When Brenna Harding thanked "two women, my beautiful mothers" at the Logies, she was given a warm round of applause and was inundated with messages of support on social media.
"It's very nice to know that our society has progressed," Brenna said shortly after her win. "Even on Twitter where anyone can say whatever they want, there was no mention of it being a bad thing. All there was, was comments saying they've raised her so well. It was nice to have no backlash at all."
The Puberty Blues star first appeared on TV with her mums in an infamous episode of Play School which aired in 2004 and was quickly dubbed "Gay School". Prime Minister John Howard slammed the episode, labelling it "foolish" and some letters claimed the episode had "robbed children of their innocence".
Families have always come in many different shapes and sizes but it's only now that same-sex couples can raise children without the stigma of the past. If Brenna Harding isn't an example of brilliant parenting, then we don't know what is. She's an example of a very important fact – children flourish in loving and supportive families, regardless of whether they have two mums, two dads or a mum and a dad or a completely different family structure.
Brennas parents are biological mum Vicki and her partner Jackie Braw. Brenna has long been an advocate for normalising the concept of same sex couples raising children, co-authoring children's books, campaigning for gay rights and recently contributing an essay about her family to the Griffith Journal of Law and Human Dignity. It's called Same-Sex Citizenry: The Growing Pains of a Teenage Daughter. In the essay she writes the following:
In this essay, I want to convey the complete satisfation I have with my family's construct. I am a product of my environment, my family structure, our culture, the community in which we live and my parent's sexuality. I represent a new generation that has discarded often discriminatory traditional family values in favour of inclusive, co-operative, accepting, empathetic and exciting values that reflect our diverse society.
