The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled on August 12, 2024 that the Ramsey County District Court should have dismissed a paternity action brought against a same-sex married couple by their sperm donor. In its opinion, the appellate court sided with mothers Julianna and Catherine Sheridan, concluding that the lower court wrongly denied their motion to dismiss and that the sperm donor was precluded from bringing a paternity action for their child under Minnesota law. In August 2017, Christopher...
Our Voices
In 2018, the State of Washington passed a law prohibiting state-licensed therapists from trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of a patient under 18 years old. Every leading medical and mental health organization in the country has warned that these practices do not work and put young people at risk of serious harm, including depression, substance abuse, and suicide. In 2021, an anti-LGBTQ legal group filed a federal lawsuit challenging the new law on behalf of Brian...
LaNesha Matthews and Kyresha LeFever were a same-sex couple who had twins together using assisted reproduction. Their children were conceived using Kyresha’s eggs, and LaNesha gave birth, a process sometimes called egg sharing or reciprocal IVF. The parents broke up when the twins were young but coparented and shared custody for years until a dispute arose when the twins were 5-years-old. Kyresha sought shared custody, which the trial court initially granted after determining that Kyresha is a...
In February 2021, NCLR and GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) filed amicus briefs urging the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm rulings in favor of surviving same-sex spouses who were denied equal access to Social Security survivor’s benefits. The cases are Ely v. Saul, a nationwide class action, and two individual cases, Driggs v. Saul and Schmoll v. Saul. In November 2021, the Social Security Administration (SSA) dismissed its appeals in these cases as well as its...
Meghan Murphy repeatedly referred to a transgender woman using male pronouns while posting on Twitter. She was informed by Twitter that this activity violated the company’s hateful conduct rules, but Murphy persisted, resulting in Twitter permanently suspending her account. Murphy sued Twitter in February 2019 alleging that the company violated the terms of their user agreement by suspending her account. The trial court dismissed her case, finding that Twitter had the authority to permanently...
When Indiana began allowing same-sex couples to marry in 2015 after the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that same-sex couples have a right to marry in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Indiana Department of Vital Records refused to place same-sex spouses on their children’s birth certificates as they do for different-sex spouses. Eight female same-sex couples who conceived children through sperm donation sought the right to be recognized on their children’s birth certificates in federal...
Plaintiff Santi Ceballos On March 28, 2019, Equality Arizona, represented by National Center for Lesbian Rights and Lambda Legal, along with law professor Clifford Rosky and pro bono counsel Perkins Coie LLP, filed a federal lawsuit challenging Arizona’s anti-LGBTQ curriculum law, which bars public school students from receiving medically accurate, age-appropriate information about non-heterosexual people in their health education classes. Arizona law prohibits instruction in HIV/AIDS...
Gender and Sexuality Alliance v. Spearman
A.E. is a gay man from Honduras who immigrated to the US in 2006. He has spent over 10 years of overcoming hardship and recovering from past trauma, including being targeted by violence and death threats in Honduras because of his sexual orientation. A.E. is now thriving and has a wonderful husband who was included in his asylum petition. With much preparation work from NCLR and a lot of emotional investment from A.E. and his husband, they were able to present their case at the asylum office,...
J. is a gay man in his twenties from Mexico who has a disability. He and his family immigrated to the U.S. in 2018 and were apprehended at the border. They were placed in detention and most of his family was sent back to Mexico. However, he and his sister who has a small child were allowed to stay and were able to apply for asylum. J’s case was heard by an Immigration Judge in San Francisco. With the assistance of Chelsea HaleyNelson, of counsel, NCLR was able to prepare J. for his...
