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Helpful Advice For LGBT People Wanting To Start A Family

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There are many choices for LGBT people interested in starting their own families, but how do you know which path is the right one for you? This article breaks down the various possibilities to help you make the right decision.

When my husband and I decided to expand our family, we started evaluating the best way to move forward. We didn’t realize researching the topic would be so challenging and time-consuming. What we found were that there were many choices for same-sex couples looking to have children; however, it was almost impossible to know about each of them, let alone research them.

What is an open adoption and how does it differ from adoption in general? What does co-parenting mean? These were terms I had never heard of before.

While researching all of these various methods and contacting different agencies, we eventually found the answers to many of our questions regarding costs, processes and legal issues. Lacking, however, were firsthand stories from people who had children themselves. What was it like for the people who went through the process? There was no human link to the very technical and clinical information we found regarding the process.

In the end, we felt open adoption was the right path for us. It was an amazing journey, but when reflecting back on it, I still wish we had more information going into the scenario. That’s why I wanted to make it easier for other people looking to expand their own families.

And that’s why I wrote, Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood, a new book you can check out on Amazon. It compares each family building path from the perspective of other couples that have already had families of their own.

Below, I will break down the five most common paths to parenthood with a brief introduction as to what you should know about each one before moving forward. Please keep in mind, these are only brief summaries. For more detailed information, take a look at my new book, Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood. 

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OPEN ADOPTION

Open adoption was designed as a way to benefit all parties involved, giving everyone (the birthparents, the adoptive family and the child) more information about each other. With open adoption, the birthparents and the adoptive parents get to meet each other prior to the adoption taking place. They share information with each other and can remain in contact over the years.

There are numerous benefits to open adoption. Some examples include birthparents having the peace of mind of knowing their child is being raised in a safe and stable home, the adoptive family getting more information about their child’s family medical history and the child having the opportunity to know more about his or her biological heritage and background. Of course there are challenges too, like unpredictable waiting periods, emotional stress, adoption scams and the possibility that a match will fall through. A qualified and reputable adoption agency can help to alleviate some of the stress by weeding out potential scams and by providing emotional support to help you get through the obstacles that pop up along the way.

FOSTER CARE/FOSTER ADOPT

Foster care is a situation where minors are temporarily placed into safe environments in the event that they are unable to live safely with their families. Children can end up in foster care as a result of neglect, abuse, divorce, the death of a legal guardian or a plethora of other unfortunate and tragic events that could disrupt a home. Foster care is designed to be a temporary solution until a child can be reunited with his or her previous parents or guardians, meaning you will only be caring for the child during a short transition period. However, reunification is not always possible and sometimes this temporary care can lead to a more permanent situation through adoption.

It is important to fully understand a child’s background and how your life will be impacted before you decide to open up your home. If you choose to become a foster parent, you will play a vital role in adding stability to a child’s life by providing a safe and comforting home environment in his or her time of need. Also, there are still kids who get kicked out of their homes because of their sexual orientation or gender identity and it can be hard for LGBT children in foster care to find permanent homes. It’s also challenging to find people willing to take in a child living with HIV/AIDS. As a prospective LGBT parent, you are in a unique position to help kids in our community grow up in a safe, stable and accepting environment.

SURROGACY

A surrogate is a woman who carries or gives birth to a child on behalf of another person or couple. One of the benefits of surrogacy is that you have the opportunity to witness and be a part of the pregnancy journey. You can be present for sonograms, the baby’s first heartbeat and even the birth. All of that comes with a price, though. When taking into consideration the cost of hiring a surrogate, possibly paying a portion of the surrogate mother’s living expenses, the cost of the medical procedures, agency fees, lawyer fees and more, you’re looking at somewhere over $100,000. On top of that staggering number, many insurance companies will not cover the costs of the fertilization or delivery when using a surrogate. Surrogacy is by far the most expensive journey to parenthood.

Because of the large sums of money involved, you need to make sure you’re not being taken advantage of. There are plenty of scams that prey on unsuspecting people with dreams of building a family. Make sure you thoroughly research potential agencies prior to working with one. Don’t make your decision based on a well-designed website or the testimonials found there. Ask for references so that you can speak directly to people who have been through the program. Contact independent physicians, attorneys and mental health professionals for objective opinions about the agency and program you are considering. Also, make sure to seek the advice of an independent attorney who can oversee the process and advocate on your behalf.

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Photo courtesy of Thomas Whaley

ASSISTED REPRODUCTION

When women decide to have children together, it is very common for them to choose assisted reproduction, and for one person in the relationship to carry the baby. There are many benefits to this, such as having the opportunity to go through the experience of being pregnant together and supporting each other along the way. As a couple, you can participate in various things together including doctor visits, Lamaze classes and even birth. You’ll also be involved in your child’s life from the moment he or she is conceived, having the opportunity to see the baby’s sonogram and even listen to your child’s first heartbeat. If you are both in the same room during the actual delivery, your partner or spouse can support you by holding your hand, helping you with your breathing and comforting you along the way.

If you choose to move forward with assisted reproduction, you’ll need to decide whether you would like to use a known donor (for example, an acquaintance or friend) or an unknown donor. There are advantages and disadvantages in both scenarios.

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Photo courtesy of Sarah Gilbert

When the donor is known, your child can develop a relationship with them as he or she grows up. Your child will have a better understanding of where he or she came from and why he or she might have certain characteristics and traits. However, there is a greater risk that the donor may later try to claim parental rights. There may even be a possibility that you or your partner could lose custody. When using a known donor, it is recommended that you consult with an attorney specializing in Reproductive Law and have a Known Donor Agreement signed. Keep in mind that a Known Donor Agreement will not necessarily terminate the donor’s rights, even if it says so. That’s why consulting with an attorney beforehand is crucial, especially since the laws vary by state.

If you choose an unknown donor through a sperm bank, you’ll have access to the donor’s comprehensive medical history and the ability to control your child’s exposure to problematic genes. The specimens can also be quarantined and tested for sexually transmitted diseases. This can reduce the risk of passing anything on to you or your child. However, when using a sperm bank, the costs can add up tremendously depending on what services you select. Many insurance companies will not cover alternative insemination unless there is a diagnosis of “infertility” or if you have tried to inseminate without success for a period of time. Make sure you ask your health insurance company how they define infertility, what treatments are covered and if their policy covers insemination for same-sex couples.

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CO-PARENTING

Co-parenting is when two or more people in a platonic relationship raise children together. It’s most commonly seen when heterosexual couples separate but still have joint custody of their children. However, there are other instances where individuals decide to co-parent without ever being romantically involved. Think of it as a shared custody scenario without the ugly divorce.

Whenever additional people are involved in raising the child, there are many opportunities to create a more balanced life. While one parent or couple is taking care of the child, the other person or couple can catch up on things like sleep, chores, work-related activities or hobbies. This allows you to be more focused on your child when he or she is present. Because there is shared custody, you can also have free time while your child is staying with his or her other parents. This makes it easier to schedule date nights and have more alone time with your partner.

A well-thought-out co-parenting scenario can be great for everyone involved, including the children; however, that doesn’t mean there aren’t risks associated with it. If the moms have one set of rules at their house and the dads have another set of rules at theirs, things can get complicated very quickly. Jealousy can even creep in if people are not secure in the parenting relationship structure they’ve created. This can result in an uncomfortable situation for all involved. Making sure that everyone is on the same page in the beginning will make things easier later on down the road.

There can be legal complications too, since only a few states acknowledge that a child can have more than two legally-recognized parents. You may be able to do a third-parent adoption in some states, but it’s best to consult with a lawyer to fully understand your rights.

Please note, the above summaries are brief. For more detailed information, along with firsthand stories from other same-sex parents, legal tips, and the top questions you should ask yourself before moving forward, please read my book, Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood, published by New Horizon Press. It’s available now wherever books are sold.

 

Eric Rosswood is a regular contributor to the New Civil Rights Movement. He is also the author of Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood and the marriage equality children’s book, My Uncle’s Wedding, which received a proclamation from CA State Senator, Mark Leno. To learn more about Eric and his work, visit www.ericrosswood.com.

 

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OPINION

Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

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Republican Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a top potential Trump vice presidential running mate pick, revealed in a forthcoming book she “hated” her 14-month old puppy and shot it to death. Massive online outrage ensued, including accusations of “animal cruelty” and “cold-blooded murder,” but the pro-life former member of Congress is defending her actions and bragging she had the media “gasping.”

“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” Noem writes in her soon-to-be released book, according to The Guardian which reports “the dog, a female, had an ‘aggressive personality’ and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.”

“By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going ‘out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life’.”

“Then, on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, ‘grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another’.”

READ MORE: President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

“Cricket the untrainable dog, Noem writes, behaved like ‘a trained assassin’.”

Except Cricket wasn’t trained. Online several people with experience training dogs have said Noem did everything wrong.

“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote, calling the young girl pup “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with,” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.”

“At that moment,” Noem wrote, “I realized I had to put her down.”

“It was not a pleasant job,” she added, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”

The Guardian reports Noem went on that day to slaughter a goat that “smelled ‘disgusting, musky, rancid’ and ‘loved to chase’ Noem’s children, knocking them down and ruining their clothes.”

She dragged both animals separately into a gravel pit and shot them one at a time. The puppy died after one shell, but the goat took two.

On social media Noem expressed no regret, no sadness, no empathy for the animals others say did not need to die, and certainly did not need to die so cruelly.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

But she did use the opportunity to promote her book.

Attorney and legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold says Governor Noem’s actions might have violated state law.

“You slaughtered a 14-month-old puppy because it wasn’t good at the ‘job’ you chose for it?” he asked. “SD § 40-1-2.3. ‘No person owning or responsible for the care of an animal may neglect, abandon, or mistreat the animal.'”

The Democratic National Committee released a statement saying, “Kristi Noem’s extreme record goes beyond bizarre rants about killing her pets – she also previously said a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to carry out her pregnancy, does not support exceptions for rape or incest, and has threatened to throw pharmacists in jail for providing medication abortions.”

Former Trump White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah Griffin, now a co-host on “The View” wrote, “There are countless organizations that re-home dogs from owners who are incapable of properly training and caring for them.”

The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson blasted the South Dakota governor.

“Kristi Noem is trash,” he began. “Decades with hunting- and bird-dogs, and the number I’ve killed because they were chicken-sharp or had too much prey drive is ZERO. Puppies need slow exposure to birds, and bird-scent.”

“She killed a puppy because she was lazy at training bird dogs, not because it was a bad dog,” he added. “Not every dog is for the field, but 99.9% of them are trainable or re-homeable. We have one now who was never going in the field, but I didn’t kill her. She’s sleeping on the couch. You down old dogs, hurt dogs, and sick dogs humanely, not by shooting them and tossing them in a gravel pit. Unsporting and deliberately cruel…but she wrote this to prove the cruelty is the point.”

Melissa Jo Peltier, a writer and producer of the “Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan” series, also heaped strong criticism on Noem.

“After 10+ years working with Cesar Millan & other highly specialized trainers, I believe NO dog should be put down just because they can’t or won’t do what we decide WE want them to,” Peltier said in a lengthy statement. “Dogs MUST be who they are. Sadly, that’s often who WE teach them to be. And our species is a hot mess. I would have happily taken Kristi Noem’s puppy & rehomed it. What she did is animal cruelty & cold blooded murder in my book.”

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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OPINION

President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

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President Joe Biden gave an nearly-unannounced, last-minute, live exclusive interview Friday morning to Howard Stern, the SiriusXM radio host who for decades, from the mid-1990s to about 2015, was a top Trump friend, fan, and aficionado. But the impetus behind the President’s move appears to be a rare and unsigned statement from the The New York Times Company, defending the “paper of record” after months of anger from the public over what some say is its biased negative coverage of the Biden presidency and, especially, a Thursday report by Politico claiming Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is furious the President has refused to give the “Grey Lady” an in-person  interview.

“The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau,” Politico reported. “Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview.”

“In Sulzberger’s view,” Politico explained, “only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”

But it was this statement that made Politico’s scoop go viral.

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“’All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.'”

Popular Information founder Judd Legum in March documented The New York Times’ (and other top papers’) obsession with Biden’s age after the Hur Report.

Thursday evening the Times put out a “scorching” statement, as Politico later reported, not on the newspaper’s website but on the company’s corporate website, not addressing the Politico piece directly but calling it “troubling” that President Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”

Media watchers and critics pushed back on the Times’ statement.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“NYT issues an unprecedented statement slamming Biden for ‘actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists during his term’ and claiming it’s their ‘independence’ that Biden dislikes, when it’s actually that they’re dying to trip him up,” wrote media critic Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch.

Froomkin also pointed to a 2017 report from Poynter, a top journalism site published by The Poynter Institute, that pointed out the poor job the Times did of interviewing then-President Trump.

Others, including former Biden Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, debunked the Times’ claim President Biden hasn’t given interviews to independent journalists by pointing to Biden’s interviews with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a 20-minute sit-down interview with veteran journalist John Harwood for ProPublica.

Former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, now a media critic who publishes Stop the Presses, offered a more colorful take of Biden’s decision to go on Howard Stern.

The Times itself just last month reported on a “wide-ranging interview” President Biden gave to The New Yorker.

Watch the video and read the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

 

 

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CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

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Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

 

 

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