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Tina Fakhrid-Deen Talks About LGBTQ Families

August 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Feminist Conversations is a regular series here at Feminists For Choice. Today we are talking with author and activist Tina Fakhrid-Deen. Tina is the founder of the Chicago chapter of COLAGE (for people with a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer parent) and the author of Let’s Get This Straight: The Ultimate Handbook for Youth with LGBTQ Parents. You can read more about Tina on her blog. 

1. What was the motivation behind writing Let’s Get This Straight?

I was raised by a lesbian mother and heterosexual father, so the topic has personal relevance in my life. As an adult, I volunteered for a social justice organization, COLAGE, that provides community for youth and adults with at least one LGBTQ parent. This was the impetus for my writing Let’s Get This Straight with the support of COLAGE.

2. Your book really shines light on the fact that there are plenty of different family structures, especially so with LGBTQ families. Could you give our readers a few examples?

Some of the less recognized family structures are single parent households, transgender parented families, blended families, transracial families, families via donor insemination, families with multiple mothers and fathers (i.e. three dads), and families of divorce.

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Is it Time for the Progressive Movement to Co-opt Family Values Rhetoric?

November 4, 2011 By 1 Comment

Senator Kirsten Gillbrand recently announced plans to introduce the “Every Child Deserves a Family Act” in the U.S. Senate. With the National Adoption Month here – not to mention the release of a groundbreaking study highlighting the implications of anti-gay “family values” rhetoric on children and LGBT families – this is the perfect time to get the legislative ball rolling.

As more and more LGBT couples are getting married and starting families, we have a great opportunity to place children without a family into happy homes, either by adoption or foster care. But unfortunately, discrimination against both adoptive and foster parents based on sexual orientation or gender identity is still pervasive in this country. Currently, five states prohibit same-sex couples from adopting, and there are six states that ban same-sex parents from adopting their partner’s children. In all, 31 states practice some form of discrimination against LGBT families.

Precisely why we desperately need this legislation.  [Read more...]

Filed Under: Legislative Watch, LGBTQ Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

New York City to cut vital services to working families.

May 11, 2010 By 3 Comments

Roughly 15 New York City childcare centers are scheduled to close as of July 10th. On April 21st, thousands of parents and advocates marched across the Brooklyn Bridge in protest.

NYC officials claim that the areas where the closings will take place are no longer in need of as many services for low-income families. However, Jerry Chiappetta, Executive Director of the Court St. Day Care Center in Cobble Hill, says that he was told his center would be closing because of high operational costs, including rent and maintenance.

The official’s argument ignores the fact that many who cannot afford to live in these areas are in fact the ones working in the areas, and many utilize childcare in the area where they work, rather than where they live. Chiappetta says that although the make-up of the neighborhood has changed, those his center serves has not.

Parents and directors are frustrated and widely believe that condos will be built in place of the current centers. Ten of the fifteen centers scheduled to close are in “up and coming” areas such a Cobble Hill and Prospect Heights. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Activism, Parenting Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Military Familes & the New Afghanistan Surge

December 2, 2009 By 2 Comments

Half my heart
Like most political topics, the U.S. offensive in Afghanistan is a complicated issue, despite attempts on all sides to reduce its complexity so that the situation can best be spun to suit a given ideology. As much as I would like for it to be as simple as “get us the hell out of there,” I’m just not sure that’s realistic or even possible any more than “lets kick some ass over there so we don’t have to fight them here” is.

The fact of the matter is that the world is a mess. Granted, much of the trouble has been caused and is being perpetuated by flawed U.S. foreign policy. But it is a mess, nonetheless. I have to be extra clear here: I was not in favor of the original invasion of Afghanistan or that of Iraq. In fact, invading Afghanistan after 9/11 made about as much sense to me as bombing Michigan would have after Oklahoma City.

Unfortunately, my friends, that ship has sailed. And we have not, even by getting rid of W, managed to instigate any large scale strategic shifts on the part of the U.S. government, at least as far as Afghanistan is concerned (Iraq is another matter, for another day). So. Fact number 2–for good or ill, Afghanistan is our problem and that problem is getting bigger by the moment.

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