Both: Disclosure around adoption

submitted by peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS from self.GCdebatesQT

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[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I don't think it's a matter of legality, but I would still want to have that information.

I think that it definitely is matter of legality, if not by the letter of the law as it currently stands in most states then certainly by the intent. Laws around adoption are very strict over matters such as informed consent, good faith and fraud. Biological parents are prohibited from lying by omission and commission about a vast array of things to prospective adoptive parents, and the prospective adoptive parents aren't allowed to lie to the biological parents about relevant matters either.

I suspect that most state laws have not yet added specific prohibitions saying that an adoptive parents can't lie about their natal sex coz it hasn't happened yet. And coz legislators never anticipated that there'd come a time when adoption might be sought by two males in a same-sex relationship who have agreed to create and perpetuate the illusion that one of them is female and that therefore they are in a heterosexual M-F relationship rather than a homosexual M-M one. Nor, of course, until now no lawmakers - nor anyone else - has anticipated that in such a scenario, the two males might decide between themselves - and with the collusion of a social worker - that the best tack is to try to hoodwink a pregnant girl/woman into believing that they are a heterosexual M-F couple rather than a homosexual M-M one coz they think doing so will increase their chances of being selected by the woman as the adoptive parents for her child.

Given that in family law, including adoption law, "the best interests of the child" and "informed consent" are of paramount importance, I think in this particular scenario, the courts and relevant state agencies would not find in the OP's favor.

Everyone who's watched "Catfishing" knows how reprehensible and often harmful it is to lie about your sex and create an illusory persona online to sucker individuals into romance/intimacy when the parties never meet IRL. I think a lot of jurists and the general public will see this sort of deception as even worse when it's done face to face IRL - and for the purpose of obtaining someone else's baby.

[–]worried19 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yeah, I don't know much about adoption laws. It sounds like it's more complicated today than it was in the 70s when my mom was adopted. I can see how trans status might be construed as a matter of informed consent, but once an adoption is completed, after a certain amount of time, it can't be undone even if the birth mom is unhappy.

That's why I think it's important to tell the birth mom prior so it doesn't turn into a huge issue. That would just cause stress for both families and eventually also for the child.

Transsexuals have been around a long time. It's hardly a new thing that a couple where one partner is transsexual might adopt. I'm sure there have been plenty of others. There are probably some public examples if you search for them.

[–]MarkTwainiac 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It sounds like it's more complicated today than it was in the 70s when my mom was adopted.

Yes, it certainly is more complicated today than half a century ago. Adoption law and family law more generally have changed a great deal.

I can see how trans status might be construed as a matter of informed consent, but once an adoption is completed, after a certain amount of time, it can't be undone even if the birth mom is unhappy.

Not necessarily true. If a birth parent finds out an adoptive parent committed fraud during the adoption process, most states will step in.

Also, despite the way OP has framed this, the issue of consent doesn't just pertain to "the birth mom." The biological father also has to consent to the adoption and he too must relinquish his parental rights.

Transsexuals have been around a long time. It's hardly a new thing that a couple where one partner is transsexual might adopt.

Yes, transsexuals have been around for a long time - though in the several decades after Christine Jorgensen, they were still extremely rare. But I'm not sure that a lot of them tried to adopt. Many of the biggest-name transsexuals from the 1970s - Jan Morris, Renee Richards - and from later eras went trans after being married to women and fathering children. Morris, who "transtioned" in 1972, had five kids already. Always the majority of "transsexuals" have been heterosexual AGPs, and historically nearly all of them fathered children prior to transitioning.

I don't think it's true that many homosexual male transsexuals over time tried to adopt. Coz homosexual adoption has only become legal in most jurisdictions in the last 10-20 years.

Moreover, the way the law has evolved, the first homosexuals who got the right to adopt were individuals adopting the biological children their current partners had during a previous relationship - or who were lesbians whose partner had given birth to a child (usually through anonymous sperm donation) during the time frame of their own relationship.

Adoption of another entirely unrelated person's child by two childless lesbians or by two gay men is a much more recent development than transsexualism is, and actually is pretty rare. I am friends with one of the first gay male couples in the state of NY in the USA to adopt an infant to whom they were not related - which happened only in the mid 1990s (1997, I think). And a main reason they were allowed to adopt is coz they were willing to take a premature, low birthweight child of minority race who did not score well on the APGAR whose parents were both drug addicts and whose mother had used crack, heroin and meth during the pregnancy.

The rarity and difficulty of adoption of unrelated children, particularly infants, by male gay couples is of the reasons that gay men today are so heavily invested in pushing for normalization of commercial surrogacy, and relaxation of rules and laws around it. Commercial surrogacy enables gay men to obtain babies without going through the checks and adhering to the safeguards involved in legal adoption.

The core issue that OP has raised is not really whether transsexuals should be able to adopt. Although that is a topic worth looking into. It's much more specific than that. The issue that OP has raised is: when a male homosexual transsexual and his male partner seek to adopt an infant, is it OK for them to conceal from the biological mother both the sex of the transsexual partner (the potential adoptive "mother") as well as the true nature of the two males' relationship - meaning the fact that they are actually in a male-male homosexual marriage, not in a female-male heterosexual one as they are feigning. The concern here is not with homosexuality or even transsexuality, it's with honesty and transparency.

[–]worried19 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Not necessarily true. If a birth parent finds out an adoptive parent committed fraud during the adoption process, most states will step in.

Really, even 5 or 10 years later? I don't know what a judge would do if trans status were withheld from biological parents, but I sure wouldn't want u/peakingatthemoment or anyone else to take the chance of it causing a huge problem down the road.

The concern here is not with homosexuality or even transsexuality, it's with honesty and transparency.

I agree, even though I don't really consider a male-to-female transsexual to be a gay man. I mean, I know technically peaking is a homosexual male (and she would agree), but it would be hard to think of her a gay man, given the lengths she's gone to to transition, including sex reassignment surgery. I don't think most potential birth mothers would think of her as a gay man either, but they still need to weigh how they feel about transsexuality and whether it would impact their decision to place their child for adoption with a particular couple.

[–]MarkTwainiac 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I said "most states will step in," not that a judge or panel of judges would necessarily overturn the adoption.

But my hunch is, if either the biological mother or father went to court and said we were not told this important information and therefore adoption fraud occurred, the state would have to take it seriously and go through all the procedures stipulated by law. The state might very well require new investigations into the home life of the adoptive couple, the child's mental and physical wellbeing, and psychological assessments of the adoptive parents.

What to do about the child would probably be left largely for the bio parents to decide, though the state agencies involved would weigh in. If the child was doing well and seemed happy and all seemed OK in the adoptive home, I can't imagine anyone involved would argue the child should be removed from the home. But I imagine that at the very least the adoptive parents would get slapped on the wrist or sanctioned, perhaps fined.

States are very nosy and aggressive in this sort of situation. A state would want to set a legal precedent to make it very clear to future adoptive parents that in the adoption process, neither the bio parents nor the adoptive ones can commit fraud. It would be a test case.

My point is, OP tread carefully here. Please you and your husband take care not do anything that could jeopardize your position or to open yourselves up to charges of deception, fraud and bad faith.

BTW, there were a number of prominent US cases in the 1980s and 1990s where adoptions were overturned - not after 5 or 10 years - but when the kid was 3 or 4. And there was the famous case of Elian Gonzalez, who was returned to his father in Cuba when he was 7, I think that was his age.

There was also a famous case where the wife of a man in New Jersey took their young son to Brazil, her home country, for a visit when he was quite little, and she never returned. She stayed in Brazil and divorced her American husband, then married a Brazilian bigwig from a very rich powerful family there. The Brazilian courts allowed the new husband to adopt the child, even though his father in the US was trying to get the child back. Then the mother suddenly died. The Brazilian courts kept ruling in favor of the Brazilian man, saying he was the legal father and the boy's actual father, the American guy, had no standing. The boy's name was changed, he learnt Portuguese, went to a posh Brazilian school and thrived as he grew up... In the end, the boy was finally returned to his father in the US when he was 12-13. It was a heartbreaking case. I don't know how it turned out. I imagine the boy is in his 20s now.

There also was a famous case in the 1990s where two women at the same IVF clinic thought they'd each been implanted with embryos made from their own eggs and their husbands' sperm. When a couple of years later one of the kids was found to have a recessive genetic condition that his parents had already been tested for and knew they didn't carry, the clinic had to do an investigation to find out what happened. Turns out, the two women's embryos had gotten switched in the lab. After all the legal wrangling and court proceedings, the state gave custody of the two boys to their biological parents, and the two fathers in the case just wanted to swap the kids like trading cards. The women - each of whom had gestated, birthed, breastfed, and raised each other's biological son - couldn't do it. They became friends and decided the best option was to keep the kids with the parents they were already with but to buy houses next door to each other and to raise the two boys side by side with the involvement of all four parents and so the boys would have daily contact with both mothers. I dunno how it turned out in the long run, but it was a good Lifetime movie with Melissa Gilbert.