Focus On My Family

Resource Guide

COLAGE is the only national youth-driven network of people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer
parents. Living in a world that treats our families differently can be isolating or challenging. By connecting us with
peers who share our experiences, COLAGE helps us become strong advocates for ourselves and our families.
1550 BRYANT ST. SUITE 830, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103 (415) 861-5437 WWW.COLAGE.ORG
 2

Focus On My Family
A Youth Created And Edited Zine To Inspire Dialogue and
Raise Awareness about LGBTQ Families From The
Perspective Of The Youth Who Are A Part Of Them

Table of Contents
Topic Page
• Discussion and Activity Guide 2
Introduction
• Fun Facts: Raising Visibility For Youth With LGBTQ Focus on My Family: A
Parents 5
Queerspawn Anthology is a
• Zine Resources 6 collection of writing, art and
poetry by youth with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer parents. Edited by the COLAGE
Bay Area Youth Leadership and Action Program (YLAP), Focus on MY Family is an opportunity for
youth with LGBTQ parents to share their diverse experiences, express their creativity and answer back to
the current debates about the validity of their families.

The youth editors of this anthology assert, “Focus on MY Family allows those of us who actually know
what it’s like to have a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer parent to share our realities. Our
experiences and family backgrounds may be different, but our voices still deserve to be heard, respected
and recognized and we all wish that more people were aware and tolerant of our families.”

This guide provides suggestions for using Focus on MY Family to spark dialogue among young people
and discussions in classrooms, youth groups, gay straight alliance clubs, COLAGE chapters and more in
an effort to promote the visibility of the millions of youth who have one or more LGBTQ parent.
COLAGE also hopes to inspire the use of creative writing, art and zines (Do-It-Yourself publications)
amongst youth everywhere to make a statement and ensure that their voices are heard.

COLAGE is the only national youth-driven network of people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer parents.
1550 BRYANT ST. SUITE 830, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103 (415) 861-5437 WWW.COLAGE.ORG
 Focus On My Family: Resource Guide, 3
Discussion And Activity Guide

Discussion and Activity Guide

Focus on MY Family: A Queerspawn Anthology shares
honest and open voices of youth with LGBTQ parents.
Some of the pieces in this literary collection directly
address the experiences and views of the writers, while
others showcase youth artistic or literary creativity while
subtly touching on the identities of the contributors. Since
the focus of the anthology is on youth voices, this
compilation can set the tone for thoughtful explorations of
a range of topics, including: sexuality and gender identity,
youth relationships to their families, homophobia and
discrimination, experiences of youth in LGBTQ families,
and youth activism.

Who is this for? This anthology can be the basis for a

wide variety of discussions and activities in classrooms and youth groups to address LGBTQ families and
the youth who are a part of them. The following questions and activities can be used as starting points for
conversations, both formally and informally, with your class or group. These activities were developed
predominantly for Middle and High School aged groups; however, we encourage you to adapt them for
use with youth of any age.

General Discussion Questions:

• In what ways are you different from youth who have LGBTQ parents? In what ways are you
similar to these youth?
• How often do you hear homophobic slurs in your school?
• How often do students, teachers, or administrators intervene? When they do intervene, what do
they say?
• Do you intervene in homophobic incidents? Why or why not? What have you done or wish you
had done?
• In what ways do you think youth with LGBTQ parents experience isolation or marginalization in
school, or in society as a whole?
• Which piece did you find the most powerful? Why was it a compelling piece?
• What’s a stereotype or slur that has affected you personally? How do you teach others about it
and/or work to make change in your community?
• Do you know any individuals or organizations who believe that LGBTQ people can’t be good
parents? Why do you think these groups attack the validity of LGBTQ families?
• What other types of families are there that don’t fit the “traditional” model of one mom and one
dad?
Comprehension Activities:

• Assign each youth in your class/group to one of the pieces in the anthology (or ask each youth to
pick a piece in the anthology to which they could relate). Ask them to give it a close reading, and
present it to the class. They can read it out loud to the whole group, then offer observations about
what it means to them, or pose questions they think are connected to the piece.

COLAGE is the only national youth-driven network of people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer parents.
1550 BRYANT ST. SUITE 830, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103 (415) 861-5437 WWW.COLAGE.ORG
 4

Focus On My Family: Resource Guide,

Discussion And Activity Guide
Use the pieces In a Word and Just Talk to begin a conversation about slurs. Brainstorm what common
slurs are heard in your school. Discuss where slurs originate and how they gain power. Have the youth
brainstorm how to react when they hear slurs in their daily lives, as well as solutions for addressing slurs
on school-wide or community-wide bases.

• Have your group read the pieces Confessional and Making the
Minority into the Majority. Lead a discussion about the coming out
experiences of the two writers. Ask the youth to think about ways
that they have had to “come out” about parts of their identities or
other things in their own lives.

• Some of the pieces in the anthology, such as Two Roses and History
of the World, do not explicitly address the fact that the writers have
LGBTQ parents. Why do you think these writers chose to contribute
the pieces that they did? What do they add to the overall collection
of pieces that more directly talk about gay families?

Creative Activities:

• Brainstorm a list of themes or topics that the youth identify from reading the collection. Lead the
group in a free-write exercise on some of these themes related to the anthology, e.g., family,
experiences with discrimination, relationships with their parents. Announce the topic and then
lead the group to write for a set amount of time on that topic.

Ask the youth to write their own literary piece—a poem, story, essay, etc. that shares a unique
part of their identity. Have youth volunteer to read their pieces in front of the group. Work with a
group of youth to publish their pieces, creating a zine of stories and poetry written by youth in
your group.

• Many of the pieces in Focus on MY Family are accompanied by artwork and/or collages. Have
youth select a piece of writing that they have created, or a favorite poem, song, or story. Ask
youth to create a collage background or artwork that complements the piece. Ask each youth to
present their piece and describe why they selected the images they did to accompany the writing.

• Ask the youth to pair up with one another and have each youth design a background or illustrate a
piece written by their partner.

• Using a stencil or template, give each youth a cut-out of a person (or have youth trace the outline
of their bodies onto large pieces of paper). Ask each youth to think about elements of themselves
that people can’t tell just by looking at them—ways they and/or their family is unique, interests
they have, issues about which they are passionate, etc. Using collage, poetry and art, have them
fill in their “person” to represent themselves visually. Display the finished “people” in your
school, community center, library, etc.

COLAGE is the only national youth-driven network of people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer parents.
1550 BRYANT ST. SUITE 830, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103 (415) 861-5437 WWW.COLAGE.ORG
 Focus On My Family: Resource Guide, 5
Discussion And Activity Guide
Additional Activities:

• Ask everyone to imagine specific ways that the world might be different if a majority of families
had LGBTQ parents.

• Have the group brainstorm a list of places where

youth voices can be heard (e.g., school
newspapers, chat rooms, youth magazines, etc.).
Contrast this to the lack of youth voices in the
larger media (use examples, such as that youth are
usually only shown on the news as victims of
crime, or criminals). Talk about why youth voices are
often tokenized or ignored in larger society.
Discuss ways for youth to use their voices to raise
awareness, be activists, make a statement, etc.

• Break your group into smaller teams and give each a challenging situation that youth with
LGBTQ parents might face (e.g., being teased by a friend, hearing slurs in the hallway, having a
teacher assign homework that specifically talks about having a mom and a dad). Ask each group
to brainstorm solutions on individual, school, and societal levels to address the situation.

• Ask the youth to look for newspaper articles, websites or other media sources profiling groups
that are opposed to LGBTQ people having families (e.g. Focus on the Family). Ask youth to
examine what arguments the organizations make against LGBTQ parents or assumptions that the
groups make about youth with LGBTQ parents. Then ask youth to use the pieces in the anthology
and their own opinions to address/debate the views of those organizations.

• Create a mock courtroom or Congress with your group; ask different youth to represent the
varying sides of an issue that affects youth with LGBTQ parents (e.g., same-sex marriage, gay
adoption, homophobia in schools). Have the youth develop their “cases” to support the view of
their side. Hold a mock court case, legislative session or press conference followed by a
discussion of the varying opinions, legal issues and laws related to the issue.

• Watch a movie such as That’s a Family! (GroundSpark, http://www.groundspark.org/) that

discusses family diversity, or Our House (Sugar Pictures,
http://www.colage.org/documentary/index.html), to spark further dialogue about the themes
raised in Focus on MY Family.

COLAGE is the only national youth-driven network of people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer parents.
1550 BRYANT ST. SUITE 830, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103 (415) 861-5437 WWW.COLAGE.ORG
 Focus On My Family: Resource Guide, 6
Raising Visibility
Raising Visibility for Youth with LGBTQ Parents: Fun Facts
In the United States alone, there are millions of people with one or more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or
queer (LGBTQ) parent(s). While research shows that there are no significant developmental differences or negative
effects on children of LGBTQ parents, these youth do report facing significantly more prejudice and discrimination
because of societal homophobia and transphobia. Youth report that schools are a key place where they face
intolerance—from peers, teachers, school administration, and school systems that are affected by the homophobia in
our society. According to a 2001 study, students who have LGBTQ parents experience harassment at the same rate
as students who themselves are gay.

• 6 million to 14 million children in the United States have one or more

lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer parent.
(Johnson and O’Connor, 2002.)

• The 2000 Census was the first time the US Government captured info
re: same-sex households and found that same-sex parented
families live in 99.3% of US counties.

• A growing body of scientific literature demonstrates that children who grow up with 1 or more LGBTQ
parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are
heterosexual. (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2002)

• In fact, not a single study has found children of LGBTQ parents to be disadvantaged in any significant
respect. (American Psychological Association, 1995.)

• People with LGBTQ parents have the same incidence of homosexuality as the general population, about
10%. No research has ever shown that LGBTQ parents have any effect on the sexuality of their children.
(Patterson, Charlotte J. 1992)

• Studies have shown that people with LGBTQ parents are more open-minded about a wide variety of things
than people with straight parents. (Stacy & Biblarz, 2001)

• African-American lesbians are the group within the LGBTQ community that is most likely to be raising
children. (US Census, 2000)

• On measures of psychosocial well-being, school functioning, and romantic relationships and behaviors,
teens with same-sex parents are as well adjusted as their peers with opposite-sex parents. A more
important predictor of teens' psychological and social adjustment is the quality of the relationships they
have with their parents. (National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, 2004)

• Most “problems” that kids of LGBTQ parents face actually stem from the challenges of dealing with
divorce and the homophobia and transphobia in society rather then the sexual orientation or gender identity
of their parents.

COLAGE is the only national youth-driven network of people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer parents.
1550 BRYANT ST. SUITE 830, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103 (415) 861-5437 WWW.COLAGE.ORG
 Focus On My Family: Resource Guide, 7
Zine Resource
WHAT IS A ZINE?
Zines (pronounced “zeen”), are self-published, non-commercial publications created by a variety of individuals for
many reasons. They come in a large variety of sizes, shapes, and persuasions, and are often photo-copied. Zines are
a righteous, radical form of creative self-expression. There are no hard-and-fast standards for zines, but they may
contain one or more of the following: newsletters, journals, comic strips, artwork, photography, collage, poetry,
and/or scrapbooks. The sky's the limit when it comes to production and length—from three pages of glossy paper to
30 pages of grainy photocopies.

The mimeographed poetry chapbooks of the 1940s and '50s produced by the Beat writers and poets of
the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance are generally cited as the most immediate source of today's zines.
In the past two decades, zines have become a popular symbol of do-it-yourself culture with over 20,000 in
existence on a diverse variety of topics.

Zines represent the most democratic of media, requiring not much more than having some ideas or
something to say, a copy machine, and a stapler. Zines can contain passages that are typewritten,
handwritten, or typeset on the computer. Art can consist of photos, clip art, drawings, or collages. A zine
is done as a labor of love, and so all levels of quality are acceptable and welcome.

Zinesters exchange their publications with each other, trade ads, and distribute each others publications.
Many zines also run news and information from other zines, or feature reviews.

For youth, in particular, editing a zine (such as the Focus on MY Family anthology) is one of the easiest
ways to express themselves and allow their voices to be heard. Because almost every element of a zine
is easy for youth to make and reproduce on their own, a zine can be a powerful way to express your
opinions, share your experiences, or showcase art and poetry.

MAKE A ZINE RESOURCES

Behind the Zines, Pagan Kennedy. Seventeen, March 1995, pp. 142, 149. Combines account of
producing a Pagan's Head with practical info about how to create your own zine.

Gurl Guide to Zine Making. An accessible guide about creating, copying and distributing zines for
youth. http://www.gurl.com/findout/guides/pages/0,,625067,00.html

The World of Zines: a Guide to the Independent Magazine Revolution, Gunderloy & Goldberg.
Penguin Books, 1992.

Zine Scene: The Do It Yourself Guide to Zines. Francesca Lia Block and Hillary Carlip. A tribute to and
how-to guide to zines. Girl Press, 1998.

Zines! V. Vale. V Search Publications, 1999.

COLAGE is the only national youth-driven network of people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer parents.
1550 BRYANT ST. SUITE 830, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103 (415) 861-5437 WWW.COLAGE.ORG
 Focus On My Family: Resource Guide, 8
About COLAGE

ABOUT COLAGE and YLAP: COLAGE is the only organization directly serving children, youth and adults
with one or more lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender parents. Based in San Francisco, CA, COLAGE provides
a diverse array of support, education and advocacy programming in order to create a more safe and just world for all
children and families.

The COLAGE Youth Leadership and Action Program was launched in 2002 to provide SF Bay Area high school
and college aged youth with LGBTQ parents a place to find community, to gain skills in leadership and activism,
and to affect political and social changes in their communities by raising awareness about their unique experiences.
In its first year, the YLAP group created That’s So Gay: Portraits of Youth with LGBTQ Parents, and educational
art exhibit and the Respect All Families poster series.

COLAGE MISSION: COLAGE is the only national youth-driven network of people with lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, or queer parents. Living in a world that treats our families differently can be isolating or challenging. By connecting
us with peers who share our experiences, COLAGE helps us become strong advocates for ourselves and our families.

COLAGE VISION: We envision a world in which those of us with one or more lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender and/or queer parents or families are connected to a broad community of peers and mentors,
are recognized as the authority of our experiences, belong to respected and valued family structures, and
have the tools and support to create and maintain a just society.

We envision a world in which all families are valued, protected, reflected, and embraced by society and all
of its institutions; in which all children grow up loved and nurtured by kinship networks and communities
that teach them about, connect them to, and honor their unique heritage; and in which every human being
has the freedom to express sexual orientation, gender identity, and self.

We envision being part of large movements to transform school systems, social services, mental and
physical health systems, media, legislatures, legal systems, and all religious institutions to heal from and
end all forms of oppression, discrimination, bigotry and hatred.

THANK YOU: Focus on MY Family: A Queerspawn Anthology would not be possible without the
generous support of COLAGE members, supporters and funders. YLAP especially thanks:

Arcus Foundation Reva and David Logan Foundation

Gill Foundation Open Society Institute
David Bohnett Foundation San Francisco First Five
Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Families
Horizons Foundation San Francisco Foundation
R. Gwin Follis Fiundation

We also wish to thank Amber Davis for many of the beautiful photographs that appear in the anthology.

COLAGE is the only national youth-driven network of people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer parents.
1550 BRYANT ST. SUITE 830, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103 (415) 861-5437 WWW.COLAGE.ORG