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LGBTQ PARENTING
Chelsea Henriquez

Henriquez 2 There are people that are for LGBTQ parenting and then you have your people that oppose it. I think with any choice you make in life there will always be people that are for it or against it. With LGBTQ parenting I fail to understand a lot of the reasoning that certain people stand by and use for grounds to judge and condemn people as parents without looking at the parenting side of it at all. I myself come from a family where my grandfather was gay and I am co-parenting with a gay couple so I know what it is like to grow up in a family that has a gay couple. I think that there will always be a debate on parenting. With that being said just because people feel the topic is up for discussion does not mean that the LGBTQ community does not deserve to have children. I have heard many arguments on why people believe LGBTQ people dont make good parents including it confuses children; they need a role model of each sex; its against nature; the children will co me out gay; and that the children will be at a higher risk for being sexually abused. These reasons that people stand behind I dont feel that there is founded evidence against the LGBTQ community. The most frequent reason I heard in my research and talking to LGBTQ parents was that children being raised by LGBTQ parents are at a higher risk of being sexually abused. I dont believe this to me is completely outrageous; while looking up studies on this I found that there is no evidence supporting this. The LGBTQ is not more likely to sexually abuse children. There are many studies that support this. I found that there was just a stigma surrounding this I think that people are just against the life style and cant understand it so they come up with this preconceived notion that they present danger to children. This danger that they have come up with doesnt even just affect LGBTQ parents but people feel that anyone

Henriquez 3 from that community is a threat to children and should not be able to work with them. I find this so disturbing that somehow society thinks just because of someones sexual attraction that they are unfit to be around children. I dont think that this should be an issue when examining someones ability to love children and nurture them. I believe tha t we all have preferences to what we are attracted to and just because I am heterosexual those attractions are not considered when people look at me as a parent; however if I was born in another time my preference in who I am attracted to would have been an issue because I prefer interracial relationships. As I read over all of the other reasons for being against LGBTQ parenting, I couldnt help but to think about the stereotypes I face as a single mother. Being a single mother I feel that a lot of the concerns that people have with LGBTQ parenting could just as easily be concerns of someone being a single mother; and no one is telling me I am unfit. So it just shows the double standard that these so called cons are. The people that are against LGBTQ parenting are just trying to apply worries that can come with any parenting style and put the stigma of being that on one specific group out of prejudice. I found an amazing resource while doing research that is for LGBTQ parents and their children; it is www.colage.org. It is the only website ran by teens that have grown up with LGBTQ parents or their parents came out why they were children. I think that this is an invaluable resource; it is amazing to me to see teenagers taking in their lives and using their experience to help other children and families and really advocate for their families. I love that I get to watch things like this in my lifetime even though these groups are not accepted by everybody they stand strong and for a beautiful cause.

Henriquez 4 Now I want to touch briefly on my experience with this my grandfather. He married my grandmother and they had 3 children. One day my grandpa and grandma got a divorce cause my grandpa came out as gay; so I grew up my whole life knowing my grandpa and his partner who I called Uncle Leroy he said he was too young to be a grandpa. I never had a problem with it and it was normal to me so it wasnt something I ever hide. I was proud of my family and it was an amazing lesson to me looking back to see what real love and family means; even though my grandma was devastated she stood by my grandpa and always remand his friend. As I mentioned earlier I am a single mother my childrens fathers were never around and I had my kids alone. My daughter has an amazing extended family but when I had my son I didnt want him to grow up without and to not have family like his sister does and I now have two amazing men helping me raise him. They are amazing fathers and its great to co parent with them there is not all that baggage and stuff that sometimes gets in the way of seeing what is best for your child. We all want whats best for Kingston and he is our focus.

Henriquez 5 References My grandma Britten Dunford- one of my sons dads David Mayo- one of my sons dads Nicole Fairbourn- my aunt http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_molestation.html http://www.colage.org/resources/ http://www.bilerico.com/2013/07/children_with_lgbt_parents_speak_out.php#children_w ith_lgbt_parents_speak_out.php?s=2&_suid=138263700827201547739591724847 http://community.pflag.org/Page.aspx?pid=504

Henriquez 6 Chelsea Henriquez Allison Fernley ENGL 2850 December 3, 2013 Nip Tuck Applied to Queer Theory Nip Tucks whole series pushes the boundaries of being queer. It is a great series but throughout the entire series there are things that tie back in to queer theory. It is a great show in my opinion. It is a series about two plastic surgeons their practice and their personal lives. Sean and Christians lives are so intertwined, inn every aspect. Sean and Christian push the limits themselves; they have a very intimate relationship just without sex. Sean and Troy have a very strained yet very intimate relationship, they have been best friends since college and they run a practice together. It comes out during the season that Christian fathered Seans son which brought a new dynamic to the table they were very upset at first, but they worked through it. Sean and Christian have a very codependent relationship and at times during the series it seems as though they have a love for each other that goes beyond just best friends. They seem to be in love with each other but they are not into other men so it never takes on the role of them having sex. There are many different roles that pertain to the LGBTQ community in this series some I feel are portrayed in a light that is believable and then some I dont feel are portrayed in a very positive light. Interestingly from what I have learned and how transgendered people are still

Henriquez 7 somewhat on the outside even in the LGBTQ community that is one of the roles that I think is portrayed in a negative light. Seans son who is also Christians son gets involved with an older woman; they are not really for this and she is pulling their son Matt away from everything that is important. So the

family starts to investigate her themselves and they discover that she is having sex with her son. They try to warn Matt but he will not listen; so Christian who is a very sexual person decides if he sleeps with her then Matt will break up with her. When Christian goes to her house and the begin having sex he realizes that she is transgender because she has a very shallow vagina. So it comes out that she was born a man and she flees because she does not want them to expose her. This incident I dont think helps the transgender community at all. You have a major television show portraying a transgender as a child molester that engaged in sexual activities with her adopted son from the time he was a young child. I think the transgender community already struggles just to be accepted; and the LGBTQ community as a whole has this stereotype that people believe they are not safe around children. There is another episode where their son Matt is grieving losing his lover wither she was transgender or not and he goes out to a transgender bar. During this scene he is out looking for someone for comfort and he is trying to discover his sexuality; he feels like he is only attracted to transgender people. So Matt picks up a girl and goes back to her place and they have drinks and start making out and Matt realizes that she is pre-op. He freaks out and beats the girl in her apartment; through the scene even though he is beating her there is this sense that he really is mad cause he thinks its not right that he enjoys transgender women. I think this fits into to queer theory and everything we have learned. Matt feels pressure to fit into the socially acceptable heterosexual relationship but he has other desires. After that encounter the transgender girl

Henriquez 8 comes back to retaliate on him and they beat him and pee on him. His father Sean finds out and he helps the transgender girl with her operation. While analyzing this and thinking about queer theory and what I have wrote there is always someone that brings drama to shows; and I wonder if I automatically think that the LGBTQ community should not be presented in a bad manner, as the villain, and definitely not a sex offender due to the struggle they already face every day. But then there is this side of my head that says Are you taking away from them in any aspect? cause Im not sure that I would feel so strongly about a heterosexual man being portrayed as a pedophile on screen. For one I find it more relevant the percentage of people that suffer sexual abuse is at the hands of a heterosexual man; and I dont feel that all heterosexual men face this stereotype but a large majority of the LGBTQ community face this stereotype daily in real life. The more I think about it I dont want to take away from the LGBTQ community and separate them in my beliefs cause they are human and I believe humans have the capacity to become anything even if its bad. But I just dont feel the same. Nip Tuck I think accurately shows what can happen to a young person that is struggling with their sexuality. After all of this happened Matt really had a hard time he bought a book that was of risqu pictures of male to female transgendered women. He ultimately ended up lashing out at everything in his life because he felt that something was wrong with him because he was attracted to transgender women. I feel like that can be a very critical point in someones life, but in the TV industry it usually ends with someone dying or going into a complete downward spiral and then going back to heterosexual life. When it comes to the media I feel that there needs to be more uplifting series and shows about being queer so that people can gain a better image of the LGBTQ community in their head; because we live in a society where even though that is

Henriquez 9 fictional people take the ideas presented on TV and apply them to the judgments they have about people and it can help enforce the bad stereotypes they have. In my opinion Nip Tuck embodies a lot of things that are queer and push the boundaries of what the norm is. I enjoyed watching the whole series. One of the other scenes that really sticks out to me is when Christian who is just a free spirit when it comes to sexual experiences; there is a scene when him and another guy are both sleeping with a different girl in the same bed and the other guy reaches over and touches Christians ass. When he is groping him for a min Christian was fine and then it was like it clicked in his head that it was a man touching him and even then it was a little bit before he actually pushed him away and then he got up and left. Even though it was a brief moment to me this shows how the human being does not have to be labeled and they can find desire and pleasure in all kinds of different things. I found a review that I think shows all the different things that are going on in this series there was one particular part that gave a glimpse of the drama that in this series. Todd R Ramlow writes (January 8, 2008):
The other reason to return to Nip/Tuck, and Season Five is no exception, are the cameos and stunt casting. This season has seen the introduction of Bradley Cooper as Aiden Stone, a self-obsessed Hollywood hedonist, and Oliver Platt as screaming closet-queen TV producer Freddy Prune. The two have given the show some much needed levity so far this season. So have Rosie ODonnell and John Schneider. ODonnell returns as Dawn Budge, white-trash lotto bijillionaire and paramour to Freddy Prune. In last weeks episode, Dawn was afraid that her boyfriend was going to come out of the closet after he and Aiden were invited to ride in the West Hollywood gay pride parade. She followed Freddy to the parade,

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experienced a moment of panic, and tried to run down the street after him, only to be run over by a dyke-on-a-bike. The image of Rosie ODonnell playing a frustrated and possibly homophobic girlfriend mowed down by a butchie on a motorcycle was absolute gold. To me that review somewhat shows how crazy the show is even though it pushes the boundaries of being believable in real life I think it shows examples of pushing the heterosexual social norm. It was a great addictive series it kept me interested.

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Works Cited Todd R. Ramlow Nip Tuck January 08, 2008 http://www.popmatters.com/review/nip-tuck2/