Abstract

This article offer a history of lesbian and gay parenting custody case from 1967 to 1985. Using court transcripts, newspaper articles, and oral histories with key participants, it documents the struggle over definitions of the family that emerged in the gay and lesbian liberation era as women and men left previous heterosexual relationships and were forced to fight for custody or visitation of their children. These legal battles marked the first generation of lesbian and gay parents to openly fight for their parental rights through the judicial system. Even in states where same-sex orientation did not automatically render them unfit parents in the eyes of the law, lesbian mothers and gay fathers faced an entrenched debate over what was in “the best interests of the child.” Gradually, with the help of sympathetic expert witnesses and lesbian mother and gay father advocacy groups, they challenged the widespread cultural assumption that homosexuality and parenting were antithetical. In doing so, they paved the way for the current focus on domestic/parental rights in the modern Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) freedom struggle.

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