LGBTQ Parents, Children, and Others Testify on Impact of Outdated Parentage Laws

• Politics and Law, Protecting • massachusetts, milestone, parentage, voluntary acknowledgement of parentage

Queer parents, their children, LGBTQ and children’s rights advocates, and others told Massachusetts legislators Tuesday about the negative impact that the state’s outdated parentage laws have on people’s lives, and called for the state to update its statutes so that all children, including those born to LGBTQ parents, have equal access to legal parentage.

Rainbow family silhouette

I have written before about the details of the Massachusetts Parentage Act (MPA; S.1133 / H.1714), which would offer all children in the state the security of legal parentage, regardless of their parents’ sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, or use of assisted reproduction. Tuesday, the MPA got a hearing in front of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary. Here are some of the stories from those who testified, showing why the bill is so important.

Parents

I will never forget the day I was holding my two-year-old and his little hands were pried off my neck as he was screaming for me.

Karen Partanen, a nonbiological, unmarried parent, told the Committee about being a plaintiff in the 2016 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case Partanen v. Gallagher, in which she had to fight to obtain legal parentage of the child she and her ex-partner had planned for and were raising together. She explained:

Outdated parentage laws said that I was not a parent. I will never forget the day I was holding my two year old and his little hands were pried off my neck as he was screaming for me. The next three years were a grueling custody dispute. My children couldn’t understand why Mommy wasn’t there anymore. Outdated laws that didn’t protect my children forced me to empty my savings, spend my entire retirement fund, and eat from a local food pantry to secure their equal rights through the courts. The SJC decision ultimately did change the law for my children and others. But we never should have had to endure that litigation, and the parentage statutes still aren’t updated. Children are still in limbo as parents try to understand and navigate the system.

If I had been a legal parent when DCF first became involved, my son would never have been in foster care.

J. Shia, a de facto parent, explained:

When I was 19, my then girlfriend gave birth to our son, a child she and I had agreed to raise together. I was his primary parent for the first four years of his life until his birth mother ended our relationship and eventually broke off all contact between us. It was heartbreaking to me and to him. Soon after, I learned my son had been removed from his mother’s home and taken into DCF [Department of Children and Families] custody. I immediately reached out to DCF, but they did not view me as a parent. My son suffered while in foster care, and it took almost two years for me to regain custody through a permanent guardianship. My son is now a wonderful, happy 12-year-old, but I know that a guardianship can be revoked…. There was no law to protect my son when our relationship was threatened, and no other child should have to go through that.

Jessica Sedan, a queer single parent by choice to two children conceived through ART, explained that she had been diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2020. She managed to preserve her fertility and then chose not to wait before trying to become pregnant. She used a known sperm donor who didn’t want to be a parent, but discovered that because she is unmarried, Massachusetts law does not fully protect her sole legal parenthood. She can only do so through a confirmatory adoption of the child she gave birth to. The law, she said, needs to clarify that “gamete donors are not parents.”

Kathy Herrman, a clinical psychologist and parent of a transgender adult son, told legislators that her son may someday choose to become a parent through assisted reproduction, but based on current Massachusetts law, “He will have to go through a lengthy, costly, and humiliating process to adopt his own child,” which will include a criminal background check, a missing child report, and character references. She noted that many people don’t have financial resources to adopt in this way, or to miss work for court proceedings and to file paperwork.

Teens and Grown Children

We should not be shouldering the children of LGBTQ+ parents with even more anxiety about their place in the world.

Jordan Budd, who has a queer parent and is executive director of COLAGE, the national organization for children with LGBTQ parents, told the committee:

I have heard countless stories from COLAGErs about the anxieties they face on a daily basis regarding they legal status of their families. To a child, especially an adopted child with queer parents, there is no greater fear than being taken away from their family…. We should not be shouldering the children of LGBTQ+ parents with even more anxiety about their place in the world. There is not a legislative solution for the eradication of homophobia and bigotry in the hearts and minds of Bay Staters, but with the Massachusetts Parentage Act, you do have the opportunity to give breathing room to thousands of children and their parents.

Emily McGranachan, the child of lesbian moms and the director of corporate and foundation relations at Family Equality, noted that when she was born, only one of her moms was her legal parent. They sought a confirmatory adoption when she was 11 years old, and “I was genuinely worried that they could reject us or take action to harm our family. No child with LGBTQ parents should have to experience this vulnerability, stress, or worry.”

Seventeen-year-old Owen Nichols-Worley, a high school junior, was born to two dads via a gestational surrogate. He was the first child in the state to have two dads on their birth certificate, after a pre-birth parentage petition. He asserted, “What is troubling is that 17 years later, the same laws that made my case historic have not been updated…. We lack clear standards to protect all involved in the surrogacy process, including intended parents, donors, and surrogates.”

Fifteen-year-old Darmany Jimenez asserted that his family is “just as real as any other,” even though his mom is a de facto parent [someone who acts in the role of a parent, with the consent of the legal parent, for a substantial time] and has fewer rights than anywhere else in New England.

Legal, Medical, and Children’s Rights Experts

Where Massachusetts once led … we have fallen far behind.

Polly Crozier, a nonbiological mother and senior staff attorney at GLAD (GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders), which is leading the Massachusetts Parentage Coalition in support of the bill, testified that:

Where Massachusetts once led … we have fallen far behind. Except for important decisions from the judicial branch, our parentage laws haven’t been updated in over 35 years…. The Commonwealth is simply not protecting or fairly treating all children and families, in particular, LGBTQ families and their children are left out of our core parentage protections, forcing them to jump through additional hoops to secure their children.

A parentage framework designed around genetic connection, which is especially common in the treatment of unmarried parents, deprives LGBTQ parents and their children of the respect and security to which they are constitutionally entitled.

Professor Doug NeJaime of Yale Law School, who was the principal drafter of the Connecticut Parentage Act, which passed earlier this year, said the MPA is substantially similar. He told the Committee:

The MPA is child-centered and would meet the state’s constitutional obligations to parents and children, ensuring that children’s parental relationships are protected, regardless of the gender or sexual orientation or marital status of their parents.… A parentage framework designed around genetic connection, which is especially common in the treatment of unmarried parents, deprives LGBTQ parents and their children of the respect and security to which they are constitutionally entitled.

He also explained that current doctrine around de facto parenting is “confusing” and that the MPA “fills important gaps in existing law, giving courts a clear standard and providing more security for children.”

Dean Hutchison, chair of the American Bar Association’s Assisted Reproductive Technology Law Committee, testified that currently, “There are inconsistencies throughout the process” of determining parentage, but that the MPA “will put everyone on the same footing” and give courts “guidelines to make simple, easy, parentage decisions so that everyone has protection and most importantly, the children.”

Nancy Scannell, director of external affairs for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, explained that of the factors that promote healthy development in children, the primary one “is a secure, predictable relationship with a caring and compassionate parent beginning from their earliest days.”

There are more children born through reproductive technologies in Massachusetts than in any other state in the nation.

Dr. Nina Resetkova, a  fertility physician with Boston IVF, noted that 10 percent of her patient population consist of LGBTQ families, up from 5 percent 10 years ago. “There are more children born through reproductive technologies in Massachusetts than in any other state in the nation,” she said, and “It is important to provide [LGBTQ people] some certainty that once they achieve the goal of pregnancy, their children will be rightfully theirs, without legal obstacles.”

In Addition: Streamlining Co-Parent Adoptions

In addition, another Massachusetts bill, the Act to Promote Efficiency in Co-parent Adoption (S.1124/H.1712) (“The Confirmatory Adoption Act”), would streamline the process of co-parent (second-parent or confirmatory) adoption so that parents choosing to obtain such adoptions would not have to having to go through a home study, a six-month waiting period, and other requirements that are not appropriate in their circumstances. (Currently, some of these requirements may be waived, but still require paperwork to do so.) As Massachusetts parent (and author) Sarah Prager testified, “It felt humiliating and frustrating to adopt my own child, who was mine from before Day One—but to have it be such a burdensome process … made it more difficult than necessary.”

Several people testified to the Committee in support of this bill as well, including GLAD’s Crozier, who noted that it is “a really commonsense access-to-justice provision” for those who are already legal parents, but “need that court decree to protect their children from discrimination in other states.” Not all states recognize that LGBTQ families are protected by the marital presumption of parentage [that children born during a marriage are presumed children of both parents], she explained, and therefore “Massachusetts families can cross state lines and put their parent-child relationships at risk.”

Take Action

In addition to the verbal testimony above, the Massachusetts Parentage Coalition has already submitted over 55 pieces of written testimony in support of the MPA. It’s not too late to submit your own testimony in support of the MPA or the Confirmatory Adoption Act—just get it in by Tuesday, November 16, 2021.

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