The FEDS are blazing a happy trail for LGBTQs

Flying Pig has once again kept us in the loop.  Check out what she shared with us yesterday.  And once again, a grateful "Thanks and we love you Flying Pig!" goes out to her.  Another big "Thank you" to Mr. Jonathan Adams, of Lambda Legal and Child Welfare, who granted us permission to share this e-mail with our readership.


I feel like our cause is a ball that's rolling and gaining momentum.  People are listening to those who are speaking up for the LGBTQ community!!  Keep carrying the torch folks :)


Federal Agency to Support Lambda Legal/CWLA Guidelines for LGBTQ Youth in Foster Care 
"The Administration on Children, Youth and Families will make the Recommended Practice Guidelines available to every state child welfare agency in the country to help meet the needs of LGBTQ children." 

(New York, December 14, 2011) - Today, Lambda Legal and the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) released "Recommended Practice Guidelines to Promote the Safety and Well-Being of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) Youth and Youth at Risk of or Living with HIV in Child Welfare Settings." The guide includes national practice guidelines for state and local child welfare agencies to ensure safe and proper care consistent with the best interests LGBTQ children in the child welfare system. 

"The single most important principle contained in the guidelines is that affirming the sexual orientation and gender identity and expression of LGBTQ youth in care protects young peoples' emotional safety and ensures positive outcomes," said Flor Bermudez, Lambda Legal's Youth in Out-of-Home Care Staff Attorney. "We are pleased that ACYF will make the Recommended Practice Guidelines available to every state child welfare agency in the country to help meet the needs of LGBTQ children." 

"We know that child welfare agencies across the country welcome resources to improve the well-being of abused and neglected children," said ACYF Commissioner Bryan Samuels. "These guidelines provide practical examples of practices that every child welfare agency can use to better meet the needs of the LGBTQ youth in their care. I would have found this resource incredibly helpful when I was a child welfare agency director." 

LGBTQ young people in out-of-home care continue to be overrepresented in foster care and face a crisis of rejection, neglect and discrimination. The guidelines build on previous research and best practice standards developed during the last decade by child welfare, social work and civil rights experts.  Lambda Legal and CWLA hope that state child welfare agencies will use them to increase their knowledge of LGBTQ issues, influence their programmatic decisions and priorities, and set higher expectations and performance standards for the services provided to LGBTQ young people in care. 

"We have compiled this best practices guide to give easy access to critical information for anyone who has an LGBTQ youth in their care," said Chris James-Brown, CEO at the Child Welfare League of America.  "Everyone responsible for LGBTQ youth in child welfare systems, from foster parents to child welfare administrators, can use this resource to provide better care." 

The Recommended Practices Guidelines give examples of the best practice in a range of areas, including: policies prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and HIV status; services that address family rejection; safe placement with foster or adoptive parents; access to appropriate medical and mental health care services for LGBTQ youth and youth at risk of or living with HIV; and best practices in supporting transgender and gender-nonconforming youth.  The guidelines also encourage child welfare systems to find ways to collect data to quantify outcomes for LGBTQ youth in care. 

The Recommended Practices Guidelines are available here: http://www.lambdalegal.org/publications/recommended-practice-guidelines 

A great therapist is worth her weight in gold

As I've noted this past few weeks, we've been in a bit of a funk around here.  And as I've noted in a very recent entry, I've been driving DJ crazy with my game of "20 Questions." So, when DJ had her appointment with her therapist, I took advantage of the opportunity to talk with DJ about this with her therapist, who we'll call....this a tough one because I don't know her personally which makes picking an apropos nickname difficult...Disc Jockey, because she has a mellifluous voice which sounds like she should be on the radio.

DJ and I sat down in Disc Jockey's office and I began by saying how bothersome I knew I was being but I needed to be able to check in with DJ to see how she was doing.  Now, as liberal, and able to see shades of gray as I'd like to think I am, it seems that when I would pose questions to DJ about her frame of mind, her mood, etc., I would be pretty black and white.  And blunt, very, very blunt.  I guess I wanted to "cut to the chase" so to speak and find out how unhappy, or not, DJ was feeling.

Bulldog and I both have fire and rescue backgrounds.  Currently, he is retired from the fire department, but works as a contractor for the federal government with issues like emergency preparedness.  I have made the following joke a million times, but it's worth saying again, here:  Bulldog has the perfect job because he gets to tell people what to do all day long and not only do they LIKE it, but they pay him to do it.  I, on the other hand, am currently employed as a firefighter/paramedic.  Our poor children have been subject to so many safety talks, lectures, horror stories and practices of preparedness that we have scared any of them off from ever pursuing similar careers.  And we often approach issues in daily life as if they are emergency scenes that we must mitigate.  This approach works really well if your house is on fire, or you are trapped inside of a car that has rolled over 4 or 5 times.  You would appreciate our blunt, get- to- the- heart- of- the- matter- so- we- can- fix- it- immediately method of incident mitigation.  But Disc Jockey pointed out, ever so gently, that perhaps I could find a different way of checking in to see how DJ is feeling.

She suggested using a "tool"-AWESOME-I am all about finding a tool to make things work better.  It's me through and through:

Can't find the paprika when you need it?  No problem, they make the perfect little shelves for spices.  I would further suggest alphabetizing them.

What's that?  You can't get out of your car because the doors are jammed shut after your wreck?  If I can't whack and pry your door open with my haligan bar, we can get out some hydraulic shears that will get you out in a jiffy.

You're having massive chest pain?  Believe it or not, I know of a tool that will help me figure out just how bad your pain is.  The Pain Scale.  "0"= no pain, "10"=the worst pain you've ever felt IN YOUR LIFE.

I can't help but wonder if Disc Jockey was attempting to encourage DJ to use a tool, or language, that DJ's literal-minded mother could understand, and was simultaneously "tossing me a (figurative) bone" (especially since she had just used that phrase in encouraging DJ to be a little more forthcoming with information) because she actually suggested using the Pain Scale as a tool so that DJ could give me quick but concise information about how she was doing without requiring a summit with heads of state in attendance.

Knowing how DJ's cute little mind works, and that I'm a sucker for goofiness, I suggested the Pediatric Pain Scale, which assigns little cartoon faces ranging from super happy to uber sad so that small children can describe how they're feeling.  Disc Jockey was thinking the very same thing and DJ approved.

Now we're both relieved:  DJ will not be subject to "20 Questions" but can provide me with the solid feedback I need to gauge how she's doing.  DJ, however, has decided to modify the pictograms.  At this juncture, a really good day will feature pictures of "unicorns, fairies and rainbows" while a really bad day will somehow depict a "chaotic zombie apocalypse", to quote her verbatim.  How she will depict feeling kind of blah or middle of the road, I haven't a clue.  But she has promised that when she draws this up that I can scan it and post it on this blog.

A really great therapist will help you navigate through your needs as a parent and your transgender child's need's.  Disc Jockey not only figured out that we needed a tool, but she helped us to come up with a solution that worked and helped us to keep our good will and senses of humor intact.  We left her office, both of us, feeling uplifted.  We celebrated with a great meal, the first time I've seen DJ really enjoy a meal in weeks.  High five to Disc Jockey!!

For a list of suggested therapists, by state, who are experienced in working with transgender kids, check the list of links and go to the "Laura's Playground" link, I believe it's under "Transgender resources".

One day at a time

The shoe is definitely on the other foot around here.  (I wonder how folks in other countries like my use of idioms.  I had a friend who emigrated from France, and was learning English.  Idioms were fun to her, but she was the kind of person who found everything fun.  Maybe they're just frustrating to other readers whose second language is English.  But since I don't hear from them, I cannot accommodate their wishes!! ; > )

This time last year, DJ was so happy.  We felt like we really had it going on, like we were doing something very right as parents.  Not so much right now however.  Our lovely girl is in a heck of a funk.  She just isn't herself at all.

Bulldog and I don't know what else we can do to help.  In fact, my multiple efforts at "helping" are only getting on DJ's nerves.  I want to take her emotional pulse constantly:

How're you doing?
How was school?
Are you hungry?
Did you sleep well?
Are you just having a bad day?
Did something happen to upset you?

And those are just a sampling of questions that I pose to DJ on any given day.  Often, I repeat the same questions multiple times throughout the day as well.  Sigh....

I should have known it was just too easy, that golden honeymoon period when all of us rolled with whatever came our way.  Now we're rolling like we have a flat tire....flappity, flappity.

I want to write this morning, but I got nothin'.  We need people around us.  When we have people around, we all do a little bit better.  Maybe it's just  the distraction, but hell, I'll take anything.

Bean stayed with DJ last night while I worked and Bulldog was away on business.  I left her sleeping on the couch this morning when I took DJ to school.  I had just stopped for my standard latte when Bean called me, while lying on the floor of my living room.  She's hurt her back (we can thank my father, all 3 of us for our lousy backs) and the pain literally laid her low.  On my return home, she had managed to get to her feet and we spent the next thirty minutes laughing about the terrible positions we have found ourselves in when our backs are acting up. So far, no one has found us naked and in spasm, but I think that day is coming; I just hope it happens to Bean before it happens to me!

So, maybe that is the tiny baby step we make for today.  Try to be around other people.  Get out of the house and do something fun.  Distract ourselves, or indulge ourselves by doing something we love to do.  One day at a time-that's all we have to worry about. Right?

Identical twins-one boy, one trans girl

Good Morning Blog Follower Friends,

My beloved niece, who we'll call Nightingale because she is a nurse to the very sickest of wee ones, shared this link with me.  It's a great story and shows how many families like ours there are out there.  And it cites an excellent hospital/program in Boston that helps transgender kids.  Thanks Nightingale-you are always looking out for the kids who need you, and in so many ways :)


http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2011/12/11/led-child-who-simply-knew/SsH1U9Pn9JKArTiumZdxaL/story.html

Quoting Tiny Tim

No matter your belief who is God, if there is a God, by what name you refer to God, or if God is only a father figure, or perhaps a mother figure as well, most of us will recognize that if we break religious teachings down to their simplest forms, they usually have at least one belief in common:  that we are to treat others as we would like to be treated, and that the surest path to redemption is loving others, serving others and surrendering our own will so that we may do that.  It is incredibly difficult to think of others if we are constantly consumed with thinking of ourselves, however.

Some years ago, before the births of my two lovely nieces, Flying Pig suffered multiple miscarriages.  While we all were saddened, needless to say, our sadness did not hold a candle to the sense of loss both Flying Pig and her husband were feeling.  At that time, I was experiencing my own bout of depression.  Somehow, it came me to do something for Flying Pig.  An inner voice told me we would both feel better.  So, for the remainder of the afternoon, I created something to commemorate her lost babies.  And when I stopped thinking of me for a bit and instead thought only of Flying Pig for a few hours, I did feel better.  And my efforts at remembering her lost little ones meant something to her too.  She still has it.

This was a revelation to me-I literally tripped over the idea of helping others to help me.  Don't you think that God, or natural selection, or the Creator, somehow hard-wired us to feel good when we help others?  And that message, helping others and surrendering ourselves, is a common theme in nearly every major organized religion in the world.  So, forget the Sodom and Gomorrah stories, and any other story that just serves to incite hatred among us.  God did not hand out guidelines so that we could use them as weapons against each other, yet that is what we have done since the beginnings of organized religion.

Hindus, Buddhists, Protestants, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, and Mormons all share a common belief in serving others.  All of those religions mention in one form or another, doing good deeds for others, that our choices dictate the states of our souls, that we should sublimate ourselves for the good of others.  At this time of year, when two of the major religions, Christianity and Judaism share religious holidays within a week of each other, perhaps now would be a lovely time to celebrate what we have in common rather than what differentiates us from each other.  I don't think God is going to ask for a religious identification card when we meet Him or Her, but I do think we will be asked to show how our lives mattered to someone besides ourselves.

So, as I listen to Christmas carols, and Adam Sandler's Chanukah song, and peruse "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, I am heartened to remember Tiny Tim who states simply and perfectly:

God Bless us, every one!

Getting to know your new son or daughter

Remember when your child was first born?  You didn't know him or her.  Your child was a complete stranger to you, yet you loved your child, desperately, in fact.  You may have had future expectations of your child, but those expectations were limited and came from your heart.  You wanted your child to feel loved, to be healthy, to grow, to be happy.

It's only as our children grow up that we start to impose more expectations on them, and usually those expectations have to do with what WE want to be happy.  Sometimes the expectations become less about our kid and more about us.  It's an easy trap to fall into.

Maybe you feel like you don't know your kid at all right now.  After all, for so many years your son has been....your son.  How can he now be your daughter?  You don't know anything about this person as a girl, you don't know her as a girl at all.  But remember, you didn't need to know anything at all about your child to love your child when she was born and that has not changed.  You love your child because she is yours to love.  You will step in front of a truck for your child because he is yours to protect.

This whole gender identity thing can be so confusing to those of us whose minds and bodies agree.  We can't understand it anymore than we understood anything about our child when he/she was first born, and yet we found a way to love that stranger-child anyway.  That is all you have to do right now.

When your brand new infant kept you up all night and would cry constantly and you didn't know what to do to help, you kept trying, even if your heart wasn't in it.  The last thing in the world you felt like doing at two in the morning was changing a diaper and pacing the floor for two hours but you did it, even if you felt like walking out of the door and never coming back.  And why did you do it?  Because not only did you love your child, but you made a commitment to care for your child.  When you felt like you just couldn't give anymore, you went through the motions anyway.  And the love grew.  The commitment grew.

You will get to know this "new" child too.  It will be a process similar to the one you employed when you first laid eyes on your kid, but in some ways a little easier, in others, a little more difficult.  It will be easier because in so many ways, you already know this person.  The core of the person is the same-your child will likely still be passionate about whatever made her passionate before.  He may not enjoy all of the same activities as he used to, but just because you don't like golf anymore, it doesn't mean you've changed as a person, right?

Trust in your love for your kid.  Keep saying the words, "I want to try" even if you are not sure you mean it.  Love really does conquer all.  It doesn't always make life easier, but it makes life possible.  It doesn't always make relationships easier, but it makes relationships possible.

When you feel like you can't give anymore, just keep going through the motions.  The love will grow, as will the acceptance.

For parents whose kids have just come out

Dear Parents,

Your kid has just dropped a bombshell that you never saw coming.  Maybe you feel physically sick, like someone is playing a sick joke on you, or perhaps you are completely at a loss for words because so many thoughts and feelings, many of them foreign and uncomfortable, are running through your head.

You are not the only parent to go through this and you are not alone.  Before you do another thing, remind yourself:  This is my child.  This person is the same person that I brought home from the hospital and nurtured all these years.  I love my child and I will not abandon my child.

Look at your child and remind yourself again:  I love my kid and I will not leave my kid.

The thought that saved me was, "At least we get to keep our kid.  Some people lose their kids, but our kid will continue to come home to us." While that thought alone did not make the process of acceptance any easier, it did serve to remind me that my not accepting could cause my kid to never be a part of my life again; and worse, could cause my kid to not want to be part of life at all.

The first few days, you will not be able to stop calling your new daughter "he" or your new son "she."  In fact, you will still consider your child to be the same gender that you always knew him or her to be.  You can, however, promise your kid that you will try to see him or her as he/she sees him or herself.  Do that now-find your kid and promise your kid that you will try.  If you can, tell your kid you love him/her too.  In all likelihood, that will be enough to start.  Perhaps, don't call your child by any name at all, but rather by a term of endearment like "Sweetie" until you can do better.  These small things will make the change more manageable for you and will let your child know that even if it's hard, you still love your child enough to make an effort.

Now what?  Reach out to others so that you can help yourself.  For some reason, this can be a painful process because it means letting go of something, or someone.  If you want to help your kid, you must help yourself first.  In an airplane, they tell you to  put the oxygen on yourself before you put it on your kid.  There is a reason for this:  if you are not well, you can't help your kid stay well.

You are not alone.  Explore this blog, and visit the links.  E-mail me for moral support.  We're here for each other so that we can support our kids.  I am at Openarms2lgbt@gmail.com