Put another one in the win column. Michigan’s State Board of Education yesterday approved new state health education standards that include LGBTQ relationships and gender identity in the sex education curriculum. The standards are guidelines, not requirements, but send an important message of inclusion.
As my interfaith family heads towards Passover and Easter, holidays of hope, renewal, and freedom, I’m thinking about recent wins that LGBTQ families have had despite a climate of rising anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and action.
This roundup looks at further negative impacts of recent executive orders, but also at another lawsuit against them, the introduction of positive legislation in two states, and some celebrity moments of queer joy.
All children gain security and benefits from legal ties to their parents. Yet children with LGBTQ parents, and those born through assisted reproduction, lack clear and simple ways to establish legal parentage in many states. Two key advocates in Michigan’s successful recent effort to make parentage laws more equitable and inclusive shared advice with me that they hope will help other states do the same.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) has signed legislation updating the state’s parentage laws to reflect the many ways families are formed today and equally protect all of the children in them, including those with LGBTQ parents. At least three other states have similar legislation pending—though many others lag behind.
The Michigan legislature yesterday passed the Michigan Family Protection Act, a bill package to decriminalize contractual surrogacy and to ensure that all children born via assisted reproduction—including those with LGBTQ parents—can have equitable access to legal parentage ties from birth, including via a simple acknowledgment of parentage form.
Catch up on some LGBTQ parenting news stories I haven’t covered elsewhere, including legislative moves (positive and negative), profiles of lesbian, gay, and trans parents, and more!
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled Monday that nongenetic LGBTQ parents who were unconstitutionally denied the right to marry may seek custody of children they were raising with former partners.
The state of Michigan must continue contracting with child service agencies that discriminate against same-sex couples, according to the settlement this week of a long-running case whose outcome rested on a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court decision. The state’s Children’s Services Agency nevertheless reaffirmed its commitment to supporting LGBTQ people who want to foster or adopt or are already doing so.
Last week, the Michigan Court of Appeals recognized that both women in an unmarried same-sex couple, one the genetic mother and one the gestational mother, have parental rights. This is a clear victory—but the ruling also indicates what is still needed for even fuller protection of all families, no matter who’s in them or how they are formed.
