Intimate Activism

Moving to Denver

2006-12-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving always sparks a bit of reflection on my part. In my memory it was my visit to Denver in 2000 over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend that cemented my decision to leave graduate school in Santa Barbara and move to Denver to join Allison and Lisa in raising Zian.

But when I turned to my journal from that year, what I found subverted my own memory. It was not on Thanksgiving that I made this decision. It seems I had made it much earlier, although I'm not clear as to when I actually shared my new conviction with Allison and Lisa.

Here is my entry from August 1, 2000, the day that Lisa called me with the news that Allison was pregnant:

This morning began with a surprising yet expected phone call--Lisa's voice in my ear--I--struggling out of sleep's haze--realized she said--Allison peed on a stick this moring--and there's a faint blue line ... a few moments passed before the importance of those words resonated through me--It seems quite likely that Allison's pregnant!!! I'm dumbfounded, in awe, bursting with joy--full of hope, a little scared,--but whew! what an announcement. My only disappointment--I wish I could be there ... somehow it feels more and more likely that I will be moving to Denver sometime soon ... not in this year, but once this baby is here--how can I stay away? Thoughts are racing through my mind--can transfer into Boulder? Can I be a long distance student? Can I finish my MA and take time off--a leave of absence and return in a few years? So much to think about ... What a morning to remember--Tuesday, August 1, at 7:15 am, Lisa Lusero called to tell me our family may very well have begun ... How fabulous!--Sometimes the world does make sense after all. Ugh--now I have to wait three or four days--until Al takes another test to confirm--must have patience--yet all I want to do is jump on a plane and go visit and celebrate ... !

What a morning ...

Turning to the pages from Thanksgiving of that year, I find myself visiting Denver, to join Allison and Lisa for the ultrasound appointment. In this entry, my impulse to move to Denver is evident, yet troubled by indecision, by uncertainties not about my interest or commitment to parenting or to our family but about graduate school, teaching, writing--my professional life. Here are few excerpts:

November 20, 2000--Flying from Phoenix to Denver--in two days we shall know the sex of our baby--we will see a picture of the new life inside Allison--I can't even imagine--so much seems to be shifting--settling in unpredictable ways. Allison, Lisa, and myself--we are going to be parents--and I feel so drawn to Denver--an urge like never before to move out--these next months will confirm so much I believe--I yearn for the solid depth of community of love of family and connection that Denver offers--I only hope it's not nostalgic illusion--I'm sure it's not entirely--and I'm sure it partially is--but the question I can't help but ask--as this child begins to form into its own self--how can I not say yes! yes! yes! to it?

And yet the next day, even as I record my growing fondness for Denver and sense that I would enjoy living here, I still register a sense of indecision:

November 21, 2000--I still feel uncertain about leaving UCSB--as if I do not know what I want from more reading--I've thoroughly enjoyed the teaching I've done this quarter--I could really grow into this role--so I question myself, how important is the PhD? How important is it from UCSB?--How hard will 10 weeks next fall really be?

As I copy out these passages from my journal, which only begins to suggest the level of intense self-conscious interrogation that I seemed to have subjected myself to, I wonder, what was I saying to Allison and Lisa at this time? How much of this internal process did I share with them? At what point did I actually say, "I'm moving to Denver?" The entry from 11/21 suggests that I had already planned to work for Aaron transcribing the conference into a book over the summer, so how much had I committed to at this point? Did we even know?

--Geoffrey

More Traditional

2006-07-02T23:41:00.000-07:00

In our holiday card this year we sent a picture of the six of us; the dads, the moms, and the kids. Somewhere in the accompanying letter I referred to us as a "non-traditional" family. It was just an easy, catch-all term. I didn't think twice about it. Until my cousin Lou (who is more like a youngish grandfather than a cousin) wrote us a card and said I shouldn't refer to my family as non-traditional - because it would allow people to give us less respect. It was an interesting perspective that I hadn't thought about. It was sweet. I think he was trying to say that our family deserves respect, that we're just a family like any family.

But at the same time, my feathers ruffled, I don't want to be a family like any family. It is different to share parenting with three other adults, and we are queer, and it's the combination really, that makes us a non-traditional family. But then it struck me, maybe I should refer to us as a "more traditional" family. I think our family is more akin to the extended family network than the more recently developed nuclear family. It's been more common throughout history and across cultures for kids to be parented by multiple adults, and not just one or two. It's been traditionally common for adults to live in collaborative teams of more than just two; parents and grandparents living together, sisters, clans...

The nuclear family was a limited response to a set of social factors including industrialization and imperialism and the moral values that accompanied those things during the 20th century - and it has been for many, an imagined and unattainable ideal (though, oddly enough, all four of us co-parents come from quintessential, intact, nuclear families). The shape of families continues to chafe against our cultural values in the 21st century (check out http://www.contemporaryfamilies.org/index.php). In the face of impossible pressures to the nuclear family, part of how I want to distance myself from that so-called "tradition" is by modeling a more sustainable alternative. And not in a way that romanticizes history or other cultures in other contexts, but in a way that addresses the reality of our world, now. It's common for parents on the playground to sigh when they hear about our family arrangement, and say, "I wish I had two more parents to help out." While, at the same time, they totally resign themselves to the cultural-committments they have made. They know that any other choice would have been too queer; other options, just aren't options for them.

Some people rationalize the added work of coordinating with more adults and say "I just couldn't do that," some even think through it enough to know that the emotional maturity of sharing a kid would be too much for them. Still others have a sense of what it really means from the blended families they already navigate as a result of divorce, and then imagine what it could be like if everyone "got along." I always make a point of saying it does take extra coordination and emotional maturity - I would hate for someone to run headlong into co-parenting with rosy goggles, and sometimes I even get a little snobby and think, "you're probably right, you don't have enough emotional maturity."

But then I am reminded of the fact that what we're doing isn't fancy, it's just a fact of life. Kids need lots of adult support. And kids wil wrangle as many adults into their corner as they possibly can. It's what kids are built to do. It's a necessity. Some people pay for extra adults, for others, the extra adults appear as extended-family, or teachers, or coaches, or best-friends' parents, the list could go on and on. You're probably co-parenting as we speak! It's impossible for any one, or two, or even four parents to meet all of the adult-needs of a kid, alone.

Though I would have thought my partner and I could handle it. If our parents could do it, couldn't we? There was never a doubt in our minds that we could cover it... Until we were actually here! Both working full-time, going back to school even, trying to maintain a relationship, have a life! How do people do it?!! It's INSANE!! I can't believe that it is our family that is scrutinized. I can't believe that it is this kind of family set-up that perplexes and befuddles. I think my cousin Lou was right, using the word non-traditional sets us too far outside of what's what. This isn't some sort of priveleged-deviation, something people with too-much education and theoretical-underpinnings do - this is just what it takes; people need people, plenty.

-Lisa

He's not my ex-husband

2006-07-02T23:21:00.000-07:00

People have mistaken me for a lot of things. They have mistaken me for my partners son, they've mistaken me for a vegetarian, they've mistaken me for "non-hispanic white." But never before, had I been so horrified, so dumbstruck as when I was mistaken for Geoff's ex-wife.

Rarely has anyone ever had the chance. We tend to be so pre-emptively "out" about the structure of our family. But as the kiddos get older, we can control these social contexts less and less. It was my first time picking Zian up from karate. Geoff had taken him before. And when I found myself talking to another parent, who had spoken with Geoff at earlier classes, I just assumed she had all the information - she new where we lived, gestured to our shared duplex, and then said, "Yeah, I met your ex-husband last week."

My eyes must have bulged out of my head. I remember thinking, "That is just so wrong in so many ways" I wasn't sure where to begin, so I just said, "I don't have an ex-husband." And she stuttered and I stuttered and then, within a second the situation was cleared up as I said something like, "We're gay. There's two dads and two moms, and the dads live on one side and the moms live on the other and the kids have one big house."

I know it's ridiculous. I can see where she added up the pieces and came to that conclusion, and she was being so friendly and kind about that notably non-traditional situation as it was! But I couldn't stand it, being so heterosexualized, it was like a slap in the face, I had a visceral, physical response and it was a horrible feeling. As I recount it I almost feel heterophobic about it (apologies to all the belvoed hetersexuals in my life, my parents, not least of all). That matra which first came to mind plays over and over, "That is just so wrong in so many ways." It was as if the "ex" part added insult to injury, that I could be both married and divorced in one simple phrase - I saw my alternative heterosexual life flash before my eyes - so wrong, so wrong! The story was just so wrong.

-Lisa

Learning to love princesses

2006-07-02T22:19:00.000-07:00

I never loved princesses. Though I always loved costumes, and would be just as happy to wear a grand satin gown as the scrappy duds of street-urchin, I can't recall ever having a fondness for princesses. I was never particularly moved by any Disney beauties, and certainly, NEVER created elaborate fantasies where I imagined myself one of them. As a kid I was in a children's musical called "The Near Sighted Knight and the Far Sighted Dragon" where I played a princess who wanted to be a Civil Engineer. This was more my speed.

Somewhere along the line I have developed my queer sensibility enough to appreciate the fact that some folks think satin gowns are just fabulous. I have been able to grasp this in an intellectual, open-minded way - enjoying the fact that people are turned on by the darndest things. But until that little tyke with the Oedipal affection fell in love with princesses, I really didn't get it. I'm not sure I get it still - but I am beginning to see more.

Eliot and I like to play "Princess DeLila" - he's the princess and I'm her mom, "Queen Poinsettia." I can see that in playing "Princess DeLila" Eliot has access to a whole world of play-domestic-drama that was never denied me as a child, a kind of play that I never imagined life without. He helps me remember a bit about what was there to be learned in the dressing up of dolls, or in the dressing up of myself. And not just that - he helps me reexamine a way of being in the world as a child that I totally took for granted as a girl. Though I didn't love being a girl, and often found the limited expectations of girls annoying, I don't think it pinched me as much as being a boy who likes to wear dresses would pinch.

I had a lot of options growing up as a girl in the second-wave of feminism. The range of appropriate girl-behavior was pretty darn wide, actually. I could have short hair (like Dorothy Hammil or Mary-Lou Retton), I could play sports (though my desire to play tackle football was on the edge), I could wear pretty much anything (though I did at times HAVE to wear dresses and I was expected to exhibit at least some femininity at regular intervals), and I could imagine myself in pretty much any profession or role, from nurtuing mother to football star (okay, well, I could imagine that, even though I knew it wasn't likely, it was still within the realm of imagination).

At a recent family party - where Eliot decided to wear not one - but two of his fanciest dresses - more than one of the gay men in attendance pulled me aside to say how amazing it was that we let Eliot wear dresses, that their moms hadn't let them though they'd always wanted to, and what good parents we were for celebrating our kiddos for who they are. And you know, it was good feedback - becasue it is hard. Eliot's appreciation for princesses has really pushed the envelope of appropriate gendering - and he's only three! You'd think there would still be a lot of room for innocent play at that age - but I've come to discover even more gender policing of the toddler set than I could have imagined.

As long as gender-bending play is well contained - as in a limited time-frame, or in a specific context (the costume corner) it's a little unusual, but basically okay (at least in this major metro area). But if that play leaks over into regular life (despite the fact that, for a three year old, play and imagination are a 24-7 part of regular life), well, that's just too much - it's a pretty firm line, you're not supposed to let little boys wear dresses, especially not in public, and especially not in non-costume contexts - this is what all the looks in grocery stores, and comments in the park communicate.

I was with the kiddos at an indoor playland one day, and Eliot was wearing pink sweatpants. I overheard another parent comment on him saying, in reference to the pants, "That better not be a boy."

But it is, my little boy in fact, and if I was a queer activist before hand, this has made me into a raving-queer-mama-bear with huge swiping claws ready ready to defend my cubs with every last ounce of snarling intimidation. And not just my cubs, but every little queer kiddo who wants to wear a dress but doesn't have parents with enough information or courage to let him. That better not be a boy, huh? You gonna tell on me? Rat me out to the gender police? Bring 'em on, lady! I'll call in all the little boy princesses, and all their big sisters and big brothers and the few raving-queer-mama-bears out there and we'll whip up a playground version of Stonewall in a second.

But you know - I don't blame those parents. Because to let your little boy wear dresses in public is a queer decision. It's easy to just not let him. There are a million random reasons we say "no" to our kids, so its easy to just add another without feeling guilty or like you're squelching you're child's true self. I have had moments of feeling lazy and tired and like I don't want to be that queer on this particular trip to the grocery store. And sometimes I have to think about three other parents and chosen family and extended relatives who may not want to be that queer either (not to mention his older brother, who seems, more than anyone to appreciate and enjoy Eliot's feminine gender play, because it seems to reinforce his own GARGATUAN masculine-indetification). So I don't blame folks who don' have a raving-queer-mama-bear in their family to stand up for the little-boy-princesses, because that's just about what it takes. And I had no idea, until I found myself here. Despite years of queer resistance and gender non-conformity, I had no idea it could be so hard.

- Lisa

What to call a queer co-parenting family?

2006-06-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

What do you call the lesbian mothers of your children who live in the other half of your duplex and are also two of your best friends? My father refers to them as my lesbian wives. Technically, this is not far from the truth, but the polygamous marriage lingo still unsettles me. Perhaps, Allison and Lisa are best described as my lesbian co-parenting partners? Ugh, sounds too much like the name of committee. I yearn for something sassier, clever, but still reflective of the profound commitment I and my partner have made to these women and they to us, not to mention our collective commitment to our two children.

* * *

Even after five years of parenting together, introductions are still awkward, sometimes painful:

“Hi, I’m Geoffrey. This is my partner, Mark. And this is Allison and Lisa ... Zian and Eliot's mothers."

Although I use this phrase often, it doesn't begin to account for the complex role they play in my life.

I try a more flippant approach: "... the lesbian moms.”

Concise, but so reductive, so awkwardly homosexual.

What about: "... our neighbors.”

Technically true, but so wrong.

Then I imagine the outrageous: ".. the obsessive objects of our sons’ Oedipal affections.”

Irreverent and certainly not appropriate for all occassions, but therein lies a bit of complex truth.

* * *

A few months ago, when I was picking up our five year old son, Zian, up from Karate, I introduced myself to a mother I recognized from the neighborhood. I explained that we lived across the street in the duplex and that my partner and I lived on one side, the boys’ mothers lived on the other, and that the boys’ bedrooms connected, so in essence they had one gigantic house with four parents, while the parents preserved their own couple-privacy. She nodded in understanding and even gave the now common response of congratulating us on how we’ve arranged our lives (more on this strange phenomenon later), but the following week, when she was talking with Lisa, she referred to me as Lisa’s ex-husband. I can still see the speechless shock wave that crossed Lisa’s face as she told the story to me.

We’re family, we’re deeply connected, we’re extremely intimate in our parenting, our domestic lives, our finances even. But there really doesn’t exist the right language to easily convey who we are and what our family is all about to most people. Hence, the idea for this book.

--Geoffrey

Why I love princesses

2006-06-22T19:44:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I came home from teaching my gay and lesbian literature class and as I walked in the backdoor, our youngest son Eliot, who is three years old, was twirling in the middle of our kitchen, wearing his white satin dress-up dress.

“Daddy, isn’t my dress beautiful?” he squealed.

I smiled at him and emphatically agreed.

There have been many such moments in Eliot’s and our life in the past months. (Consider a similar moment when my partner, Mark, came home from work one day and Eliot ran to him equally delighted about the sparkles in his pink dancers dress—“Papi, look, it sparkles!” Or Eliot’s proud declaration during bath time of his “booty-vagina.” Or his excitement in inheriting a girl cousin’s hand-me-down clothing: in a matter of minutes he had tried nearly a dozen of outfits and finally swooned over the pile of them. This from a child who often desists in dressing himself.)

Decidedly femme in his aesthetic preferences, Eliot is showing early signs of his own queerness. In a family like ours—a queer co-parenting duplex model of shared but separate domestic life with two gay dads, two lesbian moms, and a five year old brother who is a light saber loving bundle of physical energy—Eliot’s interest in dolls, fancy decorations for his room, clothing that our culture typically associates with girls, pastels, and listening intently to adults’ conversation doesn’t really stick out, but in subtle ways it’s striking to me how queer our youngest son already is.

And to be honest, I feel slightly anxious, but also incredibly honored. Let me explain.

For example, when I take Eliot out to the park or the grocery store and he wears a dress or even a shirt with pink ribbons on it, I have to admit that I do wince inside when person after person mistakes him for a girl. Or when they realize he is a boy and for a brief moment a flicker of something—is it judgment? is it confusion?—flickers across their face. I know that I do a hefty amount of projecting in these moments; for the most part, I know Eliot is aware of his own difference, but to what extent I’m unsure. He appears to sashay through such moments oblivious to the world’s sly, knowing looks. I hope this is so, at least for now. He is only three, after all.

But let me be clear, I am not embarrassed or ashamed of Eliot or the way he manifests his own gender (or is it sexuality?) at this point in his life. It brings him such joy to wear dresses, pink leggings, and Dora underwear that as a parent, I can’t help but celebrate his desire to dress in a way that he enjoys. What I am profoundly aware of is how rigid our culture is about gender, even for young children. True, nothing has happened to Eliot, outside of a few comments from a few people who express their not quite hostile, but decidedly unfamiliar sense of incongruity at a young boy wearing a pink flouncy tutu. What I am aware of and anxious about is both how others will continue to respond to Eliot and the rest of us. Will Eliot somehow manage to bring it off and naturalize his own choices through the sheer force of his personality? Or will his first year in our neighborhood pre-school squelch his creative flair for life?

More personally, I also worry—not a lot, mind you, but enough—about how my role as a gay father is evaluated by the queerness of one of my sons. This is a very understated worry, more like an occasional prickle underneath the skin, but it exists, and I want to confront it head on. Being a gay parent in our particular community has been relatively easy so far, but I never lose the feeling that I am somehow on, somehow performing, somehow representing the cause. In a state that might ban same-sex marriage this fall, it’s hard not to feel a bit scrutinized even during simply daily activities, like grocery shopping or taking the kids swimming at the local community pool.

Let me close this entry, though, with a much more positive assertion: parenting Eliot gives me a fierce sense of pride as a gay man. To be the father of young boy, who, no matter how this gender difference develops later in life, expresses his desires in toys, clothing, and games that most people only imagine girls to be interested in, is quite an honor. In a culture that still remains murderously opposed to all forms of gender and sexual deviation from heterosexual norms, being able to love and help cultivate Eliot’s own sense of self as free as possible from the restraints of our culture is miraculous. It certainly was not something I experienced as a child. I realize that this is every right wing, fundamentalist’s nightmare—a gay man announcing his defiant pride in the possibility of raising a queer child—but if we won’t step up and defend our children’s right to be free to become whoever and whatever they desire, then who will? Not only is my commitment to my sons (more on Zian, Eliot’s older brother, in my next posting) an honor, but I consider it an ethical obligation, a parenting duty, to help them cultivate their identities, as queer they might end up.

As Eliot asked me one afternoon as we were coloring pictures of Barbie princesses, “Daddy, what do you like about princesses?”

“Well,” I answered, “They’re pretty, and they wear fabulous dresses.”

He nodded, taking it in with a serious look, and continued to color.

Oh, Eliot, there is so much I love about princesses. I can’t wait to show you more.

--Geoffrey