Out Of The Ordinary: Essays On Growing Up With Gay Lesbian And Transgender Parents

While hearing faggot yelled at you in a high school corridor would upset almost anyone here is evidence that hearing Your fathers a faggot isnt nearly as bad and that you might find yourself levelheadedly retorting No my fathers a transgendered lesbian. This unprecedented collection of short memoirs by adult children of gay lesbian and transgender parents demonstrates once again that love cannot be policed or regulated and that the bond between parents and children transcends petty categories. Kelley Conways My Mother and the Nun describes the confusion a 14-year-old girl feels when her mother falls in love with another woman at the same time that Conway herself is beginning to recognize her own attractions to other girls. In Peter Snows Acting Lessons a college boy returns home to find that his parents who have always been unhappily married are still together and in fact are cozied up on the couch watching television with his mothers lover Jackie. What is missing from this volume are essays by children who were born or adopted into same-sex families. Without this perspective the memoirs are somewhat skewed since almost every writer had to deal not only with a parents coming out but with a wrenching divorce often caused by that parents sexuality. Nevertheless this collection should prove helpful to therapists youth counselors and families with gay members and contribute positively to the debates on same-sex parenting and adoption. --Regina Marler Out of the Ordinary is a truly unique anthology a groundbreaking collection of essays by the grown children of lesbian gay and transgender parents. Ranging from humorous to poignant the essays touch on some of the most important and complicated issues facing them: dealing with a parents sexuality while developing an identity of ones own; overcoming homophobia at school and at family or social gatherings; and defining the modern family. In a time when traditional family structure h