A FRENCH DISPATCH
Plus: Seahorse Dads, gay Flamingos, IVF developments, Nicole Kidman's arms
Bonjour! Stu here writing from our gay ol’ time in the South of France. We’ve decamped as a family to the outskirts of Toulouse for some time doing, NOTHING. Not that one can have anytime truly doing “nothing” as a parent, especially to three little ones. Gone are the days of laying on a beach, sipping gin and juice, passing out in the sun around 3pm, and then waking up for a glorious sundowner. John and I always used to be the last to trapse back up the sand, passing couples already dressed and ready for dinner. We would have a late dinner, play some cards and head for a perfect slumber, then do it all again the next day. Now getting 10 minutes to read three pages of your book feels like a major holiday win. Not that I’m not enjoying my new career as a lifeguard, but I need a holiday from the holiday. We have the best time altogether but by the time the sun goes down we are both ready to collapse for the night. No more late-night game of cards for this tired holiday brain. Lotte and Jen happened to be in France at the same time as us, but being over 2 hours away it wasn’t the easiest to meet up. It’s a shame as would have loved a spot of lesbian help with the lifeguard rota. I also had a fantasy of Lotte and I running off to a chateau for a spot of debauched wine tasting a-la Patsy and Eddie.
JE SUIS GAY
Heading out to the rural parts of a foreign country, even one as close as France, always has me slightly nervous as a queer parent. Hopefully we are past the point of being chased with pitchforks by the local villagers, chanting their own version of the Beauty and the Beast song “Kill the Beast Gays”. However, we are staying in an Air BnB and knew that the owners stay on the grounds and have to hand over the keys. I just really dreaded arriving and potentially facing any form of prejudice against our family. We arrived and they couldn’t be lovelier. They spoke no English, and we speak very, very, very little French (basically “Bonjour” and “Baguette” is as far as I can get!), but they had a lovely vibe and just made us feel so welcome. I’ve yet to experience any negativity from anywhere we’ve stayed, so why do I carry around this feeling of worry? Is it a parenting thing as I never really cared when John and I would travel alone? I guess our job as parents is to be guarded against anything that could harm or bring negativity to us. Being gay adds another element of alertness that perhaps straight families do not face. I’ll add it to my lifeguard duties when I rewrite my CV.
JUST SAY GAY
My daughter and I had a moment alone together, so we played a game of Bananagrams. For those who are not familiar it is basically Scrabble without the board or scoring. As she is six her vocabulary is quite limited, but it means we are a perfect match as I’m useless at any form of word games. I get quite excited when I get a word over four letters when playing Scrabble. She was trying to spell out the word “games” and accidentally started spelt the word “gay”. Lotte and I have chatted recently about how we need to embrace these words in our parenting. Our conversation made me realise that John and I often talk to the kids about “having two dads” or E having “two mums” but we have never really gone further and explained that they have gay dads. It’s not a dirty word. Perhaps it is my own internalised, and unconscious, gay shame that stops me from using this word. Spelling out “gay” in a game of Bananagrams gave me the perfect opportunity to explain the word to her and proudly talk about the reason that she has “two dads” is because Dad and Daddy are gay. I then went on to try and spell out lesbian, both figuratively and within the game, explaining that Lotte and Jen are lesbians and they is why E has two mums. As usual she took this in, smiled and then spelt out “bum”. That’s my girl.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK…
Le Planning Familial (PF), France’s largest network of organisations that provide reproductive services and sex education (the French outpost of Planned Parenthood) has republished this sweet image with the line ‘At Planning, we know that men can get pregnant too.’ It’s part of a series of four posters showing trans men and women, to demonstrate that the network is open to all. Laurier The Fox, who you can follow on Instagram below is the brilliant queer illustrator behind the poster.
Unfortunately, a whole storm of controversy has blown up in France around this campaign, stoked by both the Far Right and radical feminists and the network’s government funding is now at risk.
It was interesting talking to the Queer Historian Professor Matt Cook for our book – he pointed out that the controversy around Section 28 was actually the first time the idea that LGBTQ people might be parents entered the mainstream, and for all that the policy did to limit our rights and freedoms, its existence actually really helped start a conversation around gay parenting that hadn’t existed before. I wonder if this might be a silver lining to this hideous backlash in France? Perhaps the widespread sharing of the image and message on social media is making people at least acknowledge the reality of pregnant trans men?
Je ne sais pas though really. It’s mainly just another sad example of the hatred and vitriol trans people and trans parents experience all day every day. Sending love to all our trans readers.
GAY FLAMINGOS ADOPT A CHICK
Two gay flamingo dads have adopted a chick who was abandoned by its biological parents. The feathered fathers came to the rescue at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo after the egg was rejected and initially placed in an incubator.
To increase its chances of survival, zookeepers decided to place the egg in the shared nest of flamingo couple Hudson and Blaze. They felt this pair of flamingos were the most reliable candidates to raise the newborn chick in the entire flamboyance – the collective name for a group of flamingos.
