Quick Hit: The Rainbow Letters

Remember Zach Wahls? He’s the young man who, in 2011, stood up at an Iowa House of Representatives hearing to testify against amending the state constitution. The proposed amendment would have made same sex marriage, once again, illegal in the Hawkeye State.

Of course you remember him, because you probably remember tearing up while watching this video. You might also remember that some of us at Feministing felt the urge to immediately propose marriage to him.

Now, Wahls has teamed up with another young person raised by queer parents, Julia Winston, to compile The Rainbow Letters, a series of letters from people of all ages who were raised by queer parents.  “Growing up as the children of LGBTQ parent(s),” they write, “we often felt alone, isolated, and incapable of talking about our families. As adults, we now know that we were not alone. Our mission is to build a community of people who can draw strength, encouragement, and inspiration from each other by writing, reading, and sharing letters.” Winston and Wahls are partnering with COLAGE and Our Family Coalition to “introduce authentic portraits that defy convention to illustrate that differences truly are okay, and that there’s no such thing as ‘normal’ when it comes to family.”

A bunch of those letters will be published in a collection next year.  Here’s one that’s already been submitted, and it’s gorgeous.

rainbowletters

If you or someone you know have or had at least one LGBTQ parent, click here to learn more about submitting a letter.

Avatar ImageChloe Angyal came out of the womb opinionated.

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Chloe Angyal is a journalist and scholar of popular culture from Sydney, Australia. She joined the Feministing team in 2009. Her writing about politics and popular culture has been published in The Atlantic, The Guardian, New York magazine, Reuters, The LA Times and many other outlets in the US, Australia, UK, and France. She makes regular appearances on radio and television in the US and Australia. She has an AB in Sociology from Princeton University and a PhD in Arts and Media from the University of New South Wales. Her academic work focuses on Hollywood romantic comedies; her doctoral thesis was about how the genre depicts gender, sex, and power, and grew out of a series she wrote for Feministing, the Feministing Rom Com Review. Chloe is a Senior Facilitator at The OpEd Project and a Senior Advisor to The Harry Potter Alliance. You can read more of her writing at chloesangyal.com

Chloe Angyal is a journalist and scholar of popular culture from Sydney, Australia.

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