Reading: Abigail Garner October 10, 2005

Abigail Garner, a nationally renowned family rights educator dedicated to queer parenting issues, will give a reading from her book, titled ?Families Like Mine: Children Of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is,? on Monday, Oct. 10, at 7 p.m. at Carleton College?s Gould Library Athenaeum. A book signing will follow. The event is free and open to the public.

Garner was five years old when her own father came out as gay, leading to political and moral debates about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) parenting. As a child, she struggled to come to terms with public reactions to her situation. At the age of twenty-two, Garner began to advocate for the approximately 10 million children of LGBT parents, eventually becoming a nationally recognized advocate.

Garner went on to create FamiliesLikeMine.com, an internet website devoted to helping children of LGBT parents, offering advice and insight into the world of LGBT parenting. Garner also wrote her book as a compilation of interviews and insights from more than fifty children of LGBT parents. The book attempts to discredit the claim that these children grow up to be emotionally unstable, but it does not completely advocate for the popular pro-gay idea that these children grow up entirely like the children of straight parents. In finding a compromise between the two theories, Garner presents the pressures and issues that the children face. As the number of LGBT parents increase in the recent years, Garner?s book on the controversial style of parenting has been called ?compellingly written? by the American Library Association, while the New York Times Magazine says that [the book] is a sort of ?Feminine Mystique? about the children of gay parents, articulating their pride and their struggles with homophobia but also the grievances they have with their families.?

In addition to being a writer, Garner has consulted on a number of gay family issues for organizations, counseling services, political organizations and adoption agencies. The Advocate calls her one of ?the frontline soldiers in the fight for gay acceptance.? She also has been featured on radio talk shows such as National Public Radio?s ?Talk of the Nation? and CNN?s ?Paula Zahn Now.? In 2002, Newsweek published her article on LGBT families and allies, earning her the first place award for Excellence in Journalism for an Opinion Editorial piece, awarded by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. Later that year, she delivered the opening keynote at the True Colors conference to over 1,000 LGBT teens, educators and service providers. As the two-time recipient of the ?Best Column? award by the Minnesota Magazine and Publications Association, Garner also was chosen as one of four recipients of The Loft?s Minnesota Writers Career Initiative Grant to help her market her book and begin work on her memoir.

For more information and disability accommodations, call Carleton?s library at (507) 646-4260.