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A resounding testament to the power of family and a reassurance that there is no wrong way to be who you are It has been almost two years since Zach Wahls (then 19 years old) bravely stood up in front of the Iowa House of Representative and defended gay marriage and his family. Wahls proudly proclaimed, "The sexual orientation of my parents has had zero effect on the content of my character,” and his speech instantly went viral and became YouTube’s #1 political video of 2011. In My Two Moms,...

As typical as donor-conceived children have become, with at least a million such children in the US alone, their experiences are still unusual in many ways. In Scattered Seeds, journalist and writer Jacqueline Mroz looks at the growth of sperm donation and assisted reproduction and how it affects the children who are born, the women who buy and use the sperm to have kids, and the sperm donors who donate their genetic material to help others procreate. With empathy and in-depth analysis, Scattere...

In this "sweet, funny, true tale of same-sex romance" (PUBLISHERS WEEKLY), David Valdes Greenwood sets the record straight on gay marriage-and reminds us what really matters to any couple. Here he charts the ups and downs of an all-too-human relationship: going on that first "non-date"; learning to share duties (and mince words) in the kitchen; dealing with a wandering eye; and realizing that life as a couple is all about discovering "just how many things you can approach differently without act...

A raw and heart-wrenching literary memoir about a queer couple's attempt to adopt a child.But would you take a ginger child? a social worker asks Patrick Flanery as he and his husband embark on their four-year odyssey of trying to adopt. This curious question comes to haunt the journey, which Flanery recounts with startling candour as he explores what it means to make a family as a queer couple, to be an outsider in a foreign country, to grapple with the inheritance of intergenerational loss, an...

An honest insight into the rollercoaster reality of therapeutically parenting teenagers.Raising any teenager is tough, but raising teens who have experienced trauma in their early years is a whole different - and more difficult - ball game. Adoptive parent Sally Donovan is here to answer every question you've ever wanted to ask about therapeutically parenting teenagers, and a whole lot more besides. Therapeutic parenting is equal parts love, commitment, determination, and realism, and Sally writ...

Enlightening, encouraging and empowering, this work describes the very simple techniques of self-insemination. It not only provides frank and clear explanations of techniques, but also includes sensitive chapters on the many issues surrounding self-insemination, including: making the decision; screening for health; getting pregnant; communicating with the children; the law; and telling others. The main encouragement for lesbians and single women hovering on the brink of motherhood lies in knowin...

For decades, social scientists have assumed that “fictive kinship” is a phenomenon associated only with marginal peoples and people of color in the United States.  In this innovative book, Nelson reveals the frequency, texture and dynamics of relationships which are felt to be “like family” among the white middle-class. Drawing on extensive, in-depth interviews, Nelson describes the quandaries and contradictions, delight and anxiety, benefits and costs, choice and obligation in these relationshi...

Winner of the 2019 Ruth Benedict Prize for Outstanding Single-Authored Monograph Interweaving the narratives of multiple family members, including parents and siblings of her queer and trans informants, Amy Brainer analyzes the strategies that families use to navigate their internal differences. In Queer Kinship and Family Change in Taiwan, Brainer looks across generational cohorts for clues about how larger social, cultural, and political shifts have materialized in people’s everyday lives. H...

Full of wonderful stories that give insight into a wide variety of adoption issues, now revised in light of recent developments, The Family of Adoption is a powerful argument for the right kind of openness in adoption. Joyce Maguire Pavao uses her thirty years of experience as a family and adoption therapist to explain to adoptive parents, birthparents, adult adopted people, and extended family, as well as to those who work with children professionally the developmental stages and challenges one...