A couple of months ago, I mentioned the case of Gena Edvalson and Jana Dickson, a former couple now involved in a custody and visitation dispute over the three-year-old son they created together through assisted insemination and raised together until their breakup in 2007. Dickson, the bio mom, is now married to a man and […]
Once again, Nancy Polikoff is making me think this week. Yesterday, she managed to inform us of why media treatment of Michael Jackson may indeed have a direct impact on LGBT families: The news reports this morning about the circumstances of the conception of Michael Jackson’s children are suggesting that the information might impact who
This just in: More good news for non-bio moms, to add to the Jenkins-Miller decision I posted about earlier: A California Court of Appeal has denied the latest appeal (PDF) of Kristina S., a biological, “ex-lesbian” mom who has been trying since 2004 to prevent her former partner Charisma R. from being declared a legal
On Monday, I posted happy news of changes to the Uniform Probate Code that would allow for greater recognition of non-bio moms. Lawyer Nancy Polikoff, who was the source of the news, now lets us know of a custody case involving a non-bio mom that has me spitting nails in anger. Leslea and Michelle White,
As many of you know, most LGBT legal experts recommend that every non-bio mom do a second-parent adoption even if she lives in a state that will put her name on the birth certificate of a child born to her partner. (Briefly: adoptions must be recognized by other states; the non-bio mom’s right to be
Lawyer Nancy Polikoff informs us of both good news and bad news this week: First, the bad news: The Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal just ruled that lesbian mom Kimberlee Black is not entitled to joint custody of a child she co-raised for six years. Full custody will go to the child’s biological mother,
Safe Schools After reviewing the suicide of 11-year-old Jaheem Herrara, Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore, a retired Superior Court judge in Fulton County, Georgia, said the boy was “emotionally ruined” by the recent murder of his uncle and the death of his grandmother, and his school was not responsible for his death. The boy’s mother, Masika
Lesbian mom? Split up? Fine, things didn’t work out, but don’t go trying to pretend your former partner and co-parent wasn’t a parent. There’s entirely too much of that going around. The Salt Lake City Weekly just reported on Gena Edvalson and Jana Dickson, who are in exactly this situation. Dickson is the bio mom,
Tragedy: GLSEN reports, “An 11-year-old Massachusetts boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, hung himself Monday [April 6] after enduring bullying at school, including daily taunts of being gay, despite his mother’s weekly pleas to the school to address the problem. This is at least the fourth suicide of a middle-school aged child linked to bullying this year.”
Rockin’ gay dads, another pregnant transgender man, and actual Good News on the political front in a couple of areas this week. First, some food for thought: A new study from the always insightful Williams Institute at UCLA found that same-sex couples are “significantly” more likely to be poor than opposite-sex married couples. Even more
