I’m thrilled to announce a new anthology available today: RAISED BY UNICORNS: STORIES FROM PEOPLE WITH LBGTQ+ PARENTS. And even more excited that our own Kate Hillyer has an essay featured inside.
In recent years, the world has been saturated by endless blogs, articles, and books devoted to the subject of LGBTQ+ parenting. On the flip side, finding stories written by the children of LGBTQ+ parents is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. Now that the world is more accepting than ever of non-traditional families, it’s time to create a literary space for this not-so-unique, shared, but completely individual experience.
In Raised by Unicorns: Stories from People with LGBTQ+ Parents, Frank Lowe has carefully edited an anthology that reflects on the upbringing of children in many different forms of LGBTQ+ families. From Baby Boomers to Generation Z, it features diverse stories that express the distinctiveness of this shared journey and of each particular family. It’s visceral, raw, and not always pretty, but love is always the common thread.
Lowe candidly reveals true accounts of this particular niche of humanity, while simultaneously creating a moving snapshot of the world in which we live. Raised by Unicorns guides the reader through an empathetic journey that is nothing short of compelling and poignant. We’ve all heard the phrase “raised by wolves.” Now we have a window into the complex world of being Raised by Unicorns.
Now we get to learn more about Kate!
TWP: Tell us a little about yourself, as a wife, mother, lawyer, and writer.
KATE: My wife and I have been together for twenty years. We have three kids, a twelve-year-old girl and boy/girl twins who are nine. I’m a government lawyer, and am also the PTA President and I sit on a community board. I write fiction and poetry, and blog here as well as at From the Mixed Up Files. It’s a busy life! I wouldn’t have it any other way.
TWP: You usually write middle grade and young adult novels. What drew you to writing for this anthology?
KATE: I have written two middle grade books–a contemporary fantasy and a contemporary soccer story. Right now I’m working on a young adult novel in verse. I have on occasion written personal essays, but have never tried writing for an anthology before. I decided to respond to the solicitation for this anthology for two reasons. First, there aren’t all that many of us who grew up with LGBTQ+ parents, particularly from my generation, so it is important for us to share our experiences. Second, my middle grade contemporary has a main character with two moms, and I knew it would be a good way for me to get back in touch with what it was like when I was growing up. I was right; the writing experience was both illuminating and cathartic for me.
TWP: Without giving too much away, can you tell us about your story?
KATE: My mom came out when I was three years old, and she divorced my dad at that time. My brother and I stayed with her and a year later, my mom’s partner Janice moved in with us. They were together until I was in college. Each of them have new wives now, so with my wife’s mom and stepmother, my kids have a total of six grandmothers! It’s great for us–lots of excellent babysitters around. 
TWP: Six grandmothers! I would love that for my kids! Can you tell us what it was like to grow up with LGBTQ+ parents?
KATE: Because I grew up in the Reagan/Bush era, I learned early on to hide that I had two moms. This shielded me from some bullying, perhaps, but it led to other problems–the insecurity that comes from not living authentically, and internalized homophobia. When I got to college, I was in a much more accepting environment, and I was able to work through some of those issues. That was also when, to my surprise, I found myself falling in love with a woman. I had been so focused on hiding my parents’ sexual orientation from everyone, that I hadn’t even considered my own.
When I came out to my mom, she was wonderfully supportive and said all the right things: Take your time. You don’t need to make any big decisions. Just trust your heart. Secretly, to each other, my parents worried that it was because of something they’d done, or that it was a phase. Finally, they realized that they sounded just like straight parents and they ought to leave me alone to figure it out for myself.
TWP: There is definitely more talk and focus on the LGBTQ+ community now, both positive and negative. How do you feel things have changed from your childhood? What has stayed the same?
KATE: When I was a kid, there were no TV shows or books with gay or lesbian parents. It created a sense of isolation and of being wrong or out of place. Now we have shows like Modern Family, as well as books like The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher. My kids are having a very different experience than I did. Once I heard a kid say to my daughter on the playground, when she was four years old, “Are your mom and dad over there?”
She said, “I don’t have a mom and dad, I have two moms.”
Without a blink, he said, “Are your moms over there?”
LGBTQ parenting is known and accepted in way that I could never have dreamed of as a kid. That said, as the Supreme Court decision in Masterpiece Cake, as well as recent increases in violence against LGBTQ+ people show, we still have a long way to go. That’s why I’m so thrilled about this anthology. The more we understand each other’s experiences, the more we can learn to respond to one another with love and acceptance instead of hate or violence.
TWP: That is why I’m so excited about this anthology, too. I believe understanding each other is the key to peace, and the essays in this anthology will no doubt educate by providing insight into other’s lives. Is there anything else you want to share with readers?
KATE: For those interested in helping to make our schools welcome to diversity, I recommend Human Rights Campaign’s Welcoming Schools program. They have book lists, answers to common questions, and lesson plans that promote tolerance and prevent bullying.
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences! RAISED BY UNICORNS: STORIES FROM PEOPLE WITH LGBTQ+ PARENTS is available today and you can purchase it here and here.
KATE HILLYER lives, works, and runs the trails near Washington, D.C. She writes middle grade stories by the light in the attic, and has three kids, one of whom inspired her first book with a whispered, “I take care of unicorns.” Kate is honored to serve as a Cybils judge for Poetry and Novels in Verse. You can find Kate through her website, her book blog, at From the Mixed Up Files of Middle Grade Authors, or on Twitter.
