Posts Tagged ‘LGBTQ’

Bringing Pride to Upstate New York

Thursday, June 1st, 2023
SUNY Cortland Badge in the Pride colors

As mentioned before, when my son started school at Cal Poly SLO, I added a Cal Poly Pride shirt to my wardrobe. I wanted to show my support for him, his school, and the LGBTQ+ community. Naturally, when my daughter started college last fall, I pulled up her school’s online college bookstore to order myself a pride shirt. Alas, it was not to be.

My daughter is a musical theatre kid through and through — so much so that she is braving the bitter cold of upstate, middle-of-nowhere New York to get a BFA in MT from a little, no-name state college that just happens to have a great musical theatre program. In fact, the entire performing arts department is just musical theatre and they pretty much have the entire Dowd Performing Arts building to themselves. She’s attending the State University of New York (SUNY) Cortland in Cortland, NY.

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These Kids and Their Pronouns

Wednesday, June 1st, 2022

I totally get that not everyone fits into the he/she dichotomy. I totally feel like a guy (although maybe not entirely the classic macho “bruh” kinda guy) but I get that some people don’t. They may not feel like either or maybe both or they may even feel more masculine one day and more feminine another. We barely know anything about how consciousness works so why would we try to force our notions of it into two narrowly defined category, especially in the face of evidence that they don’t work?

My daughter has a very good friend whose pronouns are they and them. This friend has been so very good for her and I am happy they have found each other; my only wish was that they had met earlier in high school. My daughter (who uses she/her) has no problem using they/them pronouns and does so consistently.

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Getting Out of the Closet at Cal Poly

Tuesday, June 1st, 2021

My oldest is finishing his freshman year (albeit with sophomore standing, if I may brag a bit) at the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (or Cal Poly, as most people call it) and while I have worked hard not to be a helicopter parent, I have been following his college career very closely. I never really went to university — just a couple of years at the local community college before dropping out — and so the entire process is fascinating to me. I’m also incredibly proud of my son and enjoy watching his progress. I am involved with a couple of parents’ groups on Facebook and of the Cal Poly subreddit on Reddit. It was on Reddit that I came across a post about the campus Pride Center which, apparently, is literally in the closet — an old electrical closet that was remodelled.

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Memories of Prides Past

Tuesday, June 1st, 2021

I’m not going to lie — the last year or so has been a doozy. My kids’ school shut down in March and, like everyone else, we’ve been just trying to keep our heads above water. College selection, high school graduation, senior dance performance, summer teaching job — all these were scaled back or shifted to virtual for my oldest. The robotics competition season was simply cancelled; our living room became a storage locker for tools and materials, in case the kids were able to work on their robot outside the school or over the summer. This past school year was all online — my oldest did go off to school but took his classes from his dorm room, while the other two attended Zoom school in their bedrooms. My wife turned our dining room into her classroom, complete with posters and number corners; she worked overtime all summer learning new technologies and creating materials to teach remotely.

And so, here we are at the start of another Pride Month and — I’ll be honest — I’ve not really had the time or energy to think about it. Heck, I haven’t even really been wearing my pride shirts (but in my defense, I haven’t been wearing anything, so…)

With that in mind, I’m thinking about it now. Specifically, I’m thinking about Prides past.

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Two and a Half Years of Trump

Monday, June 3rd, 2019

At the end of 2016, I wrote about the election of Donald Trump to the office of President of the United States and how to talk to my kids about it. I made some predictions about the effects of a Trump presidency, all of which came true. (Don’t congratulate me too hard; they were all quite obvious.) Even as he tweeted about Pride Month, the Orange Menace was rolling back protections for the LGBTQ+ community.

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Um, You’re Welcome?

Thursday, June 1st, 2017

Photo by DodgertonSkillhause at Morguefile.comA while back, I ran into a fellow parent at the grocery store.  Her youngest and my oldest are in the same grade and had been in the same schools since kindergarten.  We hadn’t seen each other in a while, now that our kids are in high school.  I was pleased to see her again and we stopped to chat.  Our kids weren’t ever especially close, but our elementary school community was a close-knit one and we had gotten to know each other reasonably well.

She asked about Jared and I told her how well he’s adjusting and about his joining the robotics team and so on.  And then, I wanted to ask about her kid.

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The Point of Pride

Sunday, June 26th, 2016

Ezra and Sara in their pride shirts, 2016

Shortly after the Orlando massacre, my family and I were headed for a local shopping mall and, as we often do, were discussing recent events on the way.  We arrived and parked and proceeded to get out of our minivan in the parking lot near a chain department store.  The area is not as upscale as some other parts of the Bay Area and the store is known more for lower prices than for its appeal to educated professionals.  In short, while still relatively liberal (it was, after all, still the San Francisco Bay Area), it was an area where one might run into a homophobe.

Getting out of the car and walking through the parking lot, I continued talking loudly about the terrorist attack at the Pulse nightclub in Florida and its effect on the LGBTQ community.  My oldest began trying to get me to quiet down and stop talking about it.  He said that one day, I would end up getting shot if I kept talking that way.  He was worried that some homophobic terrorist would take offense at what I was saying and respond with lethal force.

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Time To Go Shopping!

Wednesday, June 1st, 2016

2012-06-27_18-49-06_717_12x12

Ever since having kids, I’ve been a fan of Old Navy.  They have good children’s clothes at affordable prices — a big help when you have three active kids who are continuously outgrowing and wearing out their clothes.  But that’s not the only reason I shop at Old Navy, especially this time of year.

Recently, we were on holiday and found ourselves in need of some new pants (sans holes) for Ezra, my youngest, as well as a couple other small items.  The only viable option we had available was Wal-Mart.  Normally, I don’t shop at the retail giant because I have some serious issues with the way they run their business, but sometimes, evil becomes a necessary evil.

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As Long As They’re Healthy…

Wednesday, June 1st, 2016

Children holding handsFor most parents-to-be, once they find out they’re going to have a child, the biggest concern is that the child is healthy.  Sure, there may be a preference for one gender or the other, but there are so many other far more terrifying possibilities to worry about that no one in their right mind really gets upset about having a boy instead of a girl or vice versa.

But even if there are complications or issues, parents generally don’t say “Oh, my kid’s not perfect, so I’m going to toss him in the dumpster and start over”.  And if they did, they would be prosecuted, jailed, and vilified.  I know plenty of people who face challenges far more significant than trying to get their kids to eat broccoli — and it seems they love their kids even more for it.  Challenges that include dyslexia, autism, and even DIPG, a rare form of childhood brain cancer with a 0% survival rate.  Zero percent.  And I’ve known two sets of parents whose children have lost or will lose their battle with the disease.

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An Open Letter to Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar

Monday, June 1st, 2015

Dear Jim Bob and Michelle:

By Jim Bob Duggar (Email from Jim Bob Duggar) [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

By Jim Bob Duggar [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

I would like to offer my sincere sympathies at this time. I am sure your daughters and the other girls involved in your recent scandal had no need or desire to have this brought up again and I know you must be feeling pain and shame as well.

Every parent must decide for themselves what they believe is the best way to raise their children. Considerations include public school versus private school versus homeschooling, attending church services versus eschewing religion, and, on an even more basic level, are kids better off as only children or do they do better with siblings.

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