Category:

Trans Parent-cy

8/2/2013

To read a recent Ontario decision about the right of a trans parent to see her children, go to H.P. v P.L.C.
In that case, a transwoman was denied permission to see her children at all.
It was eight years since she had last seen her bio-children, conceived before her transition. During that eight years, she had been convicted of sexual assault on her wife and spent time in jail, where her gender dysphoria was diagnosed and she began her transition. Her ex-wife had divorced her and remarried.
Despite having an extremely low risk to reoffend, and despite having several glowing letters of support including one from her former father in law, the judge refused to let her see the children.
On the one hand, the judgement rests on standard considerations: the time since she had seen her children, the fact that she had let that time go by without trying to see them; the fact that the children didn't remember her. On the other hand, the judge's attitude to trans people suffuses the judgement.
Read the case and decide what decision you would have reached if you were the judge.

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Perils of surrogacy

3/5/2013

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Thanks to Agnes Huang for passing on this story of a surrogate mom who learned she was carrying a child with congenital defects, and of the surrogate parents who no longer wanted the child.
In BC, under the Family Law Act, a child is the child of the woman who gave birth to her, even if there is a pre-conception surrogacy agreement, until the birthing mom signs an agreement to hand over the child after birth.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/04/health/surrogacy-kelley-legal-battle/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

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Trans Legal Defense and Education Fund sues Colorado School

3/1/2013

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In British Columbia, some public schools do and some do not accommodate trans youth. Roman Catholic school system does not, though this is currently being challenged in a human rights proceeding.

This report from the Transgender Legal Defence and Education Fund:
Complaint Alleges Six-Year-Old Transgender Girl Denied Access to Girls' Bathrooms at School

TLDEF today announced that it has filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division on behalf of a 6-year-old girl who has been barred from using the girls' bathrooms at her elementary school. For the past year, Coy Mathis, a first-grader at Eagleside Elementary School in Fountain, CO, has used the girls' bathrooms. In mid-December 2012, the Fountain-Fort Carson School District 8 informed her parents that Coy would be prevented from using the girls' bathrooms after winter break. The District ordered Coy to use the boys' bathroom, a staff bathroom, or the nurse's bathroom.

Coy was labeled male at birth, but has always known that she is a girl, and has expressed this since she was 18 months old. Since kindergarten, Coy has worn girls' clothing to school. Her classmates and teachers have used female pronouns to refer to her and she has used the girls' bathrooms, just like any other girl in her school.

The Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act prohibits discrimination against transgender students in public schools. Despite efforts to get the District to reconsider its decision, it has refused to do so. Coy's parents have removed her from school and are home schooling her until this Complaint is resolved.

"We want Coy to have the same educational opportunities as every other Colorado student," said Kathryn Mathis, Coy's mother. "Her school should not be singling her out for mistreatment just because she is transgender."

"By forcing Coy to use a different bathroom than all the other girls, Coy's school is targeting her for stigma, bullying and harassment," said Michael Silverman, TLDEF's executive director, and one of Coy's lawyers. "Through the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, Coloradans have made it clear that they want all Colorado children to have a fair and equal chance in school," he added. "Coy's school has the opportunity to turn this around and teach Coy's classmates a valuable lesson about friendship, respect and basic fairness."

"We have five children and we love them all very much," said Mrs. Mathis. "We want Coy to return to school to be with her teachers, her friends, and her siblings, but we are afraid to send her back until we know that the school is going to treat her fairly. She is still just six years old, and we do not want one of our daughter's earliest experiences to be our community telling her she's not good enough."

In addition to TLDEF, the legal team representing the Mathis family includes Michael Flynn, Lucy Deakins, Jami Mills Vibbert, and Rosario Doriott Dominguez of Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.

For the latest information on Coy's case, including upcoming media appearances, please follow us on Twitter and "like" us on Facebook. We'll be posting the latest information there first.

Click for a slideshow of Mathis family photos.

Please donate today to help us fight for Coy's rights and the rights of children like her. Your support is critical to achieving a victory for Coy and transgender people everywhere.

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Wise words from a family judge

1/21/2013

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These remarks from a South Carolina judge apply everywhere:
In a case regarding the parents’ claims for custody of their children, the presiding family court judge eloquently expressed the court’s outlook as to why parents should do all that they can to resolve their issues before asking the court to decide the future of their family. We thank the Honorable Paul W. Garfinkel for his permission to reprint his words for the benefit of all parents, in South Carolina and elsewhere, who may be facing difficult choices as to what is best for their children:

I want to make a few comments to you about how important it is to your family to resolve this case. . . . I know that both of you sit here today each of you are convinced of the merit of your own case and the rightness of your own position. However, asking your attorney to convert your convictions and beliefs into evidence that will result in a verdict in your favor is asking for what I believe the most difficult task that a trial attorney can be required to do.

A custody case is much different than any accident case or a criminal trial. In those cases, an attorney is only asked to prove what happened at a specific date and place. All of the events have been fixed and are unchanging. A custody case is much different. You are asking your attorneys not to paint a picture in time but to present a movie. The movie must show over a broad range of time how each of you parent. Then I must decide which of you is the better parent.

Can you imagine if you had to prove that DaVinci’s “Last Supper” was a better painting than Michelangelo’s “Creation,” and say that you had to prove this to someone who had never seen either painting and you weren’t allowed to show the paintings to them? I suppose you could hire the curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art who would come to court and testify about composition, color, depth, character, and proportion. Or I suppose you could bring in some ordinary people to say which one they think is better. Maybe you could take a poll. This is what you are asking your attorneys to do in this case. They have to prove to me which is the better parent, but they have no way of showing me exactly how you parent. They can’t take me to the study sessions so I can see you how a good tutor Dad is. They can’t bring me into your child’s bedroom at 5 a.m. to see how Mom comforts the child who is awakened with a fever. I want you and I want your attorneys to bring up those incidents which show you to be caring and loving parents, and I am sure they will try. However, it is more likely that they will be forced to show the other parent at his or her worse. Neither of these efforts will work very well. In trying to prove the positives you will discover that with the passage of time, the inability of witnesses to describe the situation with the same force with which it occurred, just the difficulty of putting into words other peoples’ thoughts, feelings and actions, all of these combine to make grey what you felt was vivid or blunt . . . what you thought was poignant. On the other hand, the negatives will seem to make you look like the worse parent that ever lived. Did you ever send one of your children to school without [their] lunch? Did you ever forget to give one of your children [their] medicine? Did you ever say about your child “I could have strangled her?” We probably have all done those things, and it will be presented as if you are the most neglectful or abusive parent. At the end of the trial any goodwill each of you had for the other, if there is any, will have been totally destroyed.

It is both of you who must be parents of these children until either you or they die. Neither I nor any of these lawyers . . . will be there for you for the remainder of this long journey. We could try to do our best to get you pointed in the right direction and maybe even help you along, but it is only in the first few steps. In the end it is both of you who must raise these children.

If your children could reach into their hearts and tell you exactly what they think and feel about what is going on here, if they could get beyond the hurt we know they must feel, we all know what they would say. First they would say, “I wish Mom and Dad were back together.” Knowing this will not happen, they would say, “I wish they would just stop fighting.” No doubt they love you so much they are probably blaming themselves for your original breakup. It is time you get past the anger and put aside the hurt. You may even have to forgive. The pain that has been caused here arises from the conflict between each of you and has nothing to do with the children.

Your children want this conflict to end. You have the chance to leave there today with an agreement that is in the best interest of your children. But it is an agreement that you must reach together. You must be willing to put aside your differences and be willing to accommodate each other’s needs. But most importantly you must be ready now to put the needs of your children first.

I know that your children want you to settle this case. You can do the right thing and you can start now. Put aside what has happened in the past. This is the judgment day for your children. It’s not about you. And think about the additional damage you are going to cause to these children. I can tell you right now it has happened and it happens every time. Put aside your own egos and swallow them. Leave it is in this courtroom . . . we’ve had a lot of egos left in this courtroom. You don’t see them but I do because I see parents who are willing to put their children’s welfare above their own ego. And they leave it right here and they know and understand what is really best for the children.

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Every single study says LGB's are good parents

10/30/2012

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According to Julia A. MacMillan, professor of pediatrics and associate dean for graduate medical education at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, every study ever done over the last 30 years confirms that children are healthiest if raised by two loving parents, regardless of gender.

In an article in today's Baltimore Sun, MacMillan notes "Every major children's health and welfare organization, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Child Welfare League of America, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Association of Social Workers, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, confirms that gay parents make good parents. The American Medical Association, the nation's largest and most well respected association of physicians, with a membership of more than 200,000, agrees". Studies purporting to show that LBG parents are flawed have been completely debunked for their pseudo-scientific methodologies.

There is currently no research specifically about trans parents.

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Pastor convicted of helping 'ex-lesbian' leave US to escape custody battle with her ex partner

8/16/2012

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A Virginia Mennonite pastor was convicted August 13 2012 of helping a former lesbian flee the country with her young daughter. Lisa Miller had been in a lesbian relationship and had a child with her partner. Miller was the birth mother.

Miller later joined the Mennonite church and renounced her lesbianism. There was a custody battle between Miller and her ex. Her pastor, Timothy Miller (no relation) helped her get out of the United States.

It is reassuring to see a Virginia court recognize the status and rights of the non-bio-mom.

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Study misrepresents queer parenting abilities

6/14/2012

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A recently-published study in the U.S. purports to demonstrate that the children of lesbian mothers are more likely to be on public assistance, more likely to be unemployed, less likely to be employed full-time, more likely to be cohabiting, less likely to be married, more likely to have had an affair, more likely to have had an STI, more likely to have been in therapy recently, more likely to have recently thought about suicide, more likely to have been raped, and more likely to have been molested by an adult.
The only problem? There is no data to support the conclusions of the study, which was done by a right-wing sociologist who, among other things, defined a queer parent as anyone who had a same sex relationship (of any duration) while a child was growing up.
Fortunately the problems with the study are being widely identified. See for example this Huffington Post article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zinnia-jones/regnerus-same-sex-parents-study_b_1595213.html
Other, credible research finds that the children of a two parent lesbian household are as well-adjusted on all indicators of psychological health; and actually are more open-minded and tolerant that children raised in two parent heterosexual household.

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Canadian Human Rights Tribunal wrong to deny First Nations' human rights complaint

5/11/2012

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The First Nations Caring Society, the Assembly of First Nations, and Amnesty International filed a human rights complaint alleging discrimination by the federal government because the funding provided for child welfare services on reserve is much less than is provided by provinces for First Nations children living off reserve.
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal held that there was no discrimination because there was no other group which received funding for child welfare services from the federal government, and therefore no one to compare the federal funding policies to, and therefore no discrimination! On that basis, the tribunal dismissed the complaint without even hearing evidence.
The Federal Court said that the Tribunal made a mistake in dismissing the application at that stage and sent the case back to be heard by a different panel of the tribunal. Stay tuned for the decision of that panel.
For the complete decision: Canadian Human Rights Commission v Canada
http://www.canlii.org/eliisa/highlight.do?text=first+nations+caring+society&language=en&searchTitle=Search+all+CanLII+Databases&path=/en/ca/fct/doc/2012/2012fc445/2012fc445.html

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Trans Parent-cy

Perils of surrogacy

Trans Legal Defense and Education Fund sues Colorado School

Wise words from a family judge

Every single study says LGB's are good parents

Pastor convicted of helping 'ex-lesbian' leave US to escape custody battle with her ex partner

Study misrepresents queer parenting abilities

Canadian Human Rights Tribunal wrong to deny First Nations' human rights complaint

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