Month: May 2018

New Jersey Gestational Carrier Agreement Act Now Law

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new jersey gestational carrier agreement act

New Jersey Gestational Carrier Agreement Act Provides Legal Protections to Help Individuals Struggling to Conceive

The New Jersey Gestational Carrier Agreement Act sponsored by Assemblywomen Valerie Vainieri Huttle, Annette Quijano and Mila Jasey to provide legal protections to those struggling to conceive a child who wish to use a gestational carrier has been signed into law.new jersey gestational carrier agreement act

The law (A-1704), titled the New Jersey Gestational Carrier Agreement Act, authorizes a written contract under which a woman agrees to carry and give birth to a child created using assisted reproduction on behalf of an intended parent.

Unlike traditional surrogacy, in which a woman is artificially inseminated with the semen of the intended father and gives birth to a child through the use of her own egg, a gestational carrier does not make use of her own egg and therefore is not genetically related to the child.

The issue of surrogacy garnered national headlines in the late 1980’s with the case of “Baby M,” in which the New Jersey Supreme Court found traditional surrogacy agreements invalid because they violated various public policies and state statutes.  In 2009, a New Jersey Superior Court ruled that the findings in the Baby M case apply to gestational surrogacy as well as traditional surrogacy cases.

Because advances in reproductive technology now allow for the transfer of an embryo into the body of a woman who is not genetically related to the child, traditional surrogacy agreements like the one in Baby M, and adoption, are no longer the only means by which a couple that is having reproductive difficulties may have children.

“Ignoring the legal issues that accompany technological advancements does not remove the challenges, it merely adds an additional burden on loving couples or individuals who are already struggling to have a child,” said Vainieri Huttle (D-Bergen).  “With this law, intended parents and gestational surrogates will have the legal protections that were denied to them before.”

The law takes into account the advances in reproductive technologies and permit gestational carrier agreements, which would stipulate that upon the birth of the child, the intended parent becomes the legal parent of the child and the woman – the gestational carrier – would have no parental rights or obligations.

insidernj.com, May 30, 2018

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First Czech same-sex couple recognized as parents

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Czech Republic

The Supreme Court accepted in early May the Californian judiciary’s decision and recognized a Czech gay couple as the parents of a recently born baby, which is the first case of a same-sex Czech couple to be given this legal right, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) wrote on Saturday.

A surrogate mother gave birth to the baby of the Czech gay couple in California a few months ago.

The donor’s egg was fertilised in vitro with the sperm of one of the future fathers. The Californian authorities then recognised both Czech men as the rightful parents of the newborn baby.Czech Republic

As the child has a U.S. birth certificate and passport, the gay couple turned to defence lawyer Katerina Menclova to help them gain Czech documents.

“I was told that if we want to arrange Czech documents for Karolina (the baby girl), we must turn to the Supreme Court that would recognise the verdict by the State of California, which declared both gay partners the child’s parents,” Menclova told MfD.

The Supreme Court issued the respective decision on May 2, recognising both men as the child’s parents.

Menclova then turned to the Czech authorities that were to issue the baby’s birth certificate.

Defence lawyer Petr Kalla, who is dealing with similar cases, told Mlada fronta Dnes, that the court’s decision is of an immense symbolic importance as for the first time a Czech same-sex couple was recognised as rightful parents, Kalla said.

Prague Daily Monitor – May 19, 2018

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Gay Couple Stabbed While Holding Hands Outside Denver Nightclub

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“We were just holding hands minding our business,” one of the men said.

Two gay men were holding hands while walking home from a nightclub early Sunday morning in Denver when a man attacked the couple, stabbing them multiple times. 

“We were just walking and I guess he didn’t like what he saw … that we were holding hands,” Chris Huizar, 19, told local outlet 9News on Sunday. 

Huizar and his boyfriend, Gabriel Roman, 23, were walking home from a dance club called The Church just after midnight when the two said they heard a man yell “fuckin’ faggots” before he attacked the couple with a folding knife. Huizar was stabbed in the neck and Roman was stabbed in the hand and back before they were able to escape.

The couple called the police and were taken to the hospital immediately where, according to Gay Star News, Roman received 30 internal stitches and 52 stitches on his hand. The wounds were not life-threatening, Denver police spokesman Sgt. John White told The Denver Post.

By Alanna Vagianos Huffingtonpost.com, May 29, 2018

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Transgender People’s Brains Are Wired Like Those of Gender They Identify With, New Study Shows

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The brains of transgender people are wired in a way that matches the gender they identify with rather than their biological sex, according to a new study. 

Researchers found that whether a person identifies as transgender could be tied to how their brains develop in the womb. A person might identify as transgender when the gender they are assigned at birth according to their sex does not match how they feel inside. For instance, a person with a penis who is told they are a boy at birth could later grow up to identify as a woman. trans

To arrive at their findings, researchers at the VU University Medical Center in the Netherlands analyzed the brain activity of young transgender people using MRI scans. Around 160 young people were involved in the small study, including adolescent boys and girls with gender dysphoria.

The team assessed how their brains changed in response to a pheromone that prompts gender-specific activity in the organ. They found that the transgender adolescents had parallels with the brain activity of cisgender participants of the same gender. Cisgender is the term used to describe a person who identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth. 

Professor Julie Bakker, an expert in neuroendocrinology at the University of Liege and lead author of the study, told Newsweek: “The earlier it [being transgender] is detected, the better the outcome of the treatment.

by Kashmira Gander, Newsweek.com, May 22, 2018

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Pope Francis tells gay man: ‘God made you like this’

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Juan Carlos Cruz, who was sexually abused, says Pope Francis told him God did not mind that he was gay

A survivor of clerical sexual abuse has said Pope Francis told him that God had made him gay and loved him, in arguably the most strikingly accepting comments about homosexuality to be uttered by the leader of the Roman Catholic church.Pope Francis

Juan Carlos Cruz, who spoke privately with the pope two weeks ago about the abuse he suffered at the hands of one of Chile’s most notorious paedophiles, said the issue of his sexuality had arisen because some of the Latin American country’s bishops had sought to depict him as a pervert as they accused him of lying about the abuse.

“He told me, ‘Juan Carlos, that you are gay does not matter. God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care. The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are,’” Cruz told Spanish newspaper El País.

Now 87, Fernando Karadima, the man who abused Cruz, was found guilty of abuse by the Vatican in 2011.

Greg Burke, the Vatican’s chief spokesman, did not respond to questions about whether Cruz’s statement accurately reflected his conversation with the pope.

It is not the first time it has been suggested Francis has an open and tolerant attitude toward homosexuality, despite the Catholic church’s teaching that gay sex – and all sex outside of heterosexual marriage – is a sin. In July 2013, in response to a reporter’s question about the existence of an alleged “gay lobby” within the Vatican, Francis said: “Who am I to judge?”

The new remarks appear to go much further in embracing homosexuality as a sexual orientation that is designed and bestowed by God. It suggests that Francis does not believe that individuals choose to be gay or lesbian, as some religious conservatives argue.

The Guardian – May 20, 2018

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L.G.B.T. Students in Oregon Were Bullied and Forced to Read Bible, Report Says

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In the hallways of a rural Oregon high school, gay and lesbian students were taunted with homophobic slurs. In the cafeteria, students pelted a transgender student with food.

And when gay and lesbian students got into trouble, the school’s principal assigned a specific punishment just for them: readings from the Bible.

Students detailed those allegations in recent state investigative reports into the North Bend School District, a coastal area about 100 miles north of California. In the reports, gay and lesbian high school students described years of harassment and bigotry from school employees and other students, and a deeply religious culture that silenced their complaints.

The two reports, completed in March by an investigator in the Oregon Department of Education and made public this month, found that top officials in North Bend had for at least the past two school years fostered hostile conditions for gay and lesbian students, hesitated to intervene after reports of sexual harassment and retaliated against a school counselor who had cooperated with the state investigation.

The state found “substantial evidence” of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students at North Bend High School. “The department finds that discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual orientation may have occurred,” the investigator wrote.

In schools across the country, L.G.B.T. students are more likely to be bullied and suffer depression than their straight peers, studies have found. It is no different in Oregon, gay and lesbian activists said, despite the perception of the state, and particularly places like Portland, as a progressive paradise.

In the state reports, the district denied that students had been mistreated and said that when they had reported cases of harassment, it resolved them promptly and appropriately.

School officials initially denied that students were required to read the Bible as punishment. But they later told investigators it was true, adding that they handed down the punishment not to promote a religion but “to assist students in understanding the effects of certain behaviors.”

The state ordered North Bend in March to settle with a pair of female students whose complaints to the State Department of Education led to the investigation. But no deal was reached, so the state has scheduled a hearing on May 24 with both sides to help mediate a resolution.

North Bend’s superintendent, Bill Yester, said Wednesday that the district disputes many of the state’s findings and will present its evidence at the hearing. He said the Bible was used as punishment only once.

by Matthew Haag, New York Times, May 17, 2018

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How Same-Sex Couples Divide Chores, and What It Shows About Modern Parenting

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When gay and lesbian couples have children, they often begin to divide chores as heterosexual couples do.

When straight couples divide up the chores of daily life — who cooks dinner and who mows the lawn, who schedules the children’s activities and who takes out the trash — the duties are often determined by gender.

Same-sex couples, research has consistently found, divide up chores more equally.divide chores

But recent research has uncovered a twist. When gay and lesbian couples have children, they often begin to divide things as heterosexual couples do, according to new data for larger, more representative samples of the gay population. Though the couples are still more equitable, one partner often has higher earnings, and one a greater share of household chores and child care. It shows these roles are not just about gender: Work and much of society are still built for single-earner families.

“Once you have children, it starts to almost pressure the couple into this kind of division of labor, and we’re seeing this now even in same-sex couples,” said Robert-Jay Green, professor emeritus at the California School of Professional Psychology in San Francisco. “Circumstances conspire on every level to get you to fall back in this traditional role.”

Such circumstances include employers who expect round-the-clock availability, and the absence of paid parental leave and public preschool. It’s also smaller things, like pediatricians, teachers or grandparents who assume that one parent is the primary one.

“For, me, the choice to stay home seems easier than us both working and both stressing about who’s going to do what,” said Sarah Pruis, who is raising five children with her wife, who works full time, in Cheyenne, Wyo. “That just seems impossible.”

Gary Becker, the Nobel-winning economist, proposed a theory that marriage was about efficiency: Husbands specialized in earning and wives in homemaking and child rearing. But in recent decades, as women have gained reproductive rights and a foothold in the labor force, marriage has become more about companionship.

Yet women married to men — even when they work and earn as much as or more than their husbands — still do more domestic work, and social scientists have found that the duties are gendered. Feminine chores are mainly indoor and done frequently: cooking, cleaning, laundry and child care. Masculine chores are mostly outdoor and less frequent: taking out the trash, mowing the lawn or washing the car.

by Claire Cane Miller, New York Times, May 16, 2018

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Why we need to break the silence around domestic violence in LGBTQ families

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In seventh-grade health class we watched a movie about alcoholic parents.

It was the first time I saw anything that resembled my family in a movie — the same yelling, crying and sporadic violence — except my parents never drank. I knew something was terribly wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. It would be three more years before I’d learn that the problems in my family resulted from mental illness. My mother’s partner had bipolar disorder.lgbt domestic violence

There was no health-class movie about bipolar parents, no helpline to call back in the 1980s. Even if there were one, I couldn’t have called it. My family was in the closet — my mother was a lesbian, and if people found out, she or her partner could lose their jobs. If they lost their jobs, we’d lose the house, and my biological father would have a very large weapon if he decided to fight for custody. There was another layer to the problem, too. There were so few visible lesbian families that I knew that confessing my family problems would reflect negatively on the whole queer community, people who were constantly struggling to be seen as equal to their heterosexual counterparts.

As a child of lesbian parents, I felt like I needed to be normal, well adjusted and heterosexual. My parents told me that many people thought gay people were perverts who wanted to hurt children or turn them gay. I understood that it was imperative not to throw my family like chum into the shark-infested water; doing so would be risky not only for our family but for all other queer families.

When I talk about the problems in my family, some people — usually heterosexual ones — are quick to point out that it’s important for me to clarify that not all lesbian families are like mine. But this should be a given. If a friend has a bipolar or alcoholic father, I don’t assume that all heterosexual men are alcoholics or suffer from mental illness. One family should never be singled out as a representative of their entire culture, but with so few visible gay families, it’s hard not to be treated as a voice for the movement.

by Lara Lillibridge, The Washington Post, May 8, 2018

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Unsung Heroes: Surrogate Mothers to Same-Sex Couples

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Let’s give a nod to the surrogate mothers who simultaneously help queer people start families and move the needle on tolerance.

I loved my small-town upbringing, but even in that somewhat sheltered environment I always had a curiosity about other places, other people, and other experiences. Now as a gay fertility doctor often working with LGBT people to build their families, it’s rewarding to see the effect this LGBT family-building is having on changing the perspective about our community in small towns across the country.

Much of that change comes from an unlikely place.surrogacy

What I have learned in my work is that everyone involved in gay family-building becomes an ambassador for change. The gay parents, their family, and their child all open hearts and minds simply by living their lives.

Yet some of the most powerful agents of change are the surrogate mothers who spend nine months openly dedicated to helping people have children.

A large percentage of the surrogates I work with live in small towns across America. They often live in conservative areas that offer little interaction with LGBT people outside of whatever passes across their TV screens. Whether the hopeful parents I’m working with are gay, straight, bi — same-sex or opposite-sex couples — we rely on the willingness of women across the country to carry the babies of people who can’t otherwise have children.

I’ve found incredible enthusiasm from so many women when they learn the child they would be carrying is for a gay couple. Their dedication to helping other people build their dream family does not know prejudice. These women are a backbone of LGBT family-building, and their love has no bounds.

Yet their role in our movement extends beyond carrying the child for an LGBT person or same-sex couple. These women bring incredible pride to the service they provide others. They bring that message to their families, their friends and their local communities.

Even in those conservative small towns across America, they bring their pride in helping LGBT people have children.

Walking in the grocery store in their seventh and eighth month, people stop them to ask about the baby. At a friend’s house for dinner, they explain why they won’t be having any wine and a conversation about gay parents ensues. Their own husband and kids have to adjust a bit as mom’s lifestyle shifts for the baby she’s carrying.

The women I work with don’t hide from anyone the fact that it’s a trans woman or a gay couple whose baby she’s carrying.

I hear from the surrogates about these exchanges. They find it’s an opportunity to open people’s hearts and minds, often people who’ve never known an LGBT person.

by Dr. Guy Ringler, Advocate.com – May 11, 2018

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LGBT Couples Could be Denied Adoption on Religious Grounds in Kansas and Oklahoma

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Lawmakers in Republican-controlled legislatures in Oklahoma and Kansas approved bills granting legal protection to faith-based agencies that refuse adoptions to LGBT families on religious grounds.adoption ban

Supporters of the legislation believe that the new regulations will help address the need for foster families by attracting more adoption agencies to their state and protect religious liberties. Critics such as the LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) believe the laws give “license to discriminate.”  

In Oklahoma, bill SB 1140 was approved by the House of Representatives in a 56-21 vote on Thursday without discussion or debate, Reuters reported. The abrupt move was vocally opposed by Democrat lawmakers.

“The abomination of process & justice in the OK House of Reps makes me weep for democracy,” Representative Cory Williams, a vocal critic of the bill which he described as “homophobic and bigot,” wrote on Twitter about the vote.

Newsweek.com by Sofia Lotto Persio, May 4, 2018

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