie, Disney Princesses, Strawberry Shortcake and women's hair and shoes. Paula Deen holds a special place in his heart.

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Randi Reitan: A Christmas Letter to My Gay Son
[Huffington Post, December 23, 2011]

My dear Jacob,

As I was going through a box of keepsakes, I came across a Christmas list you had written when you were a young boy. On the list were things we could easily find in stores, and I always enjoyed finding them for you, wrapping them up and putting them under our tree. You were always so appreciative and opened them with great joy. The joy Papa and I felt was even greater.

There is only one gift I want to give you this year. I have wanted to give it to you for many years. I have tried in every way possible to find a way to give it to you. It would bring me the greatest joy of all.

How do I give you equality? How do I give you back the years you have missed "not being equal" in this world?

Your high school and college years should have been ones where you dated and went to proms and dances with someone you were attracted to and wanted to spend time with as a couple. You should not have had to spend those years working for your equality. You should not have had to defend your dignity. You should not have had to miss out on the simple pleasures of a young teen and a young adult.

There is no way I can give you back those years, those times when you should have been having fun, enjoying life, and growing from those experiences.

You had a passion for justice even as a child. I remember when you were 4 and refused to eat supper until I had actually written the check for Save the Children. You were the watchdog in your kindergarten classroom after you felt your teacher was wrong to rip up a child's painting in front of the class in her effort to teach them to write their names on their papers. On that day you spoke truth to power so eloquently as you confronted your teacher after school.

As soon as you came out to us, you wanted to start a gay/straight alliance at your high school. We worried for your safety, but even more for the isolation it might have brought as you worked to make it happen. You reached out to students, teachers, and the administration and created your school's first gay/straight alliance. When you were in college and heard that there were students being kicked out of colleges simply because they were gay, you founded the Soulforce Equality Ride to confront that terrible wrong.

Each of those times you taught me to take action and not be silent in the face of injustice. You have led me, and you have taught me throughout your life.

Maybe that is why it is so hard for me to face Christmas each year and not be able to wrap up the one gift I most want to give you. As a mother, it is such a part of my being to want to nurture and love my children. It is the mother in me that wants to protect and provide for you. It is the mother in me that is hurting so much when I am helpless in being able to give you the one gift I have wanted to give you since the day you told us you were gay.

I want to give you equality. I want to wrap it up in a beautiful box, and I want to put it under our tree right now. I want to see you open it on Christmas Eve and with great joy live with it all your days.

I love you,

Mama

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• Judith Johnson: Stress and Family: Spending Holidays With 'Loved Ones' Who Aren't Very Nice to You [Huffington Post, December 25, 2011]

Below the surface of many family holiday gatherings are mini dramas playing out, contemporary grudges and resentments and unresolved childhood issues. Nothing hurts with such emotional depth as these familial battles. For the tender-hearted, this can be a psychological mine field while self-righteous bullies reign unchallenged. Many silently suffer through these events while dutifully and unconsciously assuming their childhood role as the family black sheep or underdog. Those in secondary roles are often either complicit or oblivious, leaving the underdog to fend for his or herself. Here are seven strategies for doing it differently this year.

Amelia: A Mother's Love for a Daughter Who Is a Son
[Huffington Post, November 3, 2011]

It had been a long journey for them. Dominic was only 13 when he told his mother that he was not a girl but a boy. The onset of puberty was torture for him as his body expressed characteristics so far from how he felt on the inside. There were days when Monica didn't go to work because she was worried about what her son might do to himself if left alone. Monica would look at her child and see all the pain, and she soon started to wish for only one thing: for her child to be happy.

Monica is a good Catholic, a good wife and mother, who lives in a small town. Everything about this was so foreign to her. She didn't understand; she'd never known any transgender people (to her knowledge), and she was acutely feeling the loss of her daughter.

But even through her own confusion, hurt and grief, she set those feelings aside and focused on her child. She educated herself about transgender people, researched therapists specializing in gender identity, and went to the family pediatrician to talk about not only the health concerns surrounding transition but making sure her son's new name would be on all his records.

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• Amelia: Open Letter to Parents: Your Kid Might Be Gay [Huffington Post, January 5, 2012]

Your child might be gay.

I'm not talking about your neighbor's kid or your cousin's kid, and I'm not even talking about my kid (although they are certainly included). I'm talking about your kid. Your kid might be gay.

You may want to protest:

"My son doesn't like show tunes. He likes football and Legos."

"My daughter doesn't play softball. She loves princess dresses and pink."

"My son has a girlfriend."

"My daughter has a boyfriend."

"My child is too young to think about those things."

Well, I am here to tell you that none of those things matter.

• Monica Gallagher Sakala: On Praising Tomboys and Rejecting Feminine Boys [Huffington Post, January 9, 2012]

Everyone applauds my daughter's tom-boyishness. It's charming that she chose to be a skeleton for Halloween instead of a princess. She is strong, independent, different, other parents remark. In reality, what they are doing is praising the qualities about her that we associate with men. On the other end of the spectrum are the examples of boys her same age who like to play with Barbies, dolls or ride a pink bicycle down the street.

Instead of applauding a boy's affinity towards learning to nurture and take-care-of, unfortunately, so many fret that he is too "girlie" or worse, will he be... gay? What is happening is this: a young boy's affinity towards toys and items associated with girls is considered weak, too sensitive, and too feminine. While a girl's affinity towards traditionally male toys demonstrates her strength and is praise worthy.

• Jody Sokolower: 'My Teacher Is a Lesbian': Coming Out at School [Huffington Post, January 11, 2012]

A month into my first year of teaching seventh graders in Oakland, Calif., we were in the school library, using the big tables there to spread out as we outlined Africa on poster paper and added geographical features. My students chatted as they worked.

"Are you married, Ms. Sokolower?" one of them asked me. My stomach instantly tied in a knot. I was a brand-new teacher in what felt like an incredibly challenging teaching situation. But I knew I didn't want to teach from the closet. I started teaching at the middle-school level partly because it is such a difficult time for kids struggling with their sexuality, and there are so few role models. I just didn't know I would have to deal with this so soon.

• Maria Burnham: My Sister Married This Wonderful Girl's Mom [Huffington Post, January 24, 2012]

I have known Sophie since she was about 5 years old, and even then I knew she was a special kid. Her mom Alaine and I worked at the same hair salon in California, and I was pretty much obsessed with Sophie from the first day I met her. This tiny little girl would come in with big, Caribbean-blue-green eyes and a shy disposition, which I interpreted as "playing hard to get," so of course I strived to win her favor. Sophie lived with Alaine full-time and with her dad part-time, so the stronger my friendship with Alaine became, the more integrated in Sophie's life I became. I can't remember the tipping point, but I finally won her over, and she embraced me as a surrogate aunt, accepting my love and affection and undoubtedly my teasing.

Then, in 2004, everything changed. My younger sister Vanessa, whom I am fiercely devoted to, and my best friend Alaine became girlfriends. To further the existing stereotype, they moved in together right away, which means my 22-year-old kid sister found herself living with a 7-year-old "daughter." Both families had their strong opinions on the matter, with my conservative Christian parents at the helm, alternating between sorrowful tears and angry preaching. And when the preaching proved to be ineffectual at mind persuasion, they would turn to the issue of Sophie, and what this would do to her childhood and upbringing. I can't speak much for Alaine's family, but my own family had this way of ending every argument with, "But what about Sophie?! Is anyone thinking about Sophie?"

• Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D.: Look at Him, He's Sandra Dee: What House of Lies' Roscoe Can Teach Us About Gender-Nonconforming Children [Huffington Post, January 25, 2012]

Marty and Roscoe are only fictional characters. But they mirror the challenges that are facing real families and real classrooms all around the country and beyond. As author of Gender Born, Gender Made: Raising Healthy Gender-Nonconforming Children, and as a psychologist who spends much of my time working with children who just don't fit inside neat, binary gender boxes, I applaud Showtime and the writers of House of Lies for bringing a new perspective on children's gender in a compelling and sympathetic way, and one that hopefully opens up the question: who should get to be Sandra Dee?

• Patrick Wallace: Once a Daughter, Now a Son: The Mother of a Transgender Child Shares Her Emotional Transition [Huffington Post, January 26, 2012]

Two years ago, a woman named Kathy had a pivotal conversation with her daughter.

At the young age of 24, her daughter told her she wanted to transition from being the woman Kathy and her husband had raised into the man she had wanted for so many years to become.

Without hesitation, Kathy found an online peer support group for parents of transgender kids that she says "saved her sanity" and provided "the support, compassion and information" she needed in order to process this new information.

• Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D.: When Talking About Children's Gender, Words Matter [Huffington Post, March 1, 2012]

Transgender and gender-nonconforming children and their families, like the ones I work with every say, constitute one of the least visible or understood parts of the LGBT community. They are just beginning to come into focus. As we see the media's and the public's growing interest in these families, I can't underscore enough the responsibility of journalists who cover them and the issues related to these children and young people to get the terminology right, as they are often the general public's main portal on these issues. All of us need to get educated; it is far too easy in the binary-gendered world in which we live to confuse and misinform people who are only just becoming aware of the children who live outside these gender boxes.

• Amelia: Talking to Other Parents About My Gay 7-Year-Old Son [HuffPo, March 16, 2012]
• Dave: A Father's Reaction to His Very Young Gay Son [HuffPo, March 29, 2012]

The idea that I would be immediately disappointed/angry/suicidal that my son identifies as gay offends me, both as a father and simply as a human. It seems the further we all move along into the 21st century in terms of technology, the more some parts of society regress to the 1950s -- or the Victorian era, if we're being honest -- when it comes to ideas of social mores and attitudes on certain subjects: Ward Cleaver would have been angry if the Beaver had come out of the closet, so surely a father 60 years later would have the same reaction. I mean, come on, that's only common sense!

• Nico Lang: My Coming-Out Letter to the Grandmother Who Raised Me [HuffPo, May 7, 2012]

The Didactic Pirate: Telling My 10-Year-Old That I Am Gay
[HuffPo, April 13, 2012]

One of the last people I came out to was my 10-year-old daughter, about nine months into the process. Strange that the final person to hear the news was one of the people who needed to know the most. ...

"I seriously don't know what I'm thinking about it, Daddy," she said, "I have absolutely no idea."

My blunt and truthful girl. My stomach started to sink. The kid always knows what she's thinking. I know this because she's always telling me about every single thought that drops out of her gumball machine brain. When she doesn't know how to verbalize her feelings, it's worrisome.

"I think..." she said after a minute, "that I'm feeling sort of mad." Even though she really didn't sound mad at all. I've seen Mad on her. It's not pretty. This didn't look like that.

"Fair enough," I said. "That's totally allowed. Do you think you can figure out why you're mad?"

She didn't say she was mad that I was gay. She didn't say she was mad because she thought being gay was gross or weird, and her father wasn't supposed to be that way.

She said, slowly and methodically, "I think I'm mad that you didn't tell me sooner."

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Middle school student is 'outed' to parents
[KSL Utah, December 14, 2011]

The Alpine School District is in the national spotlight because of a situation involving a middle school student who identifies as gay.

District spokeswoman Rhonda Bromley told KSL students in a class at Willowcreek Middle School in Lehi were assigned to create an advertisement about themselves that would hang on the classroom wall. One 14-year-old student's ad was about him being gay.

The teacher asked the student if he wanted his ad put up on the wall. He said yes. School officials then worried the student was a potential target for bullying because of negative comments overheard in the hallway.

The project, with permission from the teen, was hung on the wall with others.

The following day an aide at the school then saw the teen hugging another boy and began hearing negative responses about the teen. Uncomfortable and worried about the possibility of being bullied, The aide informed the assistant principal of the situation, who in turned called the teen's parents in for a meeting. ...

"In that case, it's absolutely important that we include parents any time there is a safety issue that has to do with the student. It's the responsibility of the school to include the parent," Bromley said.

So, on Dec. 7 the parents were called in for a meeting, which the student did not attend. The teen's father says the school handled the situation exactly the way they should have - and that it was what happened next that really upset his family.

A Facebook page was created with the student's name, saying he was outed by the school to his parents. It also said he had been suspended for being gay. Bromley says the school did not suspend the boy, but his parents decided to keep him home.

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Two Moms Are Better Than One, Says Government Adviser
[Edge Boston, December 24, 2011]

An adviser to the British government recently claimed that lesbians are better parents than straight couples, reported the (U.K.) Daily Mail.

"Lesbians make better parents than a man and a woman," said the director of research at the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners, Professor Stephen Scott.

He went on to say that there is evidence that shows children who are raised by lesbians were more successful in life.

Scott's statements will most likely upset conservative religious pro-family groups, which support a traditional family lifestyle. Many of these organizations claim that the lack of a father figure can be detrimental to children and affect the way they live their lives.

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• Study: Same-Sex Parents Raise Well-Adjusted Kids [WebMD, October 12, 2005]

Children growing up in same-sex parental households do not necessarily have differences in self-esteem, gender identity, or emotional problems from children growing up in heterosexual parent homes.

"There are a lot of children with at least one gay or lesbian parent," says Ellen C. Perrin, MD, professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. She revealed the findings at the American Academy of Pediatrics Conference and Exhibition.

Between 1 million and 6 million children in the U.S. are being reared by committed lesbian or gay couples, she says. Children being raised by same-sex parents were either born to a heterosexual couple, adopted, or conceived through artificial insemination.

"The vast consensus of all the studies shows that children of same-sex parents do as well as children whose parents are heterosexual in every way," she tells WebMD. "In some ways children of same-sex parents actually may have advantages over other family structures."

• Study: Teens raised by gay parents as happy as other teens [Washington Post, January 19, 2012]

A new study has found that teens raised by lesbian parents report the same quality of life as teens raised by heterosexual parents.

The study was published in this month's Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.

"Quality of Life of Adolescents Raised From Birth by Lesbian Mothers," is part of a long-term study of American lesbian families called the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study, which is supported by The Williams Institute at UCLA Law, a research center specializing in sexual orientation law and public policy.

• Family Formation and Raising Children Among Same-sex Couples [Williams Institute, January, 2012]

Proportionally fewer same-sex couples are raising children today than in 2006, and their families reflect greater racial/ethnic and socioeconomic diversity than often represented in the media and academic research. Notably, childrearing is substantially higher among racial/ethnic minorities. Also, among individuals in same-sex couples who did not finish high school, 43% are raising children, and 20% of children raised by same-sex couples live in poverty.

The decrease in the proportion of couples raising children may be due to decreases in parenting by lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) individuals who had children at a relatively young age while in a relationship with a different-sex partner. Declining social stigma toward LGB people may mean that more are coming out earlier in life and are becoming less likely to have children with different-sex partners. Despite the proportional declines in parenting, analyses also show that adoptive parenting is clearly increasing. Among couples with children, the proportion of same-sex couples who have adopted children has nearly doubled from 10% to 19% between 2000 and 2009.

Despite the decline, the number of same-sex couples raising children is still much higher today than ten years ago since many more couples are reporting themselves in Census Bureau data. In 2000, the Census reported about 63,000 couples raising children. Today, the figure is now more than 110,000.

She Was My Mommy Too...
[She Wired, January 17, 2012]

Recently, we received an email from a young woman who's mother's partner (her other mother Linny) had passed away. Beyond the grief of losing someone she loved, Maygen, who's 23 and hails from New Jersey, was forced to contend with the pain of being literally shut out of Linny's hospital room by hospital staff and her biological family and at the funeral by the family that refused to acknowledge that Maygen and her mother were Linny's family too. In a country where gay marriage is not federally recognized, even in those progressive states that have legalized gay marriage, Maygen and her mom are a part of the fall-out. She wanted to tell her story to help people for the future so that perhaps others won't have to endure what she did. Her story illustrates that the personal is political and vice versa. Until LGBT people are afforded equal civil rights people like Maygen and her mom will continue to pay a price.

It has been 13 days since one of my moms died. She had become sick very quickly, and then the call came; the call I wish had never come- she had died. When I was three my mom fell madly in love with Linny (my other mother). They loved each other like I have never seen love before - for 20 years they loved each other. Linny helped raise me. She read Are You There God it's Me Margaret? to me, she kissed boo-boos and told me she loved me every night. She was my mom too. Everyday after school Linny would help me with my homework and quiz me for upcoming tests. We were inseparable, best friends, mother and child.

I am writing this because at Linny's funeral there was no mention of my life with her. It was an intentional disregard for the beautiful life the three of us had. Linny would have wanted the world to know that she loved not only another woman to her fullest capacity, but that she had a daughter. She was a lover of nature, animals and peace. She nursed injured birds back to health and rescued abused dogs from animal shelters. What was said about Linny at her funeral was not about my mom. The story told at Linny's funeral was a story of a woman I did not know. There was actual mention of Linny's "husband," with whom she'd divorced more than two decades ago! It was a façade her family spoke of out of fear of letting who Linny really was to come alive.

You see, while Linny was sick I was not allowed to visit her in the treatment facility. But that didn't' stop me from sneaking in to see her. When she turned to look at me she said, "It's Maygen- my daughter." I'll never forget those words, that smile, and that last kiss I gave her.

I relentlessly tried to visit her many times and was denied by her biological family and the hospital staff. I explained to them who I was and they still restricted me from seeing my mother. I felt alienated, as though I didn't matter or exist. I was outraged and in shock that I couldn't be there for the mother that was always there for me. When visiting her failed time and time again I tried calling the hospital. First I told them who I was and they told me not to call again. So began calling under various names, calling different nurse's station and at different times of the day. None of these strategies worked. How could they keep me away from my mom, when we hadn't spent a day apart from each other prior to her illness?

This is not just my story, this may be yours as well. Why are we treated like strangers when all we want is to live the life we have always known and loved? The feelings of alienation were so intense at her funeral -- it was as if I never existed. Linny would have been outraged and so heartbroken by the way her family was treated. Please help me to bring awareness to the inequality gay people still struggle with, much of which derives from there being no federal marriage rights for same-sex couples. Children of gay parents should have the same rights as children of straight parents. I am telling my story in Linny's honor because other families in the same situation should not have to endure what we have gone through.

Thank you,

Maygen

[Continued here]

Patrick Wallace: Adopted by Two Gay Dads After a Tumultuous Upbringing, 15-Year-Old Zac
Shares a Letter of Love [Huffington Post, January 18, 2012]

On his eighth birthday, Zac found himself surrounded by police.

The woman whom he now refers to as his "birthmom" was arrested because, as Zac states, she had "many boyfriends and she did a lot of drugs and partying."

During the next three years Zac lived in 12 different foster homes before he was given some great news. A loving couple living in Berkeley, Calif. wanted nothing more than to adopt him -- two gay, would-be dads named Arturo and Dave.

Zac's first thought: "Well, I never had a dad, now I get to have two!"

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Who IS the mom? Lesbians in child custody battle after one woman donated egg and
the other had it implanted into womb [Daily Mail, January 4, 2012]

A lesbian couple was caught up in an extraordinary custody battle after both women claimed they were the real mother of their young daughter.

After the pair split, one woman insisted she was the mom because she donated the egg.

But her estranged partner claimed she was better qualified because she had the egg implanted into her womb and gave birth to the child. ...

The couple - both law enforcement officers - had been in a committed 11-year relationship when they decided to try for a baby, court records show. But they soon discovered that one of them, a 39-year-old, was infertile. ...

According to the Orlando Sentinel newspaper, a circuit judge in Brevard County, Florida, sided with the birth mother, writing that it broke his heart to make the ruling.

A state appeals court overturned the decision, saying the donor should share parental rights. ...

The decision was applauded by Nancy Polikoff, a law professor at American University Washington College of Law, who is an expert on gay and lesbian family law.

She told the Sentinel: 'Any ruling that supports the right of a same-sex couple is important for its willingness to recognize that these families exist and a child raised in this environment shouldn't be forced to give up a parent.'

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Young, Gay And Homeless: Fighting For Resources
[NPR, November 20, 2011]

A number of studies of homeless youth in big cities put forth a startling statistic: Depending on the study, somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of homeless youths identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

It's largely because gay youths are more often kicked out of their homes than straight youths. And even if they are not kicked out, they may feel so uncomfortable that they leave.

In New York City, nearly 4,000 young people are homeless every night - many of them gay.

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• Homeless charity warns of increase in gay Muslims fleeing family violence [Pink News, January 11, 2010]

"They come to us because they're homeless, or in danger of being homeless imminently. We sort out emergency accommodation for them."

One visitor to the charity's weekly drop-in session in London, 20-year-old student Suni, told the BBC he had been imprisoned in Pakistan for three months after his parents suspected he was gay.

Suni said he had been beaten by his family, who thought making him marry a woman would cure him of homosexuality.

Fazal Mahmood, who runs a support group for South Asian and Middle Eastern gay men called Himat, said that after young men and women in Muslim families reveal their sexual orientation, they are often asked to leave.

• Overnight program for LGBT young adults to launch [Philadelphia Gay News, December 8, 2011]

"About 30-40 percent of all homeless youth in America identify as LGBT but we know that it's an issue that comes and goes for each of them," she said. "They're couch surfing, thrown out of their homes, living with other people and then having to leave and find somewhere else to go. They often don't experience homelessness in the same capacity as those who are living on the streets, but it's definitely an issue of unstable housing and there's certainly a need here."

The Night Resource Program, which will operate out of the Arch Street Presbyterian Church, 1724 Arch St., was made possible through a $5,000 grant by the Henrietta Tower Wurts Fund and a $5,000 grant from the Student-Run Emergency Housing Unit of Philadelphia - as well as $2,500 in fundraising.

Participants will be guaranteed a 30-day stay with the possibility of an extension depending on space availability and the individual's progress.

• Carl Siciliano: Homeless for the Holidays: Portraits of New York City's Homeless LGBT Youth [Huffington Post, December 20, 2011]

Over the past few weeks I have been meeting with homeless LGBT youth. Each young person was, at the time I met with and photographed them, struggling to survive out on the streets as they waited for one of the few youth shelter beds in New York City to open up to them.

Their stories do not fit in the traditional narratives of the holiday season. No warm family gatherings for these kids. No presents, no feasts. No "sleeping in heavenly peace." Many have been cast out of their homes, driven out by homophobia. Made to know that being LGBT makes them unlovable in the eyes of their families. Made to know that being gay made them disposable.

Nor do their stories conform to the traditional narrative of "coming out" that the LGBT community likes to tell. Coming out for these kids was not primarily experienced as liberating and freeing, nor was it experienced as finding acceptance in the broader LGBT community. For these kids, coming out meant being driven from their homes, denied love, denied all economic support, made to suffer utter destitution. And, shamefully, despite the numbers of homeless LGBT youth across the nation reaching epidemic proportions, their plight has not been at the forefront of the attention of the LGBT community.

• Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum: A Generation Sacrificed, Again [Huffington Post, January 25, 2012]

As a society we are sacrificing a generation of our young people. Every night in New York City, in the wealthiest country in the world, we have children sleeping on the street. Every night, close to 4,000 of our young people are without homes and without shelter. These youth have been thrown out of their homes, neglected by their communities, and ignored by our decision makers.

In the LGBT community, this is a pressing crisis: up to 40 percent of homeless youth identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer. Over the course of growing up, a quarter of LGBTQ youth are thrown out of their homes. There are less than 250 shelter beds in New York City for all homeless youth, and only 42 of these are safe and welcoming spaces for LGBTQ youth. These children are forced to sleep in the streets or in doorways, trade sex for shelter, and put themselves in harm's way every day and night.

Every night this reality is with us. Every morning each of us has a choice.

That is why my congregants and I formed the Shelter of Peace Network, a multi-faith initiative advocating safe shelter for LGBTQ homeless youth.

• Child-protection workers face reality of lethal family violence [Globe & Mail, January 30, 2012]

As they soul-search over how they might have saved the doomed Shafia sisters, child-protection officials in Montreal admit they were ill-prepared to confront the new form of extremism that led to the murder of the three girls.

Facing questions over whether they failed to protect the sisters, officials say they had been accustomed to dealing with cases of parental abuse before - but not with the kind of demonic plot hatched by the domineering Mohammad Shafia.

"Having that kind of cultural reference - the possibility of going through the extreme of killing your children in such a premeditated way - is something that's very new to us," said Madeleine Bérard, director of youth protection at Batshaw Youth and Family Services in Montreal. "Now we have to work with that, because it's obviously part of our reality."

• Local News Investigates The 'Hidden Crisis': Kids Put Out 'Like Trash' Just For Being Gay [Think Progress, February 17, 2012]

There are approximately 1.6 million to 2.8 million homeless young people in the United States and a disproportionate number - 20 to 40 percent - are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. LGBT youth often run away from home because of family conflict and then "face overt discrimination when seeking alternative housing, which is compounded by institutionalized discrimination in federally funded programs." ...

Studies show that 320,000 to 400,000 gay and transgender youth face homelessness each year and that many lose their homes at the young age of 13 or 14, as they come out to their parents....

• Homeless Youth: The Next Battle for LGBT Equality [Edge Boston, March 8, 2012]

The midnight cowboys of Tel Aviv
[Haaretz, June 10, 2011]

Call me Ruru, he says as the nighttime blackness deepens. "I belong to these streets," he declares as he interrupts his circular ramblings through the maze of streets surrounding the old Tel Aviv central bus station. He takes off his small backpack and places it on the sidewalk. "These are my worldly possessions," he says. "And I also have more things hidden in all kinds of places around here."

"I started when I was 12," he says. "I grew up in an Arab village in the center of the country. From the time I was young, I knew I was gay, but I was afraid to talk about it." His parents suspected. "They asked me and I confessed that that's who I was and who I love. They threw me out of the house the same day."

He came to Tel Aviv and wandered around the area near the old central bus station. "I was a kid," he says. "I thought I'd find a regular job here and I'd manage." Here he met a Palestinian from a refugee camp who was afraid to return home after having been tagged as a collaborator. "I asked him for help," he relates. "I told him I had nothing to eat and had been thrown out on the street. He said: 'Come with me tonight and I'll show you where to get work.' He took me to Gan Hahashmal.

"I saw him get in a car and I didn't understand what he was doing. When he got out of the car he came over to me and told me: 'Take a good look ? This is the money that you can eat with and live off of.' That's how I started with this, and I'm still doing it."

Cars pass by and the drivers signal to Ruru insistently, but he lets them keep driving around and ignores them. "I sleep in the street, and now in Gan Hahashmal," he says.

[Continued here]

• Convention on the Rights of the Child [Office of the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights]

"Bearing in mind that the need to extend particular care to the child has been stated in the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924 and in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child adopted by the General Assembly on 20 November 1959 and recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (in particular in articles 23 and 24), in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (in particular in article 10) and in the statutes and relevant instruments of specialized agencies and international organizations concerned with the welfare of children, ..."

Right-Wing Websites Blast Paper's Coverage of Teen's Sex Change
[Edge Boston, December 16, 2011]

MassResistance, a Massachusetts anti-gay group, is up in arms about a story that was published in the Boston Globe last weekend and recently posted a reaction to the piece. The article told the harrowing story about 14-year-old twin boys, Jonas and Wyatt Maines. Although born as identical twins, Wyatt wanted to be a girl.

"The ultra-radical nature of the cultural revolution is coming into full view," MassResistance writes in a Dec. 12 post. "With the Massachusetts 'transgender rights' bill passed, the next frontier is public acceptance of sex-changes for children. Is this America's future?"

Wyatt, who now goes by Nicole, had the support of her parents who took her to a groundbreaking clinic at the Children's Hospital in Boston. The clinic helps families deal with emotional and medical issues that come from having a transgender child.

At the Children's Hospital Gender Management Services Clinic, Nicole went under hormone therapies that helped Nicole become the person she wants to be.

Despite all of the difficult treatments and experiences Nicole and her family have been through, MassResistance says that she "is and always will be biologically and genetically a male."

The organization then goes on to condemn the Children's Hospital in Boston, saying, "These ghastly 'procedures' are being done to children by the elite medical establishment."

MassResistance also slams the hospital for its child transgender program, calling it "bizarre and unbelievable."

[Continued here]

• Identical twin boys, one transgender become brother and sister [Boston Globe, December 11, 2011]

Jonas and Wyatt Maines were born identical twins, but from the start each had a distinct personality.

Jonas was all boy. He loved Spiderman, action figures, pirates, and swords.

Wyatt favored pink tutus and beads. At 4, he insisted on a Barbie birthday cake and had a thing for mermaids. On Halloween, Jonas was Buzz Lightyear. Wyatt wanted to be a princess; his mother compromised on a prince costume.

Once, when Wyatt appeared in a sequin shirt and his mother's heels, his father said: "You don't want to wear that.''

"Yes, I do,'' Wyatt replied.

"Dad, you might as well face it,'' Wayne recalls Jonas saying. "You have a son and a daughter.''

That early declaration marked, as much as any one moment could, the beginning of a journey that few have taken, one the Maineses themselves couldn't have imagined until it was theirs. The process of remaking a family of identical twin boys into a family with one boy and one girl has been heartbreaking and harrowing and, in the end, inspiring - a lesson in the courage of a child, a child who led them, and in the transformational power of love.

An Open Letter to the Woman Who Gave Birth to Me, In Honor of a Holiday I No
Longer Celebrate [the distant panic, December 25, 2011]

Once upon a time, I celebrated Christmas. I was raised as a devout Baptist. The family I was coercively-assigned-at-birth are pious, evangelical Christians. I was taught the world was created a few thousand years ago in precisely 6 days, shopping on Sunday and being vegetarian are both sins, women should never be in positions of leadership, and things like reason, science, and ethics are all creations of the Devil. To them, being a fundamentalist is a good thing - to their queer/trans daughter, it means they are dogmatic, Bible-thumping, fanatical bigots.

[Continued here]

Connecticut Gay Couple Accused of Molesting Adopted Sons
[Edge Boston, Friday December 2, 2011]

Doug Wirth, 43, and his husband George Harasz, 48, were arrested on Wednesday on sexual assault and other charges after the Glastonbury police completed their investigation. The authorities started their investigation after they received complaints from the Department of Children and Families.

Wirth posted his $75,000 bail and was released from jail. Harasz, however, did not come up with his $350,000 bail and was turned over to the state Department of Correction, the news station reported. ...

The allegations have caused turmoil within the family and has divided them, with family members forced to choose sides. Harasz's biological daughter, Jackie, 19, told the media that she strongly believes that the couple is innocent. Chris Harasz, one of the adopted boys, says that all of the allegations are true.

[Continued here]

• Gay couple accused of abusing two of their nine adopted sons [Daily Mail, December 1, 2011]

Carlos Harasz, who goes to Central Connecticut State University, told the Courant that, before their adoption, the children were moved often between foster families and were suffering from 'reactive attachment disorder'.

The condition often affects children who have been moved frequently from home to home or who have been taken from their parents. Common symptoms can include withdrawal, aggressive behaviour, lying and stealing.

Carlos said.'When you go through foster care, you have a lot of issues,' he said. 'When you've been with 20 other families who've done you wrong, somebody has to take the blame. It doesn't have to be the people who saved our lives.'

Harasz and Wirth were unfairly taking that blame for that pain, Carlos said.

• Connecticut couple charged with sex assaults of 9 kids [Norwich Bulletin, December 1, 2011]

A couple who adopted nine boys through the state Department of Children and Families since 2000 has been arrested and charged with sexually assaulting two of the youngsters.

The Hartford Courant reports that George Harasz and Doug Wirth were taken into custody Wednesday. Harasz was charged with assaulting two children and Wirth is accused of assaulting one.

One of the couple's children, 19-year-old Carlos Harasz, says he has lived with the two men for more than 10 years and never witnessed or experienced abuse the two are accused of committing. ...

They are scheduled to be arraigned Thursday at Superior Court in Manchester.

The two men began a puppy breeding business in their home to supplement their income. They put the boys to work in it.

In December 2009, Harasz was cited for a misdemeanor charge of cruelty to animals when Glastonbury's animal control officer found about 50 dogs in the basement. Police said the room had inadequate ventilation and the smell of urine and feces was overwhelming.

• Parents Plead Not Guilty In Assault of Their Children [CBS, January 17, 2012]

Two Glastonbury men accused of sexually assaulting their adopted children have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

George Harasz and Douglas Wirth were arrested in November on allegations that they abused two of their nine adopted boys.

The Hartford Courant reports the men pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Superior Court in Hartford.

The warrants for the men's arrest describe abuse of two boys, now ages 5 and 15, through sodomy and inappropriate touching. Other children in the household told police they did not experience any inappropriate sexual contact.

Boy, 6, taken from gay pair
[Sydney Morning Herald, February 9, 2012]

An Australian gay couple have had their six-year-old son taken from them by child protection authorities in Los Angeles while the FBI and Queensland police investigate allegations that they are members of an international paedophile ring. The men, who insist on their innocence, have told Fairfax: "It looks really bad."

The child was taken in October last year, the day after the couple's house in Cairns was searched by Queensland police from Task Force Argos, which works with national and international law enforcement agencies on child protection cases. A spokesman for Queensland police confirmed the matter is under investigation.

A report by the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services says the FBI is also investigating allegations that one of the men "is suspected of sexually abusing [the child]. They are also suspected of exploiting [the child] through child pornography and obtaining [the child] for the sole purpose of exploitation."

Among the material in the hands of the department is a video that, according to its report, shows the son "watching a film of pornography with another child and speaking in an explicit sexual manner". Another is said to show him in public with a child "speaking in a sexual and profane manner" as they partly undress. ...

The men blame their predicament on innocent visits to three men in the US, New Zealand and Germany, who, to their complete surprise, turned out to be collectors and producers of child pornography. All three were arrested last year.

[Continued here]

• Boy, 6, removed from Cairns gay fathers in FBI child porn probe [The Courier-Mail, February 9, 2012]

They believe they are victims of prejudice against gay fathers.

"This is wrong beyond belief," said the father, who is in the US.

"We spent so many years of our lives as a same-sex couple trying to have a child in the first place, then a few more years trying to secure our rights as parents.

"For six years we were the proudest and happiest family in the world.

"This kind of torment should not be inflicted on anyone without serious signs of harm or abuse to the child.

"We don't have a voice in this matter at all.

"With no trial we cannot even defend ourselves."

His Cairns school community have rallied behind the boy and are trying to get him back to Australia.

"He is a little six-year-old boy under a whole lot of stress," said the school matriarch.

"He has been taken away from his parents and put into foster care, in a foreign country, for more than three months.

"He is all alone.

"We don't want him to get lost in the system."

A close friend told The Courier-Mail she did not believe the pair were guilty.

"He is very well looked after and well loved boy. He is a quiet, very well groomed, delightful child, with beautiful manners.

The Rural Rainbow Revolution
[Same Same, November 23, 2011]

Major metropolitan cities are seen as ideal havens for gays and lesbians both young and old, but as the flames of equality sweep through our sunburnt country, have we reached an age of social inclusion where smaller locales embrace GLBTI lifestyles?

Sexual diversity was an unpopular anomaly during my formative schooling years in rural Ballarat, so back then I conformed to the celebrated hetero-normative lifestyle, because failure to do so would almost certainly result in discrimination and harassment.

I felt there was no vibrancy in my monochrome hometown, so when I came of age I packed up and headed for the big smoke, and I've been a proud bi Melburnian ever since.

Yet lately I've begun to feel like the gay party scene is lacking the panache of yesteryear, because let's face it, Commercial Road is a shadow of its former self.

I wondered if Melbourne really did have a monopoly over our way of life, and I needed to sate my hunger for a fresh, untapped gay experience. So last month, after much deliberation, I decided to hark back to my roots and embark on a mission to suss out the gay nightclub community in Ballarat.

Purely to see if any progress had been made in the cultivation of a genuine gay community.

[Continued here]

[Note: I strongly suspect that this individual is viewing his 'world' through rose-coloured spectacles.]

• Being a rural or ethnic gay is not for sissies [Sydney Star Observer, February 1, 2012]

Constantly living with ethnic homosexual censorship or being surrounded by rural life that only supports heterosexual identities or, worse still, has perceived homophobic attitudes causes great distress to many gays, young and old.

Geoff is 24 and is from the central NSW coast. "I was too scared to tell anyone I was gay. I played sport and made friends with the town's studs (who surprisingly I don't talk to any more) but inside I was very, scared and depressed."

Here are some nasty statistics. Eighty percent of rural gay adolescents suffer verbal abuse and bullying at school, gay teenagers are 10 times more likely to commit suicide than straight peers and 30 - 40 percent of homeless kids are gay. These are awful numbers.