Victoria’s Secret model, Josephine Skriver, has opened up and spoken about being raised a ‘rainbow baby’.
The 22-year-old model, who works as an ambassador for the Family Equality Council and its Outspoken Generation Program, explained how she uses her position to share her story whenever possible, to break down stigmas against ‘untraditional’ families.
Skriver’s lesbian mother and gay father met in 1992 when Josephine’s mother placed an ad in a Danish LGBTQ newsletter. Josephine’s mother wanted to have a child. Josephine’s father responded, and the rest is history!
Speaking to i-D, as part of a new series exploring unique and personal aspects of celebrities’ lives,
When Skriver’s mom met her partner, the family decided against the term ‘step mom’, instead preferring to use the more positive ‘bonus mom’ to describe her extra parents.
I just hope that one day the concept of ‘family’ will mean a lot more than the traditional straight couple, with two kids and a house with a white picket fence. For me, family is a group of people bound by love! Love is what makes a family!”
Skriver also shared her powerful message to critics of IVF.
You get so many ‘She’s not made the natural way, she shouldn’t even be here’. I am not a science experiment. I am not synthetic. I am a real human being. I am just as real as you are.”
The video comes two months after a worldwide boycott of designers Dolce & Gabbana, following their comments that IVF children are ‘synthetic’.
A new study published in the June issue of Demography, finds children of same-sex parents are getting more one-on-one time with their parents than children with different-sex parents, according to a new study .
The authors looked into the ways the 44,188 participants of the 2003 – 2013 American Time Use Survey spent time interacting with their children, in an attempt to measure the difference in outcomes of children raised by same-sex parents and different-sex parents.
Overall, women (regardless of the gender of their partners) and men coupled with other men spent ‘significantly more time’ with their children than a male-female couple.
This results in children of same-sex couples receiving one hour more child-focused parent time than children of different-sex couples – an average of 3.5 hours per day.
Authors Kate C. Prickett and Alexa Martin-Storey wrote in a post for The Society Pages.
A key implication of our study is that the focus on whether same-sex parents provide depreciably different family contexts for healthy child development is misplaced
If anything, the results show that same-sex couples are more likely to invest time in the types of parenting behaviors that support child development.
In line with a recent study that has continued to highlight that poverty — more so than family structure — is the greatest detriment to parenting practices, it’s hard not to see how delegitimizing same-sex families in ways that create both social and economic costs for them, pose a greater source of disadvantage for children.”
In case anyone is confused about how two women in a loving relationship can have a child together, 7-year-old Sophia is here to explain it all to you. Oh, and not only that, there are drawings, too… so cute.
Sophia made the video to help other kids who have two mothers.
Made by The Next Family, an organisation that supports diverse families, the video features her enthusiastically explaining how her mothers had her.
Say you have mum, and she was in love with this other mum, and then they married, and then they’re going to have a baby. But they need a boy!”
With just a little bit of help from her mum, she explains the facts about how “they call this guy at this place called a sperm donor.”
The picture first was taken in 2014, when Vanessa Iris Roy was pregnant with the couple’s son, Jax. The second was taken in January of this year, when Melanie Roy was pregnant with their daughter Ero. That’s Jax playing at their feet.
Melanie told reporters
Vanessa and I have always said we would both like to carry. The woman’s body is incredible. The way it creates and grows another human being is amazing. We hope that our picture is that sign that some women may need to encourage them to carry a child.”
After a couple of months on Instagram, the side-by-side motherhood photos went viral. The Huffington Post reports they garnered more than 150,000 Likes on a Brazilian advocacy group’s Facebook page.
Melanie told The Huffington Post
It’s crazy to see that people were referring to my family as an inspiration. We are still in complete shock.”
Raising two young children in states that don’t recognise that their parents are married has caused couple, Nicole and Pam Yorksmith, a range of problems.
They live in Kentucky and work in neighbouring Ohio – both states that ban same-sex marriage. This has complicated school enrolment, benefits, travel, tax and, most worrisome, medical emergencies.
While they consider themselves co-parents of the children that Nicole, 35, delivered after artificial insemination, a lot of other institutions don’t see them that way.
That was a problem when 9-month-old Orion came down with croup in the middle of the night.
“He had really laboured breathing,” Pam recalled. Their paediatrician recommended taking him to the emergency room, and since 4-year-old Grayden was asleep, Nicole stayed home with him.
But Pam wasn’t listed on Orion’s birth certificate or records – “An hour later, they had to call Nicole. They have to call my wife to get permission to treat my child.”
Orion recovered, but it was a troubling reminder that as much as they want to live as a normal family since their 2008 marriage in California, they face obstacles.
I’m a very traditional person. We knew very early on that we wanted to get married and have a family — let’s get a house, let’s get married, then let’s have kids. And that’s what we did.”
Sperm banking is a huge industry that has been around for decades but one that is relatively loosely regulated in the U.S.
Here are some things to know about the industry:
How many Babies come from donated sperm?
While anecdotal evidence might suggest that the use of sperm donors to conceive a baby is rising because of improvements in technology and its popularity among lesbian couples and single women, there is no way to know for sure. No federal agency or professional organisation tracks the number of children born from sperm donations.
The last time a count was done was in 1988 by the now-defunct U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, said Rene Almeling, a sociology professor at Yale University who has done extensive research on sperm and egg donation.
Sperm banks generally tell clients about a donor’s family medical history; physical traits like hair color, eye color, height and blood type; some educational and professional information; and some personal social preferences.
Additional information that might also be available for some donors, possibly for an extra fee, includes childhood and adult photos, audio interviews and other personality attributes.
Much of the information comes from surveys that the donors fill out.
What’s the cost
It depends on the sperm bank and various options the recipient can choose from. Georgia-based Xytex Corp., one of the bigger players in the industry, provides free profiles with basic information including medical history, genetic testing results, physical traits, and limited educational and professional background. There is a tiered pricing structure to see more extensive information.
A single unit of sperm from Xytex costs between $395 and $795, depending on a variety of factors, including the method of insemination the recipient plans to use and whether the recipient wants her child to have access to the donor’s identity once the child turns 18.
Donor anonymity
Sperm donors are generally anonymous when the recipient buys the sperm and is inseminated. Some sperm banks, including Xytex, allow a donor’s identity to be disclosed with the mother’s permission once the child turns 18. The child could then use the information to seek out a relationship with the biological father, or simply contact the donor with questions about family history.
Donor requirements
Donors are screened over a period of four to six weeks. The screening generally includes a blood test, a genetic test, a physical and collecting sperm samples. Donors are asked to provide three generations of family medical history, including mental health, as well as some social background and preferences.
Because of the expense of screening, donors are frequently asked to donate once a week for at least a year. To keep up their sperm count, they’re advised not to engage in any sexual activity for at least 48 hours prior to donating, to try to limit alcohol consumption and stress, and to exercise regularly and eat healthily. If the sperm count is too low, the sperm bank will throw out the sample and the donor won’t be paid.
Marking its 30th anniversary, the Uk retailer Matalan has launched a major new advertising campaign, aimed at showing the range of different households in Britain today.
The campaign – called ‘Made for Modern Families’ – features real life families (86 people and a dog in total) from across the UK and plays out to a poem recited by Roger McGough CBE.
Its theme, summarised by one heterosexual single father in this behind the scenes video, is that
It doesn’t matter what age or gender combinations you’ve got. if there’s love and cohesion it’s a family and that’s it.”
Marketing director Lee Pinnington said:
We really wanted to create something that was made by and for modern families and resonates with everyone at home as much as it did for the team when we were casting and shooting the advert.
Foster Care Associates (FCA) is calling for more gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender singles and couples in the UK to consider fostering. The step comes to reinforce the positive contribution LGBT foster carers make to helping children and young people.
A report by the Rees Centre, a University of Oxford education department, which specialises in research into fostering and education, has revealed that many LGBT foster carers express concern about how agencies, social workers and foster children might respond to their gender and sexuality.
FCA has built a reputation as one of the leaders in championing and supporting LGBT foster carers for more than 15 years.
They were one of the first independent fostering agencies to offer LGBT diversity training for all their carers and staff, and 2015 marks five consecutive years of being recognised in the Stonewall Top 100 employer’s listings as one of the UK’s most gay friendly organisations.
Crystal is an FCA foster carer, with her partner Katie. She said:
“As foster carers we aim to provide a safe and happy home environment for foster children and it is that level of stability which is so important to a child’s wellbeing. Being a foster carer isn’t always easy but when you see a child grow and improve at something you have helped them with, it makes all the hard work worthwhile. Teaching a child right from wrong is one part of our role and when you actually begin to see them listen and act upon your advice, you feel you have made positive strides forward.”
David Oldham, chief executive of FCA, said:
“We have some amazing foster carers, and from the outset we only recruit people from across the spectrum who are open to diversity. We’re committed to developing a cohort of supportive carers, both for each other and the children they looked after. Our underlying message is that fostering is open to everyone and it’s up to FCA to provide a safe and welcoming community to support and develop our carers from the assessment process through to placement.”
Approximately only 2% of FCA’s 2000 carers are LGBT, a percentage that the agency aims to increase partly through regular visibility at LGBT events across the country as well specific information and recruitment events to communicate that fostering is an incredibly rewarding life choice which is open to everyone.
For more information on becoming a foster carer with the FCA, call 0800 023 4561 or visit www.thefca.co.uk
Despite same-sex marriage getting most of the headlines, there are a handful of other issues that affect the lives of LGBT families. Most notably, same-sex adoption, as the argument from those against it is no longer ‘gay people are wrong’ and is now ‘gay people shouldn’t have the right to raise families’.
And this is a common line from the anti-gay camp, with baseless claims about the lack of a father or mother figure being detrimental to children often being thrown around. While such ideas are clearly ludicrous, there’s also evidence to support the fact that children with lesbian parents have both a higher self-esteem and lower conduct problems.
Yet, despite there being some very good reasons to let adoptions by same-sex couples go ahead, plenty still do their bit to stop them. That’s what happened in Utah earlier this year but after a new ruling, same-sex parent adoptions in the state can now continue.
The original stay on adoptions by same-sex couples was issued by Republican state attorney general Sean Reyes back in May. Whilst there didn’t appear to be any good reasoning for it, the stay affected the lives of over 1,300 couples who legally married during a brief, 17-day period of marriage equality in the state and were now looking to start a family.
Under Utah law, there are no second-parent adoptions. This means that if one parent gave birth to the child (or was their biological parent), then because of that law the other parent would be unable to adopt the child and would therefore have no legal rights.
However, there was a surprising turnaround when Reyes recently changed his mind, asking for the stay that he initially put in place to be lifted. While the move can be categorised as ‘flip-flopping’ or just as a genuine change of heart, many are attributing the decision to the Supreme Court ruling on October 6th that legalised same-sex marriage in the state.
As a result, Utah is now one step closer to total equality which is good news that cannot be argued with.
After getting in touch with celebrity couple Elton John and David Furnish, David agreed to fly to the UK to narrate the video.
Sarah Garrett, Managing Director of Square Peg Media and mother to twin girls, features on the video, and said:
“We were so happy to have David on board, he’s a lovely guy and a true champion of the cause to create change.”
Sarah Garrett, Managing Director of Square Peg Media
The 40-minute film has been sponsored and endorsed by the Royal Bank of Scotland, an endorsement in itself about how times have changed, and includes interviews with a variety of families who tell their stories. Some have become parents through adoption, surrogacy, through a fertility clinic or the less formal DIY approach!
There are plenty of things to be frustrated at the heteronormative society for: decades of stifling hardship and oppression against LGBT folk. The lack of rights for non-heterosexual and non-cisgendered or non-binary people and an almost non-existent level of LGBT representation in the media are just some examples, but now, as those things get going out the door on account of being unwelcome in the first place.
We can add another unfortunate reality to the list. Yes, according to a new study led by sociologist Amin Ghaziani of the University of British Columbia, neighbourhoods with plenty of LGBT progression, support and prominence (particularly involving those who identify as gay), such as Chelsea in New York or the Castro in San Francisco, straight families and households are now muscling their way in and messing up the ebb and flow of queer culture as they do so.
According to Ghaziani’s research, across gay neighbourhoods there has been an 8 percent decrease in gay men while the amount of lesbians has decreased by 13%. One actually quite positive reason for this, Ghaziani explains, is that the rising tolerance of LGBT families and households across the United States means that LGBT folk are no longer subtly segregated to places with a majority (or a strong) LGBT population as most heterosexual people are at a point now where they’re going to welcome whoever. Which in some ways, is admirable. Too, LGBT families having children means that just like straight people, when their little ones grow out of nappies and wheelchairs, they move to “select school districts” to do what’s best for their child’s education.
Conversely though, the shift in gay neighbourhoods to distinctly less queer ones is also down to gentrification. Gentrification is what happens when an urban community changes and becomes more frequented and lived in by wealthier residents which results in expensive businesses and rising property values.
What that effectively means for these gay neighbourhoods then, is that it’s going to become steadily more impossible for LGBT folk to live in them because households just aren’t going to be able to afford it – ironically because of systematic oppression from straight people that means that it’s harder for LGBT people to make a living wage and get hired for well-paying jobs in the first place, two requisites if all of the prices in your previously affordably, accepting queer neighbourhood are about to skyrocket through the roof.
Ghaziani also adds the following, which perhaps explains why gay neighbourhoods are so appealing to straight people in the first place,
“Gay neighborhoods have been crucial to the struggle for freedom, and have produced globally important contributions, from politics, to poetry, to music, and fashion. The growing acceptance of same-sex couples underlying these findings is extremely positive, but it is important that we continue to find meaningful ways to preserve these culturally important spaces.”
This makes sense – anyone, gay straight, binary or not – would want to live in a place that’s welcoming and with lots of culture and a strong support for left-leaning politics (if that’s your political stance, that is) but the more LGBT people are forced out, the greater the need will be to find other spaces to move into and make queer and progressive, but as is the case with decades of struggles just to have LGBT human rights considered, that’s not going to be easy.
Jeff and Hillary Whittington are remarkable parents and through an amazing video, they tell the story of the transgender son – Ryland.
Now seven, Ryland parents have documented his story with love, understanding and honesty. Jeff and Hillary discuss how they brought Ryland into the world, learned their child needed hearing implants at the age of one, then discovered Ryland had more to share.
They spent a few years saying Ryland was just going through a phase, but soon realised it wasn’t. “When the family dies, I will cut my hair so I can be a boy” Ryland told them. “Why did God make me this way?,” he asked. When the Whittingtons learned 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide, they decided to embrace Ryland as a boy rather than risk losing him.
The Whittingtons made this beautiful and inspiring film for the Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast. They posted it to YouTube on Tuesday – it has now gone viral, seen by more than 1 million people.
The Whittington Family: Ryland’s Story
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