Finding Hope for LGBTQ Families in the Face of Hypocrisy and Lies

Several recent attempts to shame and deny LGBTQ families and young people reveal a web of hypocrisy and long-standing lies. Where can we find hope?

In July, the Seattle-based organization Them Before Us, whose stated mission is “defending children’s right to their mother and father,” put up billboards in Ohio claiming that “No child has two dads. No child has two moms,” with rainbow lettering making clear that they were targeting LGBTQ families.

Also in July, Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R) and State Senator Rick Brattin (R), with support from Attorney General Catherine Hanaway (R), said they would seek to block state funding for events at the Daniel Boone Regional Library after it held a “rainbow story time” that included the picture books “Rainbowsaurus” and “Big Wig.” The first is about three kids and their two dads in search of a colorful dinosaur. The latter is about a young drag queen whose wig helps spread confidence at a drag contest.

At a press conference, Hoskins and Brattin said the event was an attempt to “groom” children, and that the books had “a message that’s meant to sexualize” and to normalize a “lifestyle,” reported the Missouri Independent. Even if the event was legal, he added, he would ask the legislature to make sure future rainbow story times would not be.

It seems, then, that simply showing images of LGBTQ families and people, even during a voluntary event held inside a program room at a library, is enough to trigger calls for banning such materials, while putting up widely visible outdoor billboards telling children of LGBTQ parents (and those who have adoptive or foster parents or stepparents) that their families are invalid is just fine. Which is really more harmful to children?

The mistaken idea that depictions of LGBTQ families and individuals in children’s literature are inherently sexual actually has a history going back to the early 1990s, when one school district president opposed a proposed multicultural curriculum for first graders in New York City, claiming that the inclusion of several picture books featuring queer parents would teach children about sodomy.

That myth has lingered. In last year’s U.S. Supreme Court case Mahmoud v. Taylor, several parents successfully sought the right to opt out their children before LGBTQ-inclusive picture books were read in public school classrooms. The plaintiffs implied in court filings that the books in question had a sexual, even kinky, nature—false claims that Justice Neil Gorsuch repeated during the hearings.

Allowing these opt-outs may likely lead to an effective ban on LGBTQ-inclusive books in many schools. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor explained in her dissent, the opt-outs will create an administrative burden on teachers as well as disruptions and absences that could harm children’s learning and development. To avoid this “chaos,” she wrote, “Schools may instead censor their curricula.”

We should remember, however: Book banning is not only about books, but also about suppressing the people whose lives are represented in them. If a book about a two-dad family on a whimsical dinosaur quest is banned, can a kid with two dads talk about what they did on their family vacation? If a book about a drag queen is banned, can a gender nonconforming boy wear a skirt? What about a pink shirt? Will dress-up time be segregated into two genders? Or will schools try to eliminate LGBTQ students and families from their communities entirely?

In fact, some schools are trying to do just that. This November, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, about whether a Catholic preschool in Colorado can receive public funding from the state’s universal preschool program while refusing to admit LGBTQ children and children with LGBTQ parents, in violation of state non-discrimination law.

So some people and organizations are trying to turn away LGBTQ children and LGBTQ families, while others are sending the message that our families don’t even exist, and some are attempting to suppress materials that would show otherwise.

And while many on the far right are citing “parents’ rights” as a reason not to expose their children to depictions of LGBTQ people, many of them also support taking away parents’ right to determine, in conjunction with medical professionals, the healthcare that their child receives, if it involves gender affirming care for a trans or nonbinary child. The hypocrisy astounds.

But LGBTQ advocates are responding.

The Ohio-based LGBTQ non-profit Have a Gay Day countered the hateful billboards by raising nearly $22,000 (as of this writing) to put up similarly designed ones stating “Many children have two dads. Many children have two moms” and ones that said, “You are loved,” over an image of a Pride flag and flowers.

LGBTQ and allied legal organizations are challenging harmful laws at both the state and federal levels. In July, for example, a federal judge granted the National Center for LGBTQ Rights and GLAD Law a preliminary injunction barring the U.S. Department of Justice from obtaining private medical records of minors who received gender-affirming health care at Stanford Children’s Hospital in California.

Family Equality, COLAGE, and Rocky Mountain Equality have been collecting real-life stories from LGBTQ families about the harms of state-sanctioned discrimination, which they may use in amicus briefs or other materials related to the St. Mary case.

Authors, illustrators, and publishers are still producing vibrant new children’s books featuring authentic LGBTQ lives.

And most importantly, LGBTQ families and youth are continuing to show strength and resilience. We know the truth of ourselves and our families and that is what will carry us forward in the face of hypocrisy and lies.

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