Blog

Guest bloggers Rey and Tanairi help us celebrate International Family Equality Day today by sharing their story to help ensure all children’s relationships to their families are protected, no matter how those families are formed.

When our daughter was born just over a month ago, it was one of the happiest days of our lives. But it was also one of the scariest.

Like all parents, we’d done our best to make sure she would have all the support and protection she’d need when she arrived. Since we live in Massachusetts and are not married, that included signing a Voluntary Acknowledgment of Parentage (VAP) form to ensure we both had full, legal relationships as her parents.

Then we went into labor. And from our hospital bed we were told that the hospital birth registrar refused us access to the VAP form – so that Rey would not be listed on our daughter’s birth certificate.

We were scared for our family’s future. So we called GLAD.

Senior Staff Attorney Polly Crozier answered our call for help. Polly had been working with us to guide us through the legal landscape as a never-married, expectant same-gender couple. She had explained that as a result of GLAD’s win for parents like us at the MA Supreme Judicial Court in 2016, we had a right to access the VAP form, and she worked in advance to make sure that vital records would accept our form.

Now, while we were in our hospital room adjusting to our first hours as parents, Polly was fighting once again to ensure our family would have access to protections on an equal basis to different-gender parents. And she succeeded. With GLAD’s help that afternoon, we were the first same-gender couple in Massachusetts to establish our parentage in the hospital through a VAP.

So many families around the country still don’t have those same protections or access to help. That’s why GLAD keeps fighting and standing up for the rights of LGBTQ families everywhere, no matter how they’re formed.

Our child was born four weeks ago, surrounded by loving family and our closest friends. Since that day in the hospital when we were both able to sign the VAP form, we are both secured as her legal parents. She will grow up knowing both her parents will always be there to give her the love, support, and stability she needs and deserves.

We’re fortunate to live in Massachusetts where, thanks to GLAD, the law recognizes unmarried, non-biological parents so that families like ours are protected. And Polly, and GLAD, are working hard to ensure the Massachusetts VAP form is updated to be fully inclusive and reflective of LGBTQ families like ours, so that no one ever faces what we did in the hospital again.

So many families around the country still don’t have those same protections or access to help. That’s why GLAD keeps fighting and standing up for the rights of LGBTQ families everywhere, no matter how they’re formed.

GLAD believes that all parents – regardless of their marital status – should be able to create and secure their families. If you are encountering barriers to establishing your legal parentage, please call GLAD Answers, our legal information line, at 800-455-GLAD or visit www.GLADAnswers.org.