Attorneys have been inundated with requests for adoptions, a safeguard some queer households are utilizing to verify they maintain parental rights to their nonbiological children earlier than a second Trump administration that will be hostile to LGBTQ+ folks.
by Chabeli Carrazana, for The nineteenth
After three rounds of fertility therapies, Haley Swenson and her spouse, Alieza Durana, had a child boy in March 2023. As a result of Swenson carried their child and was the organic mom, solely she was seen because the father or mother within the eyes of the regulation. Durana must undertake her personal son.
That course of is pricey—not less than a pair thousand {dollars}—in order that they put it off as the prices of elevating an toddler mounted. However the day after Donald Trump was reelected, the couple felt a brand new urgency: Would the incoming administration strip away their rights to name themselves mothers? They needed to severely contemplate taking additional steps to make sure their baby would, legally, at all times be thought-about theirs.
Forward of a second Trump administration that’s more likely to be hostile to LGBTQ+ folks, queer dad and mom throughout the nation are calling attorneys and researching how they will defend themselves within the occasion {that a} Republican-controlled White Home and Congress makes an attempt to strip again protections for LGBTQ+ households.
Venture 2025, the 920-page doc that lays out priorities for a second Trump time period, envisions a federal authorities that uplifts households made up of a married mom and father, whereas undermining LGBTQ+ dad and mom. Insurance policies targeted on supporting LGBTQ+ fairness “should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families,” the doc states. The courts may additionally take up LGBTQ+ fairness instances. When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, Supreme Court docket Justice Clarence Thomas indicated the court docket could contemplate revisiting different instances, together with Obergefell v. Hodges, which secured marriage equality for LGBTQ+ {couples}.
“It’s unclear what they want to do, and that lack of specificity is what’s really scary if you’re a queer parent because you don’t really know how to protect yourself,” Swenson stated. “So since we know there was this one thing we could do to protect ourselves, and we hadn’t done it yet, it was like, ‘OK, there are so many unknowns—let’s at least take care of what we can.”
After the election was known as for Trump, Swenson and Durana gathered all their paperwork and typed a letter to their closest household and associates, asking them to assist collect the funds to retain an lawyer who would assist them finalize the adoption earlier than Trump’s inauguration on the finish of January. They knew that merely being listed as a father or mother on a baby’s start certificates just isn’t sufficient to determine authorized parentage, particularly for non-biological dad and mom. Inside lower than per week, that they had the $3,500 they wanted to begin the method. In late November, Swenson watched a webinar outlining steps LGBTQ+ households may take. Many different attendees have been asking about pursuing adoptions for his or her kids.
“We are getting a lot of questions about that,” stated Meg York, the director of LGBTQ+ Household Legislation and Coverage and an lawyer at Household Equality, a nonprofit working to help LGBTQ+ households that helped manage the webinar. “Regardless of how your family is formed, it’s that security that’s the key concern here … without [a court judgment] your parentage might be questioned or challenged or unrecognized across state lines.”
Household legal guidelines like this typically differ by state, every with their very own guidelines about what they may acknowledge or not.
Usually, attorneys advocate that same-sex {couples} receive a court docket order that may guarantee their parent-child relationship is acknowledged beneath the “full faith and credit” clause of the U.S. Structure, which establishes {that a} court docket order in a single state have to be acknowledged elsewhere. Dad and mom can receive an adoption or a parentage order. Each are court docket orders acknowledged throughout states and may’t be undone if a state legislature decides to roll again protections for LGBTQ+ households.
Adoptions, that are topic to background checks and a court docket listening to, are an possibility for each single and married {couples} and assist set up that the nonbiological father or mother is the father or mother of the kid. Some states could confer with it as “second-parent,” co-parent” or “stepparent” adoption. Parentage orders are comparable by way of the method and value however differ in a single sense: {Couples} can apply for them previous to the kid’s start, which means these parental rights are established as quickly because the baby is born and there’s no hole. It is typically an possibility for fogeys present process fertility therapies or surrogacy.
Kids born to a married same-sex couple ought to be acknowledged because the dad and mom of these kids beneath the regulation, however discrimination towards LGBTQ+ households has led to an uneven adoption of that commonplace. That is why attorneys advocate households take extra steps.
Swenson is predicated in Utah, in a county the place greater than 70% of voters elected Trump to workplace partially due to conservative views. She is aware of the stakes.
“There are so many scary situations people are in where it’s going to come down to convincing a judge of your humanity,” Swenson stated. “Your gender and sexual identity don’t change the fact that you’re a human and a good parent. There’s just a lot of people out there who are really uncertain about what lies ahead.”
In Austin, lawyer Meghan Alexander used to obtain perhaps three calls per week about second-parent adoptions. The week after the election, she obtained 26. The calls and emails haven’t stopped.
“The advice is the same as it’s been for the last couple of decades, which is to do a second-parent adoption. Do not depend on the federal government or the gay right to marry to give you parental rights,” Alexander stated.
Alexander recommends to her purchasers that oldsters get an adoption as a substitute of a parentage order as a result of in Texas, for instance, parentage orders for LGBTQ+ households haven’t been completely challenged within the court docket system, Alexander stated, whereas adoptions have been upheld by the courts many instances.
Adoptions are a preferred possibility as a result of they’re additionally extra generally understood and “universally recognized” throughout states and nations, stated Nancy Polikoff, professor emerita at American College Washington Faculty of Legislation and an knowledgeable in LGBTQ+ household regulation. Nonetheless, it in the end will rely on state legal guidelines and the dad and mom’ preferences as to which avenue they pursue.
What is evident, Polikoff stated, is that the incoming administration has elevated issues amongst LGBTQ+ households to hunt out extra authorized safety. She’s additionally been listening to from attorneys throughout the nation who’ve been fielding quite a few requests.
“When we are looking at the possibility of cutting back on LGBT family recognition, states that are not inclined to recognize the legitimacy of parenting by LGBT people are going to be emboldened to deny that status whenever they can,” she stated.
Polikoff stated she doesn’t imagine that homosexual marriage can be overturned within the subsequent 4 years, however what could also be extra more likely to occur is that states and courts will attempt to in the reduction of on some protections LGBTQ+ folks have not too long ago secured. Parenting relationships may grow to be straightforward prey.
“Nobody is expecting Obergefell to be overturned anytime soon,” Politikoff stated. “Unfortunately, I think parentage is one of those places where if a court is just not going to be as protective in a particular state, I think they are going to have more leeway to discriminate under a Trump administration.”
However guaranteeing extra authorized protections comes with a value. The method can value within the 1000’s—Alexander stated that in Texas it is about $5,000—and that’s often after a household has undergone fertility therapies.
Swenson paid about $6,000 for fertility therapies, and when her son was born, she didn’t have any entry to paid depart in her contract job as a gender and household researcher. Then her spouse received laid off in August. They depleted a lot of their financial savings and have been residing paycheck to paycheck. Alexander, the lawyer in Texas, and her spouse additionally put theirs off due to value. In her regulation observe, she tries to assist households looking for an adoption by providing a sliding scale relying on their earnings, or a zero-interest reimbursement plan.
“Being a queer parent is expensive in other ways,” Swenson stated. “It makes me sick to think there are people who need this done and cannot get it done.”
For Swenson’s household, the method will take about six weeks, and includes a court docket listening to, in addition to baby abuse and prison background checks. Her lawyer, Lauren Barros, has instructed her she may be very busy managing a number of instances for LGBTQ+ dad and mom within the Salt Lake Metropolis space. The household additionally plans to alter their final names to all match their son’s: Swenson Durana.
Since their son was born, Swenson and Durana have settled into the parental actuality of continually making an attempt to anticipate hazard, however the prospect of an anti-LGBTQ+ administration at a time of rising anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment has launched new fears. There’s the common stuff, like worrying about learn how to protect their son from hazards on the playground, or determining when to wean him off the bottle, and whether or not he’s consuming sufficient. And now there are new, extra existential issues—each for them and for a lot of queer dad and mom.
“We are also thinking, can we always be there for him?” Swelson stated. “Can we ensure that no matter what happens he has his moms—forever?”
