The one where my daughter calls me "Gay Pride"
Welcome back to From Gay To Ze a now biweekly romp through the wilds of being (or trying to become) a parent when you’re LGBTQIA+
“What do you call it when a man loves a woman again Mama?” my daughter asked me apropos of nothing.
“Straight, darling. Or heterosexual”, I answered as if she’d just asked me why cats like cheese, or where the hottest place in the world is, or why Hello kitty doesn’t have a smile, or what time it is in Japan, or any number of the other random questions my four year old fires at me each day.
“Oh yeah. You’re gay pride aren’t you. Because you’re a lady and you love another lady called Mummy so you’re both gay pride.”
I looked at her with an eyebrow raised.
“Sorry, I mean woman.” She knows I can’t stand the word ‘lady’.
Welcome back to From Gay To Ze a now biweekly romp through the wilds of being (or trying to become) a parent when you’re LGBTQIA+
Things are really starting to get interesting for me now my daughter is at the age when the adult world is starting to make sense to her. Her absolute belief, already, that she knows better than me about most things is remarkable. I’ve found myself saying quite often “I have been alive for 35 more years than you have you know”. She’ll reply with a sigh and a tut and say exasperatedly, “I know Mama, but….”
And this kid is so damn convincing, and persuasive, and just naturally smart and quick to get stuff in a way my mother tells me I never was (!). So I quite often just end up believing her. Look, if she claims that ONE POUND, the contents of her piggy bank, is enough to buy us all flights to Japan where we will stay for 100 days this summer - in order to do Hello Kitty related activities every day, then who am I to doubt it?
Lotte x
ps. Is ANYONE watching the new season of The L Word Generation Q ? So many queer parent story lines, but also so much of it so cringe - or is that just me? I need to talk to someone about the musical episode!
CARTOON LESBIAN MUMS ALERT!
Public Service Announcement: In the cartoon Firebuds on Disney Channel - basically Paw Patrol with trucks - one of the human characters, Violet, has two Mums and her ‘Vroom Mate’ Axel, an ambulance (if you want this explained to you in any more detail please listen to my daughter’s TED talk on the subject), has two Dads. There’s a really sweet episode called Picnic Pile Up where we meet the family and learn all about the things they like to do. My child is now obsessed* with this show and with Violet and I do think a big part of it is that this girl has a Mummy and a Mama just like her. Hilariously an organisation calling itself One Million Mums, but actually only comprising a handful of miserable Karens, is up in arms and boycotting Disney because of it.
I know there’s a *whisper it* Peppa Pig episode with two Polar Bear Mums, but if you can think of any other LGBTQ parent scenarios in kids TV or film, please share here!
*Regular readers will remember that I have to ‘be’ a lot of characters with my daughter E so she can chat to them and they (well I) chat back. Yesterday I had to be Violet and Doc McStuffins and Doc McStuffins’ mum (!!!) while E explained to Doc that she had a new favourite show and although she still liked Doc she was no longer “obsessed with her. “I’m now obsessed with Violet. I know it’s hard for you”. I then had to be Doc, in tears, explaining to her Mum how upset she was E had dumped her for another favourite character. Honestly I felt like I had a split personality by the end of it. My head was banging!
EVENTS COMING UP!
Sorry this is so London focused - feel free to email us about meet-ups and events elsewhere and we’ll share!
On Sunday 5 Feb 10am-1pm @east_london_lgbtqi_parents are hosting a get together with friend of The Queer Parent Jodie Lancet Grant (pictured above) who will be reading her great book The Pirate Mums and running some activities. We’ll be there! Venue: Cardboard Citizens, E1 1EJ
On Saturday 18 February our very own Lotte Jeffs, author of My Magic Family, will be joining forces with another great friend of From Gay To Ze Freddie McConnell author of Little Seahorse and the Big Question plus Sharon Davey the amazing illustrator of Lotte’s book at the Maritime Museum in Greenwich as part of its Out at Sea LGBTQ Family Festival . They’ll be reading their books then Sharon will do some fab drawing workshops. There will also be drag queens and singing and a treasure hunt.
PLATONIC QUEER PARENTING. A MEET-UP TO FIND A MATCH
Last weekend, Leo and Eleanor, the couple behind @queerplatoniccoparenting, hosted their first meet up in London for people to get together and discuss new ways of becoming parents and potentially find a person, couple or throuple to partner with on the journey. We asked them how the event went. And if you want to find out more, sign up to their newsletter
and have a read of Ellie’s great article on the subject here
Can you explain why you arranged this meet up and what you hoped to achieve with it
My partner and I can’t have biological kids together, so we started thinking and realised we really want to create a multi-parent family, with biological kids born out of platonic partnerships - ideally with another couple we get on with, and fully share parenting responsibilities among us. The more we thought about it, the more it wasn’t an ersatz to the heteronorm but something we see as an ideal way for us to raise children. My partner is a writer and she wrote an article about this, and as a result someone got in touch to say he was about to have a baby this way, with his partner and another couple, and they’d met at a speed dating event. Once we realised these
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