I haven’t done one of these housekeeping-type emails in 2012 and it’s long overdue, so here it goes.
1.) California State University, Fullerton – a university in our home county (shout out to the Titans!) – has just launched an extended education course titled “Understanding and Addressing Bullying.” The course’s emphasis is on bullying related to gender identity, gender presentation, sexual orientation and perceived sexual orientation.
It’s the first professional development curriculum course of its kind for education professionals and CSUF is the only university to offer a course like this for credit (read: taking this course may up a teacher’s salary). Better yet? It’s headed up by Karyl Ketchum. Google her. Ketchum is an anti-bullying superhero who I’ve seen at work firsthand. Girlfriend is fierce. Trust.
Know a teacher, school administrator, staff member, district official or school board member in California? If so, please, please, please have them check out this course that they can easily take over summer vacay and be ready to start implementing by the 2012/2013 school year. The fate of kids like C.J. may depend on it.
http://extension.fullerton.edu/bullying/
2.) Thanks to Raising My Rainbow super-fan Tina who, after reading last week’s post, sent me a link to the most fabulous free Disney paper dolls. The doll is Kate Middleton and her options for clothing are all infamous gowns worn by Disney Princesses. C.J. played with Kate and her Disney dresses long enough for me to make dinner and do the laundry uninterrupted…that’s like two weeks in mom-years.
“Kate Middleton’s dress designer is a royally guarded secret, but just imagine if she could walk down the aisle in a dress designed by Disney! Your tea party guests will have a ball fitting Kate into the Disney Princess’ famed frocks, from Cinderella’s wedding gown to Aurora’s twirling pink confection.”
3.) People ask me for resources for raising gender creative kids a lot. I usually have to send a sloppy list of sites and books and articles that have helped me along the way. Then, this popped into my inbox:
http://libguides.bankstreet.edu/transchildren
It’s a research guide that has been created at Bank Street College Library titled “Resources for Families of Gender Variant and Transgender Children.” Little did they know that they just made my life a little easier. Stop by and check it out. It’s a work in progress and they are open to suggestions and feedback.
4.) After my post about those stupid Twitter homophobes, I learned about anotetomykid.com. A Note to My Kid gives the LGBTQ community, their parents, family and friends the opportunity to share their unconditional love with one another through open letters and it reminds members of the LGBTQ community that there is a lot of love and support out there. Check it out, I did and got so involved reading that I was nearly late to pick up C.J. from school.
5.) Some people are still pissed that I don’t show any of our faces on the blog. Some people are so used to it that they have forgotten that we actually have faces. At any rate, if you want to follow – through photos — a family raising a gender creative child you should check out www.hesparkles.wordpress.com. The mom is an amazing photographer. That’s another reason why I don’t include more/better photos. I know a good photo when I see it, I just can’t take one. If I want to produce a reasonably-eye-pleasing-photograph I have to use Hipstamatic on my phone. I haven’t even ventured into the Instagram world yet, much to Uncle Uncle’s embarrassment. I digress, cheers to Noah and his mom. We love boys who sparkle.
6.) What I’m reading this week (or read recently and the weeks are blending together):
A Teen’s Brave Response to “I’m Christian, Unless You’re Gay” on Single Dad Laughing
A Father’s Reaction to His Very Young Gay Son on Huffington Post
7.) Bravo to you if you just read all of that. With all of that “business” out of the way, a new post is coming soon.
Raising My Rainbow 
You’ve provided such great resourses. I’m a high school teacher always looking for new ways to infuse anti-bullying into the day.
I’m going to have to echo what other people have said about pictures. I think that it’s a sound decision to maintain some anonymity. It also adds an air of mystery which I think is an interesting factor. Regardless seeing C.J.’s outfits and reading about his escapades is enough enjoyment. He’s just as adorable faceless.
I don’t understand why people are angry at the lack of faces but hopefully they can get over themselves and just enjoy your great blog.
Because you’re a bright light in the blogging world, I nominated you for the kreativ blogger award. Thank you for sharing CJ and your family with all of us.
Best wishes, monkiss
Thank you so much!!!! I just registered for the CSUF Bullying class–I am a teacher, a CSUF graduate (graduate school), AND a mother of a gender nonconforming 6-year-old boy and have been so eager to learn more about how to prepare my child for what is to come in the near future. I adore your blog–it is so comforting and helps me tremendously. You have no idea how important you are to us parents who have NO IDEA how to navigate through life with our fabulously different children and how to protect them in a such an ignorant, close-minded, and potentially dangerous society. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
would love to see at least excerpt s from the class on line / fb etc
read the one article missed the second going to fix that shortly.
keep up the good, great, totally awesome….Oh to many…You get the idea
love the blog.
…pretty sure my comment was just deleted by wp…at any rate, I’ll try to reconstruct:
Until this post I did not realize you didn’t include pictures on your blog, I think your writing style is incredibly descriptive and I have imagined your cast of characters without actually having seen their face. Plus, i think it’s generally a bad idea to include things like faces, real names, and hometowns on a public blog. Hello, don’t people know what the Internet is?!
I went to high school with Single Dad Laughing and I am so glad you found those posts!!
xox
I didn’t realize until this post that you don’t include photos, I think your writing is superb and really, photos aren’t necessary. Plus, I think putting pictures of your kid, and his name, and your hometown, etc on a public blog is a bad idea. But that’s just me.
I went to high school with Single Dad Laughing, I’m so glad you found him and that particular post.
xox
I love that you don’t include faces and use photos sparingly. I have actually taken a nod from you on my blog, so that I try to not include my kids’ faces. These links are great and the blog is great!
(though I agree, we’d all like to see your fab blow out!) 🙂
I can’t believe people would be angry at you for not including pictures. Not that you guys are necessarily in danger but gender variant, gay and, in my reading, especially trans people are the targets of so much violence! A parent wanting to keep their child’s face off the internet, in the first place, is fine with me, but when linked to a blog about how he loves his dresses and princesses (boy, I hate the disney princesses for girls, gives me really interesting interior dialogues when I hear about C. J. loving them 🙂 then it’s only prudent. Just like you don’t give out your address and tell the world when your kid will be most vulnerable. I’m not questioning your discretion if you ever do want to put your faces on your blog, that’s your decision, you live that life, not me, but I can certainly see why you might not want to!
PS Have you tried introducing him to real fairy tale princesses? There are wonderful versions of the fairy tales that disney ruined. But I suppose it’s the visuals more than the stories? Oh, I will have to think about that, I could find stories, and gorgeous pictures, I’m thinking of the Pre-Raphaelites, lots of their stuff could be seen as princesses. And the covers of Patricia McKillips’s books, an artist named Kinuko Y. Craft. But I can’t think of movies or tv off hand. I was going to link to an amazon page with Dover coloring books or paper dolls of Princess and Queen Elizabeth I that my sister and I loved as kids, along with other historical figures, talk about fabulous dresses! But you can now get not just Princess Diana, but a British Royal Family from 1994 and now a Kate Middleton one. I just can’t get behind that, too much of a communist and feminist 🙂 Dover Books has wonderful coloring and craft books for very cheap though, and stuff you might want to do yourself if you like crafting. Lots of their stuff is from public domain and is just beautiful.
And this became a ridiculous long thing! Ignore or delete as you prefer!
I actually just realized you didn’t include pictures/faces last post when you mentioned your blow-out…I wanted to see pictures of your hair!
Thanks for the work putting together these links! They are great!!
C.J. might also like this site, Doll Divine. They have a princess maker (that, as a 23 year old, I spent WAY too much time on…) where you can make your own princess in varying skin tones, hair shades, and body types, and then dress her up however you want! It’s really fun.
Just for the record, I really respect that you don’t include faces in your blog. I think it frees things up, allowing discussions to happen that certainly draw on personal experience but are not just individualized, separate stories. By focusing on how the pesonal and political are intertwined, you ask important questions that we all need to ask ourselves our own lives.
A friend of mine forwarded this to me. I realize they are asking for money- but it still sounds like a very interesting project. Thought you might be interested too.
I always love reading about CJ! I kinda want some Kate Middleton paper dolls myself!
My clinical supervisor also supervises therapists at the Gender Health Center in Sacramento. They specialize in low cost counseling services for LGBT, but especially for the T. I’ll be passing some of these links on to him, so thanks!
Thanks for the links-you’re a gem.