What is parenting queerly? (I don't know but I do, what about you?) Part One.

Part 1: (Part 2 relates to them! in! action!) Lez (inclusively) Talk About Queer Parenting…
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One of the things I’ve learned from the Queer Parent Convenings is that my notion of parenting is inextricable from my queerness and my family’s expansive gender identities and our practice of building a gender expansive culture and awareness; my parenting is queer parenting. And a gift I’ve received from being a queer parent, from my experience of queer parenting, is that my gayness has become louder, gayer, prouder, and more integrated in all aspects of my life.

Perhaps it was always that way, more than I realized certainly as a straight-passing cis femme, at least according to my partner and of course by certain keyed-in passersby, but now with a kid, the straight assumption is overwhelming and thus so is my internal pressing outward of “I’m gay and my kid is proudly queerspawn, and I want everyone to know about it, because I’m not fucking around.” 

It is hard to describe what the Queer Parent Convenings are… they are fellowship groups, gatherings for queer and trans parents, to creatively reflect on their experiences of gender and sexuality and parenting and family formation. They have only just begun.

They are intended to be welcoming gatherings and spaces of 
Honoring
Celebration
Connection (and perhaps support)
Reflection
Expansion
Energetic exchange 

In practice this means 
we come together and play icebreaker games
we do story circles to share where we are each coming from
we talk and draw at the same time around topics the group selects as relevant to their experience or things they want to unpack together
we do creative movement exercises meant to support and expand our bodily attention in caring and nonjudgmental ways
we dance (sometimes and as folks feel comfortable to)

And everything is optional. People can leave; people can take a nap; people are invited to show up how they are. And we provide childcare in person or stipends for virtual gatherings. 

At one in Seattle, in person, we literally rolled out the red carpet and velvet ropes for parents and caregivers. Because I think what you do is truly exceptional and glorious and mundane and you should be celebrated for it. 

And they are responsive. We are building this as we go, and it is the foundation of my current creative research - it is my energy and fuel to talk to and share with other queer and trans parents while I try to understand my own questions through artmaking. 

When I first initiated the Queer Parent Convenings in 2020 and began spreading the word about them, I wondered what was particular about them… what did they add to the field? My kid is 7 yrs old, and I’m happy to say that now there are SO many more resources for queer and trans families than I was able to find when we were first trying to get pregnant in 2014. Incredible midwives, doulas, educators, and organizers like…
King Yaa
Intersectional Fertility
Love Over Fear Wellness
Moss the Doula

….offer invaluable support to queer and trans reproductive and family-building needs, touching on so many aspects necessary to the nuances and difficulties of the process and working to educate and increase awareness, especially as both many providers are claiming inclusive care AND reproductive justice and gay and trans parenting is actively threatened. Thank the goddex for them and their work; they deserve your attention, follows, and support so please click the links above. 

So, beyond collating and suggesting those resources, what do the Queer Parent Convenings themselves actually do? It’s not the Queer Parents FB group (also great, and there are many regionally specific groups too) or the Birthing and Breast or Chestfeeding Trans People and Allies FB group. Just to name a few… The resource exchange the Queer Parent Convenings offer is dedicated attention, and attention to the caregiver, informed somatic and bodily attention, sex-positive creative space, and attention to some of the questions that maybe circle around a queer and/or trans parent’s head while they are packing snacks or standing awkwardly at the playground or listening to their kids speak to their peers: 

How do you teach your kids about gender? About queerness? 

What does queerness mean to you? How do you SEE it in your particular brand of family-building and daily life as a now uplifter of young people, a translator of culture for them? 

These are questions about you. About us. About how parenting shapes us back, and the Queer Parent Convenings are an invitation to unpack and stay in the questions TOGETHER. Because the answer is each of our personal experiences and all of them and their differences held together. Coming together in the actualization of many ways to be.

It may sound abstract, but in practice, really deep new relationships have formed out of some of our groups. People meeting up with their kids offline, sharing books, or hiring one of the queer-positive, trans-inclusive birthworkers who was facilitating as their birth doula. 

It’s pretty incredible to be a part of. It is invigorating and daunting and wonderful. To be continued....