Tianna Ruffin and Terrika Thomas: Lesbian mothers speak out for Mother’s Day, part 2

_MG_7459

Yesterday, we introduced you to young lesbian parents Tianna Ruffin and Terrika Thomas in part 1 of their interview. Check out the rest of their interview below. – nicholas robinson


Has Anayah ever been teased about her parents?


Terrika: The main thing that I see, like, if I go up to her school or if I’m outside with her and her friends, they start to whisper a lot, like, am I a boy or a girl? Yeah. What gender am I?

Tianna: That’s what most of the kids ask: “Is that a boy or a girl?” And she [Anayah] would say, “She’s a girl!”


How has it been dealing with homophobia in the black community?

Tianna: We got more of the unacceptance [sic] from black men than women.

Terrika: If there [were] black women [with issues], they would be older ones that are stuck in their ways.

Tianna: Yeah, they stare a lot and I don’t have a filter. So, I just say whatever’s the first thing that comes to my mind, like, “Yeah, she’s a girl.” Our problem is normally with black men. They’re like, “You’re too pretty to be with a woman.” I don’t understand what that means, but that’s what I get a lot or the fact that they think that she’s trying to act like a man.

Do you want to get married at some point?

Tianna: I think that we’re probably going to go up north and do it, and then just come back here and have a ceremony … Here, it wouldn’t be recognized. It would still be as if we weren’t married.

Terrika: That’s basically the hard part of everything: it’s being married, but not being able to reap the benefits of being married.

Tianna: I talk to her all the time [saying] “You have to have a will” because even if they don’t recognize the fact that we’re married, and usually when a person dies everything goes to [her/his] spouse, if I have a will and I want these things to go to her, then it’s going to go to her because that’s my will.

Do you have plans on having any more kids?

Tianna: We talk all the time about having in vitro fertilization because she [Terrika] wants her own child along with her family. And the way in vitro works is that they will take an egg from her and they’d fertilize it and insert it in me and I’d carry the baby. That’s what we’re working towards now.

 

Are there any legal concerns with having another child?

Tianna: Once we had our consultation, the doctor was like, “Well you’ve got to get a lawyer and make sure that she [Terrika] has her rights to the kid,” because with me birthing the baby, they’re going to automatically think it’s my baby, even though it’s her egg. So, we have to go through this whole legal process of getting her rights.

Terrika: Getting notaries … just different things. Therefore, if we did decide to breakup or whatever, it’ll be established, the rights of who gets the child … like a heterosexual divorce.

What advice would you give to other same-sex parents?

Terrika: Show them the correct way to love. There are so many different levels to love that a lot of people don’t know or don’t understand or haven’t even figured out. Loving the correct way in my world is loving you for who you are, unconditionally.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Join our Newsletter

Sign up for Rolling Out news straight to your inbox.

Read more about:
Also read