Lgbt Families

"Inside of our head is where our smarts are," she said to herself, "And this princess is very smart." Chloe dreams of being a ballerina princess. But today she is not practicing her twirls or leaping from room to room. She digs deep in her art drawer to find what she needs to craft her very own princess ballerina. The project quickly turns into more than a simple princess drawing. Chloe realizes that princesses are not just about beautiful hair and sparkly dresses. As her work of art comes to life, she discovers the qualities of character that make up her princess. When she feels insecure about an imperfection in her art, her dad's point out that the personal quirks make her princess unique! And Chloe realizes that she is not too different from the princess she so admires. "When you know what you want, not much can stop you." Princesses can look all kinds of ways. What kind of princess are you? "Filled with the fuel young girls need to believe in themselves, this book carries the right message at the right time for the next generation of brave young women. It's a must read!" - Katherine Wintsch, Founder and CEO of The Mom Complex "...a breath of fresh air for children of different ages, providing the very essence that children can have dreams and be very creative with those dreams."- Erika Tranfield, Director and Co-founder of Pride Angel

In-depth interviews examine the role of the law in the lives of LGBT parents The decision to have a child is seldom a simple one, often fraught with complexities regarding emotional readiness, finances, marital status, and compatibility with life and career goals. Rarely, though, do individuals consider the role of the law in facilitating or inhibiting their ability to have a child or to parent. For LGBT individuals, however, parenting is saturated with legality - including the initial decision of whether to have a child, how to have a child, whether one's relationship with their child will be recognized, and everyday acts of parenting. Through interviews with 137 LGBT parents, Amanda K. Baumle and D'Lane R. Compton examine the role of the law in the lives of LGBT parents and how individuals use the law when making decisions about family formation or parenting. Baumle and Compton explore the ways in which LGBT parents participate in the process of constructing legality through accepting, modifying, or rejecting legal meanings about their families. They conclude that legality is constructed through a complex interplay of legal context, social networks, individual characteristics, and familial desires. Ultimately, the stories of LGBT parents in this book reflect a rich and varied relationship between the law, the state, and the private family goals of individuals.

Part of the Sage Contemporary Family Perspective series, this book presents a comprehensive an understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender families today by drawing upon and making sense of the burgeoning scholarly literature about LGBT families from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

If These Ovaries Could Talk: The Things We've Learned About Making An LGBTQ Family by JAIMIE KELTON and ROBIN HOPKINS is equal parts funny, serious, happy, sad, celebratory, cautionary, and powerful. You'll learn a lot and laugh even more along the way! Who knew making a baby could be this much fun?

LGBT-Parent Families is the first handbook to provide a comprehensive examination of this underserved area. Reflecting the nature of this issue, the volume is notably interdisciplinary, with contributions from scholars in psychology, sociology, human development, family studies, gender studies, sexuality studies, legal studies, social work, and anthropology. Additionally, scholarship from regions beyond the U.S. including England, Australia, Canada, and South Africa is presented. In addition to gender and sexuality, all contributors address issues of social class, race, and ethnicity in their chapters.

“A tender story about the variety of people that make children feel loved and supported.” —Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Stella’s class is having a Mother’s Day celebration, but what’s a girl with two daddies to do? It’s not that she doesn’t have someone who helps her with her homework, or tucks her in at night. Stella has her Papa and Daddy who take care of her, and a whole gaggle of other loved ones who make her feel special and supported every day. She just doesn’t have a mom to invite to the party. Fortunately, Stella finds a unique solution to her party problem in this sweet story about love, acceptance, and the true meaning of family. “Told with both a light touch and an astute eye toward a child’s perspective and heartfelt concerns.” —School Library Journal “A raucous happy ending.” —The New York Times

Why LGBTQ adults don’t end troubled ties with parents and why (perhaps) they should Families We Keep is a surprising look at the life-long bonds between LGBTQ adults and their parents. Alongside the importance of “chosen families” in the queer community, Rin Reczek and Emma Bosley-Smith found that very few LGBTQ people choose to become estranged from their parents, even if those parent refuse to support their gender identity, sexuality, or both. Drawing on interviews with over seventy-five LGBTQ people and their parents, Reczek and Bosley-Smith explore the powerful ties that bind families together, for better or worse. They show us why many feel obliged to maintain even troubled—and sometimes outright toxic—relationships with their parents. They argue that this relationship persists because what we think of as the “natural” and inevitable connection between parents and adult children is actually created and sustained by the sociocultural power of compulsory kinship. After revealing what holds even the most troubled intergenerational ties together, Families We Keep gives us permission to break free of those family bonds that are not in our best interests. Reczek and Bosley-Smith challenge our deep-rooted conviction that family—and specifically, our relationships with our parents—should be maintained at any cost. Families We Keep shines a light on the shifting importance of family in America, and how LGBTQ people navigate its complexities as adults.

After years of intense debate, same-sex marriage has become a legal reality in many countries around the globe. As same-sex marriage laws spread, Queer Families and Relationships After Marriage Equality asks: What will queer families and relationships look like on the ground? Building on a major conference held in 2016 entitled "After Marriage: The Future of LGBTQ Politics and Scholarship," this collection draws from critical and intersectional perspectives to explore this question. Comprising academic papers, edited transcripts of conference panels, and interviews with activists working on the ground, this collection presents some of the first works of empirical scholarship and first-hand observation to assess the realities of queer families and relationships after same-sex marriage. Including a number of chapters focused on married same-sex couples as well as several on other queer family types, the volume considers the following key questions: What are the material impacts of marriage for same-sex couples? Is the spread of same-sex marriage pushing LGBTQ people toward more "normalized" types of relationships that resemble heterosexual marriage? And finally, how is the spread of same-sex marriage shaping other queer relationships that do not fit the marriage model? By presenting scholarly research and activist observations on these questions, this volume helps translate queer critiques advanced during the marriage debates into a framework for ongoing critical research in the after-marriage period.