COLAGE News Blog

Join COLAGE and Soulforce for an American Family Outing in 2008 Nov 29 07

COLAGE is looking for youth with LGBTQ parents, especially aged 13 and up, to participate in a national action in 2008 called the American Family Outing sponsored by Soulforce in collaboration with COLAGE, the National Black Justice Coalition, and the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches.

The action will take place in Texas, Georgia, Maryland, Illinois, and California during the weekends between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, 2008. COLAGErs and their families will ask to meet with these leaders and their congregations with the goal of changing hearts and minds in some of the most influential churches in the nation.Youth with LGBT parents who participate with their families will receive support, training, and skills for making change through COLAGE’s Speak OUT program.

The American Family Outing will reach out to the leaders of 6 of America’s most influential mega-churches, including Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, and Rick Warren.

This project involves a brief time commitment with a potentially huge impact. In each city visited, the group will educate thousands of citizens through media coverage of queerspawn and their families.

You can download an information packet and an application from the Soulforce website. Applications are due by January 15, 2008. All participants must be able to attend a training in Austin, TX the weekend of February 22-24, 2008.

Call for Youth and Adults with Transgender Parents: Participate in the Kids of Trans Survey Nov 20 07

Do you (or did you) have one or more transgender parents? Be a part of COLAGE's Kids of Trans Resource guide! This guide will feature tips and resources exclusively for people with transgender parents. We will also include advice and experiences from people with transgender parents. Your story will help other KOTs know that there actually are many people with transgender parents, even if we sometimes feel like we are the only ones.

Please answer the following questions (in 100 words or less) and email your responses to kidsoftrans@colage.org. We will include excerpts from all the completed surveys in the resource guide in order to highlight the diverse voices of our community.

1. First Name and Last Initial
2. Age
3. Where do you live?
4. Who is in your family?
5. How did you find out that your parent/s is/are transgender?
6. What is the biggest challenge you have faced because you have a transgender parent/s?
7. What advice would you give to other people with transgender parents?
8. What do you wish other people knew about what it's like to have a transgender parent?

Please also provide the following information (for COLAGE office use only):

Full Name:
Phone Number:
Address:
City/State/Zip:
Birthdate:
Email Address:
Parents Name/s:

If you have questions or would like more information about the COLAGE Kids of Trans Program, please contact Monica Canfield-Lenfest, Kids of Trans Fellow, at monica@colage.org or 415-861-5437 x104.

Please pass this along to other people of all ages with one or more transgender parents or guardians.

COLAGE Observes 9th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance Nov 20 07

The other night, I watched Southern Comfort, the award-winning documentary about Robert Eads, a transman who died of ovarian cancer in 1999 after more than thirty health providers refused to treat him. Robert was also the parent of two sons, one of whom is interviewed in the movie. "Being true to myself is everything that Mom taught me," says Doug, Robert's oldest son. The importance of acknowledging and struggling to be true to ourselves is a valuable lesson we learn from our transgender parents. Sadly, just as Robert's family did, we also come to understand the broad impacts of transphobia in our parents' and our lives.

Tuesday November 20, 2007 marks the ninth annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. Today, we honor the victims of transphobia, those who have died due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. At vigils across the country, people will read the names of those who died this year. Some were murdered and others took their own lives. They were our siblings, our colleagues, our friends, and some of them were our parents.

Robert Eads did not just die of cancer; he was also the victim of transphobia. He had the right to be treated for a deadly disease, but the fact that he was a transsexual man with ovarian cancer kept medical providers from saving his life. Transphobia, like homophobia, permeates our society on many levels, and healthcare is no exception. It threatens our families as a social disease and restricts our parents' access to healthcare, employment, and basic human rights. As Robert says in the film, "Family is the core... the stone that holds everything together." When our parents are the targets of anti-transgender hatred or prejudice, that stone begins to crumble. We deserve to live in a world where no one is subject to violence and where we all have access to medical treatment.

Tonight, I will attend the Transgender Day of Remembrance vigil at the LGBT Center here in San Francisco. (For information, see the SF Transgender Empowerment and Mentorship website at http://sfteam.org/.) I invite you to attend an event in your area. If you cannot attend a vigil, consider watching Southern Comfort to learn more about the life of Robert Eads and his family. For other suggestions of books and films that your family could use to observe Trans Day of Remembrance, check out the COLAGE Transgender Family Resource on our website at http://www.colage.org/resources/transgender_family.htm. You can also donate to The Marcelle Cook-Daniels Memorial Fund, named for a transgender parent who died in April 2000. Read more about the fund at http://www.colage.org/support/dedicate.htm.

As a community, we remember all those we have lost and work toward a future free from transphobia and hatred.

Monica Canfield-Lenfest is in the midst of a five-month Kids of Trans Fellowship with COLAGE. Contact her to learn more at kidsoftrans@colage.org.

COLAGErs in South Florida Invited to Public Hearing Nov 16 07

Senate Committee Wants Input on Adoption and Foster Care

On Monday, December 3, 2007 the Senate Committee on Children, Families and Elder Affairs will hold a public hearing in Miami to discuss foster care and adoption issues.

The hearing will allow the public to discuss all issues related to foster care or adoption. It is vital that our community have a strong presence at this hearing to share our stories and demand the committee take action. This will be the only opportunity that the South Florida community will have to speak directly to the committee that has the power to end Florida's ban on gay and lesbian adoption.

COLAGE encourages both youth and adults who have or had one or more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer parents to speak out. Share stories about how this ban has affected you and your family or just how the homophobia behind the law impacts you. Even if your family wasn't created through foster care or adoption, you can use your experience as a child of LGBTQ parents to raise awareness.

DATE: Monday, December 3, 2007

TIME: 6:30 - 9:00 pm (Please arrive at 5:30 to sign up to speak)

LOCATION: Miami Dade College, Wolfson Campus, 300 NE 2nd Ave., Miami, FL 33132
Building 1000 at the corner of NE 2nd Ave. and NE 3rd St.
For Directions.

WHAT you can do:

- PACK THE HOUSE - Please come to the hearing. It is important that we show how many people care about this issue. We believe the voices of youth and adults with LGBTQ parents are especially important. Bring your family and friends.

- TELL YOUR STORY - Please speak at the hearing. Tell legislators how this ban has affected your family, friend, co-worker, etc. Identify yourself as a member of COLAGE and as a person with LGBTQ parents. Each speaker is allowed 2-3 minutes. The legislators will not give rebuttal or make any comments. If you need talking points or encouragement, please contact Meredith Fenton by email.

- GET THE WORD OUT - Please forward this email to all allies in the South Florida area

- VIEW THE IMPACT YOU CAN HAVE - Please view testimony from the Tampa public hearing to get a sense of some of the stories shared there.

- STAY INFORMED at www.ourchildrensrights.org

COLAGE opposes Mitt Romney comments on LGBTQ families Nov 9 07

COLAGE is deeply opposed to Mitt Romney's recent comments about gay parents and their children. Romney publicly condemned queer families, claiming that children with male and female parents develop better, even if one parent dies.

Romney's comments include: "And I believe that the development of children is enhanced by having a male and a female as part of their upbringing in their home. Even when there's a divorce, you still have a mom and a dad. And even where one member of the partnership may pass away, the memory and the characteristics of that gender, of that partner influence the development of a child."

We at COLAGE are offended and outraged by these remarks, which suggest that people are better off with a dead parent than an LGBTQ parent. Our families are just as valid, loving, and complex as any other family and our parents are subject to homophobia and transphobia which can be real threats to their lives. Furthermore in a political climate where our families are not equally protected, we too often intimately know that within health care our parents experience discrimination as well as that homophobia and transphobia too often lead to untimely deaths in our families.

We are appalled though sadly not surprised that a presidential candidate is using our families as a wedge issue to earn support for a conservative agenda that does not afford our families equal respect or protections. Our development as people with LGBTQ parents is not a matter of political debate. We call on Gov Romney to consider the experiences of the many COLAGErs in his home state of Massachusetts rather than making these offensive and false statements. We also call upon all the presidential candidates to learn more about the experiences of children of LGBTQ parents to better inform their stance on issues impacting the COLAGE community.

COLAGE expresses disappointment in passing of non-inclusive ENDA Nov 9 07

This week, the US House of Representatives passed a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that protects sexual orientation, but not gender identity. While this bill passed the House, it is unlikely to pass the Senate and President Bush committed to veto the bill. Despite the unlikelihood that the bill will pass into law, COLAGE joins over 360 organizations as part of the United ENDA coalition in expressing deep disappointment that this bill excludes gender identity protections.

We truly believed that this was an important opportunity to stand as a united LGBT movement, and demonstrate that we are unwilling to push forward the civil rights of part of our community without protections for all. An ENDA without gender identity protections leaves a significant portion of the LGBT community--not just transgender people--vulnerable to employment discrimination. Our parents deserve equal protection under the law, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation, and we only support legislation that protects all of our families.

Thank you for your efforts over the past few weeks. Throughout the country, members of the LGBT community have reached out to their Members of Congress in support of a legislation protecting the entire community. We appreciate your part in this grassroots effort for national employment protections.

All of our families deserve equal employment protections, regardless of our parents' sexual orientation or gender identity. We look forward to working as part of a United ENDA to support future federal legislation that protects all of our families.

Buy Dragonfly Stories and Support COLAGE Nov 1 07

A new book, Dragonfly Stories which is a collection of personal stories from and about people in the LGBTQ community, was released on October 11th. When you purchase this book, you can designate to have 40% of the book sale go to COLAGE!

Dragonfly Stories is a 414 page collection of twenty-four personal stories from and about people in the LGBTQ community. From stories of love to coming out, transgender and cross gender, building courage and seeking faith, raising families and dating, hate crimes and living with HIV, building a community and accepting oneself, each story is sure to touch the hearts of all who read them.

Rainbow Legends supports other LGBTQ organizations. We are donating 40% of website book sales to LGBTQ organizations. The book is priced at $18.66 which means $7.46 will be donated to an LGBTQ organization for each book sold. The buyer may select which organization to give our donation.

Buy the book and designate COLAGE as the organizational recipient.