The past year has not played out the way most of us in the LGBTQ+ community would have wanted, with another Trump presidency looming and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation moving ahead in many places. But 2024 also saw some progress for LGBTQ+ parents and our children, so let’s remind ourselves of the advances we’ve made, even as we gird for the battles ahead.
Most notably, both Michigan and Massachusetts enacted legislation updating their respective parentage laws to better protect children with LGBTQ+ parents, single parents, or unmarried parents, and those formed via assisted reproduction. The new laws establish more equitable paths to legal parentage for all children in today’s diverse families, including via a simple, free form that acknowledges parentage and can be completed at a child’s birth. Michigan’s legislation also decriminalizes contractual surrogacy (Michigan was the only remaining state that criminalized it) and provides clear protections for everyone involved, while the Massachusetts legislation clarifies that a de facto or functional parent has equal rights and responsibilities to any other type of parent. Both states’ bills were promoted by broad coalitions of parents, families, and LGBTQ, reproductive rights, family, and child welfare organizations, and passed with bipartisan support; the final vote in both Massachusetts chambers was unanimous.
Michigan and Massachusetts became the 8th and 9th states to enact legislation based on or substantially similar to the 2017 Uniform Parentage Act (UPA), a model law developed by the bipartisan Uniform Law Commission. Among other things, the 2017 UPA ensures that state parentage laws remain constitutional by providing equality and clear, secure paths to parentage for LGBTQ+ families. California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington also have laws based on the 2017 UPA, while New Hampshire and New York have similar comprehensive parentage legislation that is not based on the UPA, per the Movement Advancement Project. Additionally, Minnesota passed a bill this May based on the section of the UPA dealing with assisted reproduction — an important step forward, although more work remains to be done.
LGBTQ+ parents forming families in states without comprehensive, LGBTQ-inclusive parentage statutes may find that establishing parentage is confusing, expensive, humiliating, and lengthy, leaving children vulnerable. A UPA-based bill in Pennsylvania was introduced this past legislative session, but did not move out of committee.
A notable parentage win in the courts this year, though, was the unanimous New Mexico Supreme Court ruling in July that affirmed a nongenetic mother is a legal parent to the children her former spouse gave birth to during their marriage. The decision held that the best interests of a child, not just the genetic connection to a parent, must be considered in determining parentage. It also reaffirmed that a child born into a marriage is presumed to be the child of both spouses, regardless of the spouses’ gender(s). This is a presumption that all 50 states should have been recognizing since the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Obergefell (2015) and Pavan (2017) — although some state trial courts (including ones in Oklahoma and Pennsylvania) have ruled otherwise in recent years. The New Mexico decision, while not legally binding in other states, nevertheless sends a reminder of what should be.
Moving to family building, health care insurance giant Aetna agreed in May to a settlement after improperly making single policyholders and those in same-sex couples pay out of pocket for multiple rounds of assisted insemination before they could access in vitro fertilization (IVF) benefits, whereas different-sex couples could simply attest to having had regular, unprotected sexual intercourse for a number of months. Aetna will now include assisted insemination as a benefit for all members and ensure that clinical requirements for proceeding to IVF are no more burdensome for LGBTQ+ people than for others. It will also revise its clinical policy to be consistent with the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s latest (2023) guidelines, which define “infertility” to make it more inclusive of LGBTQ+ and single people who need fertility treatments for any reason, either as an individual or with a partner.
On a similar note, California passed legislation in September that also updates the definition of “infertility” to be more inclusive of LGBTQ+ and single people and requires large insurers to cover fertility diagnosis and treatment, including IVF, for any policyholders. When the law goes into effect (in July 2025 for most people), California will become the 15th state, plus D.C., to require IVF coverage, per RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association.
In other good news, Florida’s infamous “Don’t Say Gay/LGBTQ” law was defanged in March. More than a dozen Florida parents, students, and teachers, plus LGBTQ+ organizations Equality Florida and Family Equality, who had challenged the law’s constitutionality, reached a settlement that removes the most harmful anti-LGBTQ+ aspects of the legislation. The settlement does not repeal the law, but secures several critical protections and clarifications: affirming free expression; strengthening anti-bullying protections and assuring non-discrimination; and allowing references to and books about LGBTQ+ identities in classrooms, student clubs, and extracurricular activities. The law still prohibits “classroom instruction” on sexual orientation or gender identity, but that must be applied “neutrally” to both LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ identities. That’s not ideal, in my opinion (classroom instruction on these topics in health classes, at the very least, feels necessary), but nevertheless, the settlement achieves some important goals.
It won’t be easy making progress for LGBTQ+ people and families over the next few years, but I hope we can look to the above examples of successful bipartisan cooperation, coalition building and hard work to power us forward.