In She Said, She Said #86, Genia and Andrea are extremely pissed off after they learn their local high school in Beloit, WI lowered the minimum GPA requirement for athletes to participate in sports. The GPA requirement was lowered to 1.0 – that’s right ONE point ZERO. If you hate hearing women swear, you might want to skip this episode!
Archive for Parenting
NYC Straight Women Have More Unprotected Sex Than Gay Men
She Said, She Said is a podcast featuring lesbian couple Genia and Andrea. Genia is the host of SistersTalk Radio and Andrea is the assistant producer.
In this segment:
*Exploiting children for entertainment purposes
*Focus on the Family softens anti-gay rhetoric
*Grandmother/grandson couple having a child together
*DADT repeal – will it ever happen?
*Immigration rallies protesting AZ immigration bill
*Straight girls have more unprotected sex than gay men
*Do you prefer sex with the lights on or off?
Featured indie musician: London Bridgez (Song played: She)
How to Stop Hating Your Ex
René Ashton is the author of How to Stop Hating Your Ex: So You Can Co-Parent in Peace. René is also an actress who has appeared in more than 70 commercials and two dozen television shows like Nip/Tuck, CSI, 7th Heaven and Dexter.
René joined us to discuss her book and provide valuable advice for all those parents out there who haven’t quite figured out how to play nice with their ex and put their children first.
Listen to the interview here.
Subscribe to SistersTalk Radio on iTunes here.
Child Prostitution – The Plight of Throwaway Queer Youth
Justin Reed Early spent his childhood as a homeless youth on the streets of Seattle and was a credited participant in the Academy-nominated movie STREETWISE (1984). Justin is an avid supporter of homeless youth and human rights issues and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. He joined us on SistersTalk Radio to discuss:
http://sisterstalk.net/justinreed.mp3
*His childhood; how he ended up homeless at the age of 10
*Why homeless kids turn to prostitution to survive
*Statistics associated with homeless queer youth
*Areas of the country where homeless youth are more prevalent
*What’s happening with social service programs for homeless youth
*The importance of mentors, how they can help homeless kids
*His book, STREETCHILD
You can learn more about Justin Reed Early on his web site.
Secretly Monitoring Your Partner’s Web Activity; Discussing Venice 1.01 – She Said She Said #26
She Said, She Said is a podcast featuring lesbian couple Genia and Andrea. Genia is the host of SistersTalk Radio and Andrea is the assistant producer.
In Monday’s segment, we discussed:
*Analysis: Venice 1.01
*Book discussion: My Miserable Lonely Lesbian Pregnancy (by Andrea Askowitz)
*Listener submitted question: How can I tell when my girlfriend is lying to me?
*Parenting: When your teenager sneaks out the house at 1am
*Using WebWatcher to secretly monitor your partner’s web activity
Heading Home After 13 Years to Face My Demons
I was born and raised in Waynesboro, a small town in Georgia.
Population: 5,874. Race demographics: Black (62.5%), White Non-Hispanic (35.6%), Hispanic (1.2%), Two or more races (1.0%).
I never had time to hate that small town because I spent most of my time reading and daydreaming about graduation day: the day I’d leave Waynesboro and never look back.
My mother was extremely physically abusive. She beat me with telephone extension cords, orange electrical cords, her fists and anything else she knew would cause harm. She denies this ever happened and claims I’ve made it all up in my head. I don’t know if that’s her way of coping with the guilt, but what I do know is that it took years for me to “get over it” – whatever it was . . . whatever she claims it wasn’t.
For several years after high school graduation, I tried returning home for special occasions. Everytime I returned, my mother tried to hurt me. Since she couldn’t beat me anymore, she tried hurting me with insults - nasty words she’d throw at me in front of my then-husband and kids. In April 1996, I decided I didn’t need her and I didn’t need home. I haven’t been home since then.
In 2002, I tried reconciling with my mother. I flew her to Wisconsin. The plan was for her to spend 2 weeks with me and her grandchildren. The visit lasted 3 days. I put her on a plane and sent her home, asking that she not contact me again until she learned how to respect the adult person I’ve become. We’ve spoken very little since that day. I don’t answer my phone when the caller ID shows a Georgia area code. I always make the call go to voice mail.
Three months ago I decided it was time to go home again. My grandmother suffered 3 strokes in the past 2 years and I’d like to see her before she dies. My youngest sister got married and has two small children I’ve never seen. My other sister has two girls who are the same age as my children; our kids should get to know each other. The pain I felt for years growing up in my mother’s home has passed. It’s time to move on.
I’ve accepted that my mother is who she is and, most likely, she’ll never change. It’s wrong to avoid my entire family because my mother has a whole lot of hate in her heart for me. It’s wrong to keep my children away from their entire family because my mother and I are not friends.
Andrea, my kids and I are heading to Georgia tomorrow morning. We’re all very excited. The boys are excited they’ll finally get to meet “the Black side” of their family. They only know their father’s side of the family. I never realized how important it was to them to make that connection until they lit up with excitement when I told them we were going home for Thanksgiving. I plan to blog each day’s experience so I have something to look back on when I need a reminder that while family dynamics may be complicated, it’s extremely important (and comforting) to remain connected.
Are Gay Parents Better Than Straights Ones?
Dr. Abbie Goldberg joins SistersTalk Radio to discuss the media’s reaction to her book Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children: Research on the Family Life Cycle.
American Idol Winner Jordin Sparks to Host America’s Biggest Sleepover
She’s not queer, but I love Jordin – even though I never watched a single episode of American Idol.
America’s Biggest Sleepover is an event created to bring together teen girls from across the country. The event is hosted by American Idol winner Jordin Sparks. The nationwide online event will be hosted on November 7 on beinggirl.com – a Tampax and Always affiliated site.
America’s Biggest Sleepover will feature an exclusive performance from Jordin Sparks, a Q&A with Jordin from beinggirl.com members and sleepover party tips including recipes, fun games and hairstyles.
For every girl who signs up to participate on beinggirl.com, Always will donate $1 (up to $25,000 total) to the Protecting Futures program, which helps girls in developing regions stay in school.
Dear Feminists: Which Woman Will You Side With? The Lesbian or the Ex Lesbian?
Update: I failed to mention that the biological mom became a born again Christian and claims she is no longer a lesbian. That information is mentioned in the article on the men’s web site and in the article where I grabbed the summary.
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An interesting new column on a men’s web site caught my attention today: The Rise of Lesbian Custody Battles. The author is comparing bitter lesbian mothers to straight mothers who keep their children from a former partner and co-parent just because they’re angry the relationship has ended:
Mothers are often able to convince courts to allow them to drive decent, loving fathers out of their children’s lives by employing anti-father/pro-mother stereotypes and by portraying dads as abusive or unfit. But there are no abusive males or bad dads in lesbian custody battles. Nevertheless, when two lesbians agree to have a child together and the relationship goes sour, the lesbian biological mom often does the exact same thing to her ex as heterosexual mothers do.
In case you don’t recall this case, here’s a summary:
In a case that has attracted national attention because it highlights the starkly different treatment lesbian and gay parents experience across state lines, Lambda Legal, ACLU of Virginia and Equality Virginia appealed a case in Virginia on behalf of a woman who is being denied visitation with her child despite a clear court order from Vermont.
Janet Miller-Jenkins is seeking to enforce a court order saying she must have regular visitation with the two-year-old daughter she and her former partner, Lisa Miller-Jenkins, had when the two women were joined in a Vermont civil union. After the women ended their relationship, Lisa moved to Virginia with the women’s daughter, and she asked a Vermont court to dissolve the couple’s civil union and sort out custody of the child. When that Vermont court ordered visitation for Janet, Lisa filed a new lawsuit in Virginia court, successfully using that state’s antigay marriage law to have herself declared the child’s sole legal parent. The conflicting court orders — one from Vermont ordering regular visitation for Janet, and the other from Virginia naming Lisa the sole parent — led to the appeal, which asks a state court to overturn the Virginia ruling.
The appeal cites the federal Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act and Virginia’s Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act. In this case, both laws make it clear that the Vermont court alone has jurisdiction in the matter and cannot be interfered with — and the federal kidnapping law requires that the Vermont order be enforced in Virginia.
My exhusband and I have joint legal custody of our children; I have primary placement. That ruling came, not because I employed any anti-male or anti-father tactics, but because I was the primary caregiver for years while my exhusband spent 3/4 of the year traveling the world on a Navy ship.
I’m annoyed by mothers – any mother – who takes a child away from a co-parent out of spite. When you decide to co-parent a child with someone you love, you have to keep in mind that one day you might not love that person anymore. Regardless, even if you don’t love that person, your child still does.
I wonder how all those self-proclaimed feminists will address a biological mother taking a child from a lesbian co-parent out of spite. If they truly support the rights of all women, which woman will they side with in this case?
Race, Homophobia, Balloon Boy, Facebook Drama – She Said, She Said #18
She Said, She Said is a podcast featuring lesbian couple Genia and Andrea. Genia is the host of SistersTalk Radio and Andrea is the assistant producer.
In this segment:
*Balloon boy took a cue from his parents
*Using Facebook to air your relationship’s dirty laundry
*Justice of the Peace refuses to issue marriage license to interracial couple
*Lesbian in a tux excluded from her high school yearbook
*Need a Halloween costume idea? Try something from the 80s!
Music at the end of this episode: Get Your Bike by God-des & She
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