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Armed with a slick 162-page handbook and coaching from daylong seminars, gay and lesbian parents across the country are learning to present the most convincing case that their families are normal, even mainstream.

A national training campaign, started in 2005 by Family Pride in Washington, D.C., and ramped up in the past few months, prepares gay parents to be spokespeople and counter critics of the growth in families led by same-sex couples. About 30 parents and other supporters of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights -- plus about 15 children -- attended a training session in San Francisco over the weekend. Los Angeles and San Diego are next.

The campaign to create a speakers bureau of people available to appear in the media and before lawmakers is bearing fruit. A Texas couple who were among the first to complete the training will tell their story on Oprah Winfrey's talk show today.

"The reason we said we would do this is we want people to see we're like everyone else. We're like any other family," said Andy Sutherland-Trevino, 37, who has adopted six children with his partner, Mark Sutherland-Trevino.

At least 250,000 children were being reared by two mothers or two fathers in 2000, according to the U.S. census. Activists say this "gayby boom" proves the ordinariness of families headed by same-sex couples; the challenge now is showing this reality to the broader public.

At the seminar, parents worked to shape their stories into compelling appeals for civil rights. They heard about research on gay and lesbian people who raise children and on the terminology that most appeals to straight Americans.

"Our families are a real political tool," trainer Trina Olson told the group, which included people from a spectrum of ages and ethnicities. The event was a collaboration of multiple family advocacy groups, including the national Family Pride organization and the Bay Area's Our Family Coalition and Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere.

Huda Jadallah, 42, attended the seminar with her partner, Deanna Karraa, 44, and two of their three children. The couple, who live in the Oakland hills, said they were most concerned about anti-gay taunts and other bullying their twin sons are experiencing in third grade.

"I came here to learn so I could more effectively speak to other parents, faculty, to everyone," Jadallah said, adding that being with other gay and lesbian parents emboldens her.

"It's very isolating when you go out there. There are days when I want nothing to do with it, but I can't because my kids are out there hearing it on the playground," she said.

Participants were bombarded with statistics -- some helpful, some misleading: what share of gay couples have kids (one-fifth), what share of lesbian couples do (one-third), and that most households are not led by straight, married couples (but the trainers included all types of households, including single people; of households where children under 18 live, 70 percent are led by married couples, according to the U.S. census).

They heard about using words and phrases that signal what they have in common with people around them -- "being a fair person," "in it together" and "building strong families" -- rather than focusing on gay rights and sexual orientation.

And they talked to one another. About their personal stories of coming out, their children, how much it cost to start their families, how their differences made them alike.

So far, 815 people in 45 states and three countries have volunteered to be trained and speak on behalf of gay and lesbian families, said Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Pride.

"Family is something most people in the country can connect to," Chrisler said. "We're at the point in the battle where we have to pull people emotionally into what our struggles are."

That may require changing the way gay and lesbian people talk about the issue.

Instead of appealing for "marriage equality," parents should talk about what it means to be barred from marriage. The term "discrimination" should be shelved and replaced with the more concrete idea of "hurting," Olson told the parents in San Francisco. And while there are more than 1,000 rights and legal benefits conferred with marriage, conversations about the emotional and social benefits are more persuasive, she said.

The images and voices of families are more appealing than legal and political debates to people who are on the fence about issues like marriage for same-sex couples, said Rodger McFarlane, executive director of the Gill Foundation, a Colorado organization that spends millions of dollars promoting gay and lesbian rights nationwide.

The foundation's marketing research has found that women -- and mothers in particular -- are most effective in speaking for the movement.

"When we're looking for common ground and looking for Americans to understand us, they have to see us and know us, and right now women and moms are more persuasive," he said.

People still tend to react negatively to images of gay fathers with children, McFarlane said.

The gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights movement has for more than 20 years used the "everyperson" to communicate to the broader public, said Richard Burns, executive director of New York's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center.

At national AIDS protests in the 1980s, groups of people from different cities who attended would stay together so media outlets from their hometowns could easily interview locals, Burns said. And plaintiffs in marriage lawsuits and other legal actions are screened by attorneys at gay rights law firms to ensure that their situations best represent the community. But Burns and McFarlane said this is the first time families are being employed to convey the gay rights movement's message.

"Change is going to happen when people realize that person at the desk next to them is gay, and so positioning lay people as media spokespeople is a good strategy because it means the reader can relate to a dad, mom or family as someone they might know," Burns said.

The Sutherland-Trevinos -- whose appearance on Oprah Winfrey's show today will provide many Americans' first image of a same-sex couple -- hope their efforts can counter past drives in the Texas legislature to bar gays and lesbians from foster parenting and adoption. "It's not an agenda; it's protecting my family," Andy Sutherland-Trevino said.