Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #639420 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-10
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Amazon.com
While hearing "faggot" yelled at you in a high school corridor would upset almost anyone, here is evidence that hearing "Your father's a faggot" isn't nearly as bad, and that you might find yourself levelheadedly retorting, "No, my father's a transgendered lesbian." This unprecedented collection of short memoirs by adult children of gay, lesbian, and transgender parents demonstrates once again that love cannot be policed or regulated, and that the bond between parents and children transcends petty categories. Kelley Conway's "My Mother and the Nun" describes the confusion a 14-year-old girl feels when her mother falls in love with another woman at the same time that Conway herself is beginning to recognize her own attractions to other girls. In Peter Snow's "Acting Lessons," a college boy returns home to find that his parents, who have always been unhappily married, are still together, and in fact are cozied up on the couch watching television with his mother's lover, Jackie. What is missing from this volume are essays by children who were born or adopted into same-sex families. Without this perspective, the memoirs are somewhat skewed, since almost every writer had to deal not only with a parent's coming out but with a wrenching divorce, often caused by that parent's sexuality. Nevertheless, this collection should prove helpful to therapists, youth counselors, and families with gay members, and contribute positively to the debates on same-sex parenting and adoption. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly
The typical adolescent experience of being mortified by one's parents or squeamish about discussing sexuality takes on an additional dimension in this collection of essays by 20 contributors who have a queer mom or dad (or two). The lack of sophistication in these essays is both the book's weakness and its strengthAfor these accounts, many by first-time writers, sometimes unintentionally show with dramatic clarity how at early ages the authors sensed and shouldered their parents' struggles. Among the most poignant stories are one girl's account of her loss of contact with a much-loved nonbiological "mom" after the "mom" and the girl's mother broke up; another girl's memories of her fear of losing her father as he began transitioning from male to female; and the tale of a nervous boy who has been told to "smile and say nothing" whenever asked why his mother lives with a woman. With the exception of Dan Savage, these narrators don't sound like products of the current, proud gay-parenting boom; many are the children of parents who struggled to leave straight lives (and marriages) and to establish new identities later in life. Despite a number of tributes to parents who succeeded in finding themselvesAand remaining sensitive to their children at the same timeAa pall is cast over the book by the many parents who did not talk to their family about what was happening or who retreated into the closet. One reluctantly perceptive nine-year-old, asked how he would define "lesbian," is quoted as saying, "It's something that happens, and kids don't usually like it happening." (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Lisa Miya Jervis, editor, Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture
Groundbreaking, long overdue, thoughtful and moving-an impressive collection not only of remarkable stories, but of remarkable writing.

Customer Reviews

A wonderful collection!
Out Of The Ordinary is a fantastic collection of essays dealing with Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and transexual parents. The level of reading can be hard at time and the book can be very descriptive but otherwise it's a fantasic book about growing up in a family were there is no mom and dad and if there is one of them is not entirly happy. A perfect book for anyone gay or kids with gay parents. A wonderful collection!

Out of the Ordinary lives up to its title
I bought this book for a class I am taking. I'm doing my project on same-sex parenting and wanted to get different points of view on it. This book was more than helpful and provided a good idea of the varying views of children of gay, lesbian, or transgendered parents. Not all of the essays think of their parents as the greatest in the world, which I was surprised at. As someone who was shocked to learn several years ago that someone very close to me was gay, the essays convay many of the emotions that I felt when hearing the "coming out" speech. I know that anyone who is close to somebody that's gay will be able to relate to much of this book.

Out of the Ordinary - gives me hope
As the bi-lesbian poly pagan mother of a small child, I know my daughter will soon encounter prejudice from her classmates at school. My daughter was 3 when I came-out. But she was old enough to remember the awful fights between her father & me before that time, and since my coming-out, she's seen how much happier I am and how much better her father & I get along. So she thinks that its perfectly wonderful that I'm out & proud, she hasn't any pre-conceived prejudices about my being gay, and she's thrilled that I have a good (non-sexual) friendship with her father still, as well as a happy long-term lesbian relationship with my wife, who's a MtF transwoman. (she & I were handfasted in a poly pagan ceremony last year) And even though my daughter knows that our family is far from "traditional" she's very happy that we haven't had to go thru the pain of divorce, nor has she had to be without either one of her parents. I hope that someday she'll read this book and see that there are other kids out there who do have GLBT parents but who suffered a lot more than she's had to because of it. (like my wife's kids did. They were all teens when she came-out and went thru her transition. It took them 10 yrs to mature enough to want to re-establish a new relationship with her) But I also hope my daughter can find some strength in knowing she's not alone. She already knows that she's well-loved by all of us and that we'll support her, no matter if she's str8, bi, gay or TG. (tho' it seems right now that she may be str8, I was much like her at that age too, and I wasn't str8)