Let’s Get This Straight: The Ultimate Handbook for Youth with LGBTQ Parents

by Tina Fakhrid-Deen with COLAGE                                                            www.sealpress.com

Let’s Get This Straight reaches out to young people with one or more gay, lesbian, bi, trans, or queer parents to provide them with the tools to combat homophobia, take pride in their alternative family structures, and speak out against injustice. This short but thorough book profiles forty-five diverse youth and young adults, all of whom voice their opinions and provide advice for other youth living in LGBTQ households. Let’s Get This Straight also includes probing questions, fun activities, engaging quizzes, and reflective journal sections for youth to share their feelings and experiences about having a gay parent.

By reading this book, readers will learn how to: identify and overcome barriers to having a gay parent; address discrimination and heterosexism; build a strong self-esteem and sense of belonging; communicate effectively with their parents and individuals outside of the LGBTQ community; access resources and support for their families; respond effectively when challenged about being in a sexual minority family; and reduce the isolation, fear, shame, and confusion that can be associated with having gay parents. As the media brings ever-increasing exposure to gay-headed households, this book is more important than ever. Let’s Get This Straight is the perfect blend of wit, sharing of experiences, and “expert” advice that children with LGBTQ parents need to become more self-aware and affirming, and to maintain healthy relationships with their parents.

Let’s Get This Straight is an American Library Association Rainbow Project Book Pick and a Make It Safe Project Book Pick.

Go to Women and Children First bookstore or your local independent bookstore to reserve your copies of the book today!

For more information about Let’s Get This Straight, author interviews, excerpts, and reviews, contact me at tinafakhriddeen@gmail.com.

About COLAGE

COLAGE is a national movement of children, youth, and adults with one or more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer (LGBTQ) parent/s. COLAGE builds community and works towards social justice through youth empowerment, leadership development, education, and advocacy. Tina Fakhrid-Deen has been an active member of COLAGE since 2000 and without their support, could not have completed this groundbreaking work.

For more information about this magnificent and trailblazing organization, go to www.colage.org.

BOOK BUZZ

“In her new book, Let’s Get This Straight: The Ultimate Handbook for Youth With LGBTQ Parents (2010), Tina Fakhrid-Deen encourages youth with LGBTQ parents to reclaim the right to define their own experiences of family, directly countering traditional silence or isolation. Her accessible, passionate text gives such youth, known as COLAGErs, after the organization COLAGE¹ or—more radically—queerspawn,² both the tools and the encouragement to take pride in their families, to value their diverse experiences, and to work against homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of injustice.” — Caitlin Law Ryan, Journal of LGBT Youth, Vol. 9, Issue 4, 2012

“Tina Fakhrid-Deen has written a sensitive, smart, and deeply-honest book about what it means to grow up in any family that looks different from the one man/one woman model. Children with a single parent, transgender parent, same-sex parents, and/or adoptive parents will find empowerment and inspiration in the pages of Let’s Get This Straight. It’s the book I wish I’d had in the late 1970s when my mother came out of the closet . . . and a book I’m delighted to have now.” — Melissa Hart, author of Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood and The Assault of Laughter

“Let’s Get This Straight is a valuable resource that reflects the diverse backgrounds and experiences of youth with LGBTQ parents. Readers will soak up Tina Fakhrid-Deen’s honest and non-judgmental writing style that makes this book both insightful and fun.”
— Abigail Garner, author of Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is

“Tina Fakhrid-Deen has written a smart, honest, empowering, important, and necessary book that will help kids with LGBTQ parents realize that they are not alone and that there is nothing wrong with their families. Rather, the problem lies with our society, which still has a long way to go towards accepting, embracing, and celebrating difference. LET’S GET THIS STRAIGHT is not just for kids with LGBTQ parents. It needs to be read by everyone who believes in equality, social justice, mutual respect, and the inherent beauty of diversity.” — Lesléa Newman, author of HEATHER HAS TWO MOMMIES, MOMMY, MAMA, AND ME, and DADDY, PAPA, AND ME

Let’s Get This Straight: The Ultimate Handbook for Youth with LGBTQ Parents is an insightful, forthright new guide that should find a place in every home with children of LGBTQ parents. Part practical advice, part inspiration, and part workbook, it will also be an indispensable resource for libraries, schools, and youth groups. — Dana Rudolph, founder and publisher of Mombian, review

“This book is a marvelous tool for anyone—especially children (between 10 and 14 million of them are estimated)—who have at least one gay parent …It’s a gutsy, important, useful book.” — Lavender Magazine

“It’s not just queer kids who are bullied at school. Kids with queer parents are often targeted by verbal and physical abuse too, a truth addressed with teen-level eloquence and a powerful mix of wisdom and wit in this invaluable resource. The topic of coping with the senseless stigma of queer parents is a serious one; this handbook, aimed at children ages 10 to 18, handles it with stylish good sense.” — South Florida Gay News

“Let’s Get This Straight isn’t flat, drab words on a page; it’s an interactive experience…it reads more like a copy of Tiger Beat than a handbook–which is, obviously, awesome. However, “ultimate handbook” is truly the best way to describe this comprehensive, highly informative, well, handbook. Covering everything from LGBTQ divorce to coming out stories to how to deal with homo- and transphobia and addressing the questions like “Will I be gay, too?” Let’s Get This Straight is an essential read for youth with LGBTQ parents. Parents, you might just learn something too. — Krista Houstoun, Just Out