Family Outing

It’s a new era for people with LGBTQ parents in Massachusetts.

By Emily McGranachan

The author (left) stands proudly beside her loving parents, Cathy McGranachan (center) and Nancy Smith (right). Credit: Tristan Brosnan.

My stomach was in knots the first time I called into a radio station. I was in the car with one of my moms listening to fellow Massachusetts residents cite the trauma that kids with LGBTQ parents suffer as further evidence that marriage equality should be banned. Well, that caller did not speak for me. Seething, I told the radio host that the challenges I faced as a person with lesbian moms came from how other people treated my family; ignorance, discrimination, and fear-mongering were the problems, not my parents’ sexual orientation.

The host went on to ask me the predictable questions about school and whether I was bullied for having lesbian moms. I had to disappoint him, because while I faced my share of bullying, the comments were rarely related to myfamily. I was out and proud about my parents, so bullies had to find other insecurities to target. Perhaps surprising no one – certainly not me – the host also asked me whether I was dating anyone. That thinly veiled prying into my own sexual orientation is beyond infuriating. Throughout my life people have asked me whether having lesbian parents means I am also a lesbian. This question implies that if I identify as anything other than cisgender and heterosexual, it would be a direct result of my parents’ sexual orientation and would be evidence of their failure as parents. It is homophobic, transphobic, and cruel, plain and simple. So I deflected the question with the answer that, no, I was not currently dating anyone. When asked if I understood stereotypical gender roles, I pointed out that I watched television. Despite what some might think, being raised by lesbians did not mean that I spent my childhood in a women-only bubble devoid of any interaction with the outside world (though at times that sounds appealing).

I came of age during the period of debate, scare tactics, and misinformation that followed the 2003 Supreme Judicial Court decision that instituted marriage equality in Massachusetts. Those years of anger and frustration at hearing radio ads, viewing TV commercials, and listening to politicians lie about families like mine are still difficult memories. As the debate waned in Massachusetts in 2007, after the State Legislature voted against a state constitutional amendment limiting the definition of marriage to heterosexual unions, my heart went out to all the other kids with LGBTQ parents across the country, who continued to face these harmful attacks. In a 2013 analysis of LGBT families in the United States, the Williams Institute calculated that roughly 125,000 same-sex couples, including married and unmarried couples, are raising approximately 220,000 children.

By applying the current statistics on LGBT parenting to the national population, the same report concluded that there may be up to three million LGBT parents in the US and six million people – including adult children – with at least one LGBT parent.

It amazes me that there are now people with LGBTQ parents who have spent most or all of their lives in a state that explicitly respects their family’s right to exist. Discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, and ignorance have certainly not disappeared. Still, the atmosphere and level of acceptance in Massachusetts is impressive. Since I graduated from Massachusetts public schools, the state has passed a strong anti-bullying law that explicitly includes LGBTQ students. The Board of Education also just passed an updated Safe and Supportive Learning Environments for LGBTQ Students policy.

Compared to my experience growing up in a town where I was the only person out about having LGBTQ parents, and attending a school where the first time any teacher even mentioned the word ‘gay’ was in eighth grade, because the marriage debate had started to leak into the classroom and to distract students, many Massachusetts youth are now hearing more supportive conversations about LGBTQ families and seeing more representation. Sadie and Alex are among these youth, who experience being part of an LGBTQ family in a different way.

When it comes to talking about having LGBTQ parents with peers, the ability of those parents to get married can be a real game changer.

Lauren Marder, Kim Austen, and their kids Sadie and Alex huddle up for a selfie on their family outing.

The Azar-Tanguays joined LGBTQ families from around the country in Provincetown for fellowship and all-ages fun during Family Week 2015, co-organized by Family Equality Council and COLAGE. Credit: A New Outlook Photography.

I met Sadie and Alex with their moms Lauren and Kim on a rainy January afternoon. At age eight, Sadie already knows several other peers with two moms or dads at school and down the street. Sometimes when she tells friends that she has two moms, she gets asked, “What do you mean?” to which she gives the charmingly simple answer, “I have two moms. They got married.” And that’s that.

For Sadie, having two moms is something that makes her special. Though she knows her family is unique in some ways, in her view, her family is, “the same [as other married families], just one person is different. Being together makes a family.”

Sadie’s moms, Lauren and Kim, moved from New York to Massachusetts in 2011, mere months before New York legalized marriage equality, so they could live in a state that provided their family with the protections associated with marriage. After moving, Lauren and Kim were married, with then two-year-old Sadie joining in the celebration. One week later, Alex was born, completing the family of four.

When I tried to ask Sadie about bullying related to having two moms, I got a beautiful, heartwarmingly confused look. That idea was completely foreign to her! Those moments of coming out about your family, worrying how certain people will react and whether it is worth it to tell at all, are not part of Sadie’s life.

By Sadie’s age, I had already confronted kids on the playground who insisted people with gay parents must be weird. I had already explained many times that having gay parents did not make me gay. For me, it was just the way things were. But Sadie and Alex are experiencing a whole new conversation, or even the lack thereof, on the playground. Many kids seem to take it at face value that a person can have two moms or two dads, a single parent, or a myriad of other parenting configurations.

As parents, Lauren and Kim are out in their community and at Sadie’s school. When they went to meet with Sadie’s kindergarten teacher, they were thrilled to learn that she was well versed in LGBTQ parenting. She had already had students with LGBTQ parents, and had a gay son as well. The classroom was already equipped with books that celebrated diverse families. This is very different from my own parents’ experience. While my teachers and administration were welcoming to my family, we never discussed LGBTQ individuals or families. One of my moms is a retired Massachusetts public school teacher and for over thirty years she was afraid to be out at work.

After speaking with Sadie, Alex, Lauren and Kim, I wondered whether this experience is unique to young kids. Perhaps things are different for today’s high schoolers. That question prompted me to speak with Jean, a freshman at Boston Latin. She has two fathers who are married and a younger brother in middle school.

Though I was confident when speaking out about my family during my high school years, I still felt the strong internalized need to prove to others that I was an accomplished student and wellrounded person, in order to prove that my lesbian moms were good parents. In the back of my mind was the idea that should I slip up, it would provide fodder to those who believed my parents’ sexual orientation had warped me in some way.

I was interested to learn whether Jean was having similar experiences. Was her school also silent on LGBTQ issues like bullying? As it turns out, Jean knows several other students with LGBTQ parents in her grade alone. Bullying is addressed by the administration in a holistic way that emphasizes that everyone should be treated with kindness, as opposed to singling out homophobic or transphobic bullying.

Jean has no specific memory of when she met other people with LGBTQ parents, because she has known other kids like herself all her life. The vast majority of people whom she comes out to about her family respond with positive statements or probing questions that issue from a place of curiosity rather than malice. Jean talks with her friends about having gay dads and LGBTQ rights. It’s a normal part of her life. In fact, it was only recently that she even realized that having gay dads was “odd,” or at least not as common as she thought.

Children of LGBTQ parents, like Jean, Sadie, Alex, and me, are not new. We existed well before same-sex marriage was legalized. As Sadie and Jean mention, love and being together is what makes a family and marriage is not a requirement. But when it comes to talking about having LGBTQ parents with peers, the ability of those parents to get married can be a real game changer. It’s one of the numerous reasons why the recent Supreme Court ruling in favor of nationwide marriage equality was important.

What is new for today’s young Bay Staters is being able to talk about their families in terms that are more familiar to their peers being raised by heterosexual parents. For Jean, marriage is a personal choice and not something that defines commitment or a family. It does, however, “make it easier for the kids. They are more familiar or ‘normal’ [when talking with peers].” When the law recognizes LGBTQ families, regardless of the parents’ marital status, the structure of these families is better understood by the children’s peers and community. The knowledge that our parents could get married becomes another tool in our pockets, another way to explain to others that, though we are unique, our families have many similarities. The love, respect, and commitment that have long defined what makes a family in the LGBTQ community are now validated with familiar rights and words.

While Jean, her brother, Sadie, and Alex are still young, and their families currently live in an area of the state and country that is distinct in its open and vocal acceptance of diverse families, their experiences encourage the hope that kids like them will continue to flourish in an ever-growing community that values and recognizes families of diverse forms.

Emily McGranachan grew up on the North Shore with her lesbian moms. She is East Coast Regional Manager with Family Equality Council, a national organization that connects, supports, and represents the three million parents who are LGBTQ in the United States and their six million children. For someone who did not meet another person with an LGBTQ parent until she was thirteen, it is a job that inspires her each day.