Child custody battles are always difficult, and can be ugly. But a recent Dallas child custody dispute shows the lengths that gay parents must go to fight for the right to parent their non-biological children if they split up from the child’s biological parent. In the case fought out in Dallas family law courtrooms, a Texas mother petitioned for custody of a child she had raised since birth with her lesbian partner (the child’s biological mother).
Continue Reading Dallas Same Sex Custody Dispute: Battle For Recognition of Parental Rights by LGBT Parents

Last Friday the Third Court of Appeals at Austin affirmed a Travis County trial court’s ruling granting a same-sex divorce in Texas, in Cause No. 03-10-00237-CV, State v. Naylor and Daly. The appeal from the divorce judgment was brought not by either of the parties, as they had agreed upon the division of property and the child custody modification included in the decree the trial court approved, but by the State of Texas.
Continue Reading Same-Sex Divorce in Texas: Austin Court of Appeals Opens the Door

The closing chapter was written on a long Dallas Texas child custody battle by Kristine Vowels, a non-biological lesbian mother of her former partner’s daughter, on October 8, 2010. After 3 1/2 years of battling just to have the right to sue for access to the child — called standing — Kristie decided to end her fight.
Continue Reading In A Dallas Texas Child Custody Suit, Making the Toughest Decision

The rights of a lesbian partner to participate in parenting her former partner’s child will be set for trial in the 302nd Judicial District Court. After the Texas Supreme Court declined to hear the biological parent’s appeal challenging the partner’s right to sue for access to the child, the Dallas Court of Appeals returned the case to the trial court.
Continue Reading Rights of Gay Parent Head to Trial in Dallas County, Texas

On Thursday, June 17, I will be participating as a panelist in the State Bar of Texas Family Law Update: Same Sex Couple Divorce/Parenting Issues webcast seminar.

This two-hour webcast is intended to inform the family law practitioner about recent developments in same-sex family law cases. Dallas and Austin have both recently litigated gay divorces; the 5th and 9th Courts of Appeal have recently issued opinions addressing standing for same-sex parents.
Continue Reading Same Sex Couple Divorce and Parenting Issues