Let’s start the month with a roundup of some stories I haven’t covered elsewhere!
Family Profiles
- Helene Faasen and Anne Marie Thus were the first female same-sex couple in the world to marry legally—and they are moms. The Lily profiled them for the 20th anniversary of the event.
- Arwa Mahdawi writes at the Guardian about being the first same-sex couple in New York to benefit from a new law that allowed her, as the nongestational parent, to get a pre-birth court order of parentage that requires only a short court appearance and eliminates the need for a second-parent adoption (and the associated home study and background check). (I got one of these myself back in 2003 in New Jersey. We were the second couple in the state to do so, and had to petition the court specially for it.)
Politics and Law
- Alabama has repealed its outdated requirement that sex education in schools teach that “homosexuality” is unacceptable, unhealthy, and illegal, reports LGBTQ Nation.
- On the flip side, the Tennessee Legislature has passed a bill that would require school districts to notify parents of any instruction related to sexual orientation or gender identity. Parents would be able to excuse their children from it. The bill awaits Governor Bill Lee’s signature.
- Arizona also passed a similar bill, which Gov. Doug Ducey (R) vetoed, saying it was “overly broad and vague.” He then issued an executive order requiring the advance public announcement of meetings for reviewing sex education courses, and making any proposed sex education courses available for public review for at least 60 days.
- The Nevada Legislature is considering a bill that would allow more than two consenting parents to adopt a child. The Las Vegas Sun profiles one family—two dads and the former wife of one of them—who would have benefited from this. The bill passed the Assembly Judiciary Committee in early March.
- A Namibian court is denying Phillip Lühl, a Namibian citizen, the documents needed to bring his twin daughters home from South Africa, where they were born by surrogate, unless he shows genetic proof that they are his children, reports BBC News. Both Lühl and his Mexican husband, Guillermo Delgado, are on the children’s birth certificates. The men are also trying to get a Namibian court to grant citizenship to their two-year-old son, also born to the same surrogate.
Entertainment
- Singer Kehlani spoke with the Advocate about how she “Carved a Path As a Queer Musician and Mom.”
- Singer Ezra Furman shared on Instagram that she is a trans woman and a mom, saying in part, “I’m telling you I’m a mom now for a specific reason. Because one problem with being trans is that we have so few visions of what it can look like to have an adult life, to grow up and be happy and not die young. When our baby was born I had approximately zero examples that I had seen of trans women raising children. So here’s one for anyone who wants to see one.”