Center Blog

Breaking equality news from California today.  As reported by Metro Weekly’s Chris Geidner:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today affirmed the August 2010 decision by U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker that California’s 2008 amendment banning same-sex couples from marriage is unconstitutional, deciding the case on narrow grounds relating to the facts of the amendment’s impact, which the court notes was to “eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California..

The case, Perry v. Brown, was brought by the American Foundation for Equal Rights and featured a contrasting team of lawyers — the conservative Ted Olson and liberal David Boies — who waged a high-stakes trial in January 2010 and a high-profile public campaign to advance the cause of marriage equality.In today’s decision, Judge Stephen Reinhardt writes for the court:

“We consider whether that amendment violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. We conclude that it does.”

You can read more about this historic ruling in favor of full equality for same-sex couples by linking to The American Foundation for Equal Rights.  The Center congratulates all of the people who worked tirelessly to make this a reality and looks forward to further efforts to keep this ruling in place!

This blog is crosss posted with permission from It’s Conceivable

Guest Post By Diana Adams, Esq, Attorney and Mediator

Adams is a trusted Center partner and supporter of our Center Families Program.

Many families today seek artificial insemination from a sperm donor, including lesbian couples, single women, and heterosexual couples in which the male does not have viable sperm. Despite the availability of sperm banks, many women prefer to collaborate with a male friend. In this situation of ‘informal sperm donation’, a Sperm Donor Agreement is essential.

A Sperm Donor Agreement is a contract between the sperm donor and the person seeking to use that donor’s sperm for insemination purposes, without using a sperm bank as intermediary. The primary purpose of this document is to clearly identify that although the sperm donor is the biological father, he intends to sever all legal rights and responsibilities of fatherhood, including visitation access, all decisions about the child’s health, religion, schooling, or anything else, responsibilities for child support, and any other care or support of the child.

Swept up in the excitement of planning parenthood, potential parents and a potential donor may not speak in detail about their expectations of the donor’s role. As with a romance, people often rush past important stages of trust-building and negotiation. The discussion and reflection involved in crafting a well-meditated agreement will help prevent future misunderstandings and disappointments.

For instance, everyone must be in agreement about the role of the sperm donor in the child’s life, if any. A lesbian couple may choose a sperm donor who is a relative of the woman not intended to give birth, so that the child will be related by blood to both women. In other instances, a trusted friend may be invited to be a donor. In either case, it is likely that the donor and the child will come into contact, and it is in the best interest of the child that the donor and potential mother (or couple) come to agreement about the expected level of contact, if any. In some families, the donor may be treated like a special uncle, always present at birthday parties and family gatherings. The child may know from a young age that this man is his donor, and that they have a special connection. Other families choose for the child and donor to have little or no contact. There is not one right way to handle this issue, conflicting expectations lead to conflict.

What issues should be discussed between a potential sperm donor and birth parent?

I recommend that a potential sperm donor and potential birth mother or couple sit down and discuss the following:

• Do both sides agree that the sperm donor will never have financial responsibility of any kind?
• Do both sides agree that the sperm donor will relinquish all legal parenting rights, including decision-making about the welfare of the child, or formal visitation rights?
• Will the donor have a relationship with the child? If so, how often will the donor visit the child? (Occasionally is not specific enough. Once a week? Several times per year?)
• What will the child call the donor?
• When will the child be told that this person is his or her donor?

Since in some states, a Sperm Donor Agreement has tenuous or no legal standing, it is essential that both sides feel significant mutual trust.

Whether to prevent litigation or interpersonal strife, it is crucial to find a donor you are sure will not change his mind in the future, even if he ends up not having other children or if he disagrees with your parenting choices.

Similarly, a donor should be confident that the birth mother is emotionally stable and capable of parenting without financial or other assistance. If the potential donor is merely a friend of a friend you have only met a few times, it may be better to just use a sperm bank.

The process of insemination: Is a turkey baster enough?

A Sperm Donor Agreement will be most legally viable if a licensed physician is used in the insemination process. This may involve a several month waiting period in which the semen is ‘washed’ and tested by the medical facility, and then several months of insemination attempts during ovulation. Families often balk at the time and expense of this process, but if you have concerns about the legal status of the agreement, this effort may be very worthwhile. I recommend using a physician in New York State, or consulting with an LGBT family law attorney in your state for advice tailored to your situation.

Will a Sperm Donor Agreement be enforced in court?

This field of law is shifting with the increased acceptance of artificial insemination and alternate routes to parenting.

As of January 2012, Sperm Donor Agreements precluding the parental rights of sperm donors have been enforced in California, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington, DC, particularly if done via a licensed physician and where there is no involvement in the child’s life by the donor. Keep in mind that these challenges were raised because one party to the agreement later tried to contradict the agreement in court, either with a sperm donor seeking visitation rights or a mother seeking child support (or the state seeking it for her if she is on public assistance). These challenges are very rare, but still cause anxiety and present a slight risk to those entering into Sperm Donor Agreements.

In New York courts, donor agreements have been enforced between a donor and married couple, in which case the couples is assumed to be the legal parents, including in same-sex marriages; in New York, donor agreements are also enforced when the partner of the woman being inseminated adopts the child in a second-parent adoption. In this case the legal rights of the donor are severed. I strongly recommend second-parent adoption for same-sex female couples; their marriage may not be accepted in other states as evidence of parental relationship to the child, but a second-parent adoption is strongly legally enforceable nationwide.

It is worthwhile to create a Sperm Donor Agreement even its enforceability is legally uncertain. The process of negotiating the agreement and memorializing shared intentions in writing agreement will make it very unlikely that the parties will later disagree and bring the matter before a court. In the unlikely event that you do go to court, even if the agreement is not binding in your state, the court may look to it for guidance in what you intended and often uses it as a factor in making its decision. Furthermore, we need strong Sperm Donor Agreements challenged in courts so that they may be ruled legally binding. If a strong agreement is presented in a New York court, we will have the chance to change New York state law to make Sperm Donor Agreements enforceable and help future parents protect their rights.

Diana Adams is an attorney mediator who assists families to create stable family agreements, including Sperm Donor Agreements, second-parent adoptions, marital contracts. Her practice is based in New York and often serves the LGBT community. www.dianaadamslaw.net

The Center is posting this information at the request of our sister organization, the NYC Anti-Violence Project.

Real Talk with AVP: Identifying Intimate Partner Violence

Tuesday December 13th

6:30 – 8:30pm

NYC Anti-Violence Project

240 W. 35^th St., 2^nd Floor, Between 7^th and 8^th Ave.

Want to learn more about what defines an abusive relationship? 

Ever felt powerless when your friends were in unhealthy relationships?

Do you want to end Intimate Partner Violence within Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ)  communities?

Come ready to learn, share, and take action to end Intimate Partner Violence in LGBTQ Communities.  “Real Talks” are chances for AVP community members to join together to learn issues and to create strategies to reduce violence.

Light refreshments will be served.  To register, please visit this link. 

George Fesser, LMSW, Director of Center Families

On Wednesday November 16,  Director of Center Families, George Fesser, LMSW, received a Sol Award (Sun Award) from the Hispanic AIDS Forum. Community members gathered at Battery Gardens in lower Manhattan for the event. The Sol Award acknowledges extraordinary acts of compassion, courage and leadership that, like the sun, spread enlightenment, strength, and sustenance for a healthy life.

The Hispanic AIDS Forum created the Sol Award  in 2007 to honor individuals and entities who demonstrate compassion, courage and leadership in our shared struggle to eradicate HIV/AIDS and its root causes from our communities.  According to HAF:

The global AIDS epidemic has spread great misfortune among millions of people, showing us the widespread devastation caused by chronic illness.  As we fight AIDS and other chronic illnesses, it becomes increasingly clear that in the United States and throughout the world the gift of life often depends on one’s ability to buy healthcare. We, however, at HAF firmly believe that quality healthcare is an indiscriminately universal human right. In our profound appreciation of our partners who both share and practice this belief, we are proud to formally recognize their tireless work in the ongoing, collective endeavor to make the fundamental human right to healthcare a reality.

George Fesser at Sol Awards

George Fesser learned early on about dedicating himself to bettering the lives of others. At 19 years old and just out of high school in Miami, George joined the Missionary group “Amor en Accion” and went on missions to Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Guatemala, helping the poorest of the poor. This is also the time when he came to grips with being gay and learned that he was HIV-positive. Being honest and authentic with his fellow missionaries and family members about his status cost him his membership in this Catholic organization, and caused a break between George and his father which continues until today. This was his first stark experience with homophobia and bias against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) communities and those living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

However, George did not give up. He pursued volunteer work at Miami Children’s Hospital and soon after was hired and worked for a number of years at the adolescent psychiatric ward helping social workers and nurses deal with suicidal teens, 40% of whom were LGBT. Simultaneously, George obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work at Barry University.

In 1998, George moved to New York City to pursue a Master’s Degree in Social Work. However, a Kaposi Sarcoma diagnoses delayed his plans to begin graduate school; instead he concentrated on beating his cancer and moving forward in his career as a prevention counselor at Streetworks Project, where he worked with homeless teenagers. After one year of chemotherapy, George beat cancer, and began to work for Montefiore Medical Center as a research associate for the New York Academy of Medicine.

Heriberto Sanchez-Soto, Exec. Director Hispanic AIDS Forum (left), George Fesser, LMSW, Director of Center Families (middle), Jesus Aguias, Exec. Director Aid for AIDS (right)

In 2002 he began to work at Aid for AIDS International. After this, George was a Prevention Counselor at the Western Queens site of the Hispanic AIDS Forum, where he worked for almost four years. He then moved on to The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, and while working full time as the Coordinator of Substance Abuse Prevention & Immigration Services, completed his Master’s Degree in Social Work at Columbia University, School of Social Work. During his time at the Center George coordinated and provided direct support services to LGBT immigrants from over 50 countries. George also created the Center’s LGBT Immigrant Social Action Group which helps LGBT immigrants learn more about the laws that affect them and how they can use their stories to promote change in a system that does not recognize the unique needs of the LGBT immigrant population.

In his new role as Director of Center Families, George is responsible for organizing education and support services for prospective parents and families in the LGBTQ community, as well as overseeing the groundbreaking LGBTQ Foster Care Project. George is now engaged to JC his partner of 8 years, and they enjoy a great life together with their Terrier, Oxy.

George Fesser and his partner Juan Carlos Garcia-Lavin

We are proud to have George on our staff and congratulate him on receiving this prestigious award.

LGBT parents won’t want to miss this upcoming event on November 16 at 7 PM.

The William Alanson White Institute Parent Center presents:

Sex and the LGBT Parent

• How does creating a family impact on LGBT couple life?
• How do we keep emotional and sexual connection alive with children in the picture?
• How can LGBT parents best use their childhood experiences of sexuality to inform their children’s development?
• How will a changing social landscape make the lives of our children different from our own?

WELCOMING COMMENTS:

Jacqueline Ferraro, D.M.H., Associate Director, The Parent Center

PANEL:

Moderator – Deborah Glazer, Ph.D. is the co editor of Gay and Lesbian Parenting. She is a psychologist/ psychoanalyst in private practice in Manhattan.

Suzanne Iasenza, Ph.D. - “Keeping Emotional and Sexual Connection Alive”

When baby makes three, LGBT couples often experience challenges to maintaining emotional closeness and sexual connection. Unconscious, interpersonal, and practical forces often burden expression of passion and play. Suzanne Iasenza, Ph.D. is on the faculties of the Institute for Contempoarary Psychotherapy (ICP) and Adelphi University’s Postgraduate Program in Psychoanalysis. She is co-editor of Lesbians and Psychoanalysis (1995) and Lesbians, Feminism, and Psychoanalysis (2005).

Scott J. Goldsmith, M.D. - “Letting Our Children Fly Carry-On: The Emotional Baggage of LGBT Parenting and its Role in Children’s Lives”

Wednesday, November 16, 2011
7:00pm to 9:00pm
Pre-registration: $25 per person/ $30 at the door

William Alanson White Institute
20 West 74th Street
New York, NY 10023

To register contact Diane Amato at d.amato@wawhite.org or (212) 873-0725 Ext. 20

If you’re planning on getting hitched, ESquared Hospitality is offering a 20% discount on wedding-related events at all New York restaurants.

The offer is valid for parties of 10 or more through December 1, 2011 and some restrictions may apply.

To plan a celebration, contact Julie at JULIE@BLTRESTAURANTS.COM or (212) 752-4411.

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center is pleased to announce the appointment of George Fesser, LMSW, as the new Director of Center Families. George is a graduate of the Columbia University School of Social Work and specializes in work with LGBT families and immigrants. Before taking this new position George worked for four years as the Center’s Coordinator of Substance Abuse Prevention & Immigration Services where he was responsible for coordinating and providing direct support services to LGBT immigrants from over 50 countries.

George also created the Center’s LGBT Immigrant Social Action Group which helps LGBT immigrants learn more about the laws that affect them and how they can use their stories to promote change in a system that does not recognize the unique needs of the LGBT immigrant population.  

Prior to joining the Center, George worked at several well-known agencies in the NYC area, including: Street Work, a program of Safe Horizon, Montefiore Medical Center, The Hispanic AIDS Forum and AID FOR AIDS.  In his 15 years of experience in working with LGBT immigrants he has successfully assisted over 300 LGBT immigrants through the arduous process of asylum application, by providing culturally sensitive emotional support services.

As Director of Center Families, George will be responsible for organizing education and support services for prospective parents and families in the LGBTQ community, as well as overseeing the groundbreaking LGBTQ Foster Care Project. In its almost 20-year history, Center Families has helped thousands of LGBT people who are and would like to be parents, worked to keep together families when they are struggling with their child’s sexual orientation, assisted family-serving agencies such as foster care agencies and educational institutions in meeting the needs of LGBT families and provided opportunities for families to meet safely with one another for socialization, education, community building and empowerment.

This is an extraordinary night for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) New Yorkers. Marriage for same-sex couples will soon become law, following the passage of the Marriage Equality Act. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center applauds our state legislators in Albany for their historic vote in favor of marriage equality, and stands with all those involved in the New Yorkers United for Marriage coalition; their tireless efforts helped make this a reality. The Center also commends Governor Andrew Cuomo for his steadfast leadership on this issue.

Countless New York same-sex couples come to the Center every day seeking our services, having faced the numerous roadblocks brought on by a lack of marriage protections. Many come looking for LGBT friendly legal or financial referrals. Some come seeking support for their relationships. And even more come to create families with the help of our Center Families program, which has been serving LGBT couples and families for nearly 20 years.

In addition, the Center held several marriage forums in recent months to spotlight this issue and allow a platform for leaders and community members to speak out and advocate for marriage equality. Most recently we hosted a NY Latinos United for Marriage Equality rally and press conference, highlighting significant Latino community support for LGBT marriage protections and garnering significant media attention.

This vote sends a strong message to all New York same-sex couples that their lives and their families matter. It’s vitally important for the state to extend these much needed protections so that loving committed couples can take care of and be responsible for one another and for their families.

CONGRATULATIONS NEW YORK!

This year marks the first anniversary of the Center’s LGBTQ Foster Care Project, a Center Families program that works to ensure New York City based foster care agencies have the tools and resources they need to treat LGBTQ children in foster care with dignity and respect, and to create an affirming and inclusive environment for LGBTQ identified birth, foster, and adoptive parents. As part of this effort, the project has formed a partnership with the New York City Administration for Children’s Services, “to provide foster care agencies with the information, training and resources needed to offer safe, high-quality and sensitive services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth.” Under the new policy, “participating foster care agencies will have demonstrated efforts towards LGBTQ inclusiveness and cultural competency as outlined in ACS Best Practice and Quality Assurance Standards.” Those standards are based almost entirely on the guidelines, procedures, and best-practice recommendations from Center Families’ LGBTQ Foster Care Project.

The LGBTQ Cultural Competency Benchmarks include “ensuring that all youth, staff and parents receive notice of the ACS Non-Discrimination Policy, actively recruit potential gay affirming foster care and adoptive parents from the LGBT community and identify a staff person to serve as the LGBTQ contact person within the agency.”

Earlier this year, The Foster Care Project marked its pilot year with an orientation and recognition ceremony at the Administration for Children’s Services, where it honored five agencies for their work towards creating an affirming and inclusive environment for the LGBTQ Community. The agencies included: Harlem Dowling, Leake & Watts, Episcopal Social Services, SCO Family of Services and Abbot House. The Foster Care Project also recently welcomed three new agencies as LGBTQ inclusive, including: Mercy First, Children’s Aid Society and Little Flower.

And this week Center Families learned that Commissioner for the New York City Administration for Children’s Services John B. Mattingly, is honoring LGBTQ Foster Care Project Program Coordinator Tracey Little, with the Commissioner’s Child Advocacy Award. Little will receive the award at an April 28 ceremony at ACS. In a letter announcing the honor, the Commissioner said:

“In recognition of April as National Child Abuse Prevention Month, the New York City Administration for Children’s Services is pleased to take this opportunity to honor you with the Commissioner’s Child Advocacy Award for your outstanding contribution to keeping children safe and strengthening families.

“As part of our mission, ACS investigates reports of child abuse and neglect, provides safe homes for children in foster care and works to rehabilitate youth involved in the juvenile justice system.  We rely on skilled, caring individuals and organizations, like yourself, to achieve these goals.  Your dedication and compassion have made a difference in the lives of countless children and young people—not only this month but on every single day of the year.  We thank you for your contributions to this critical work.”

Congratulations to Center Families’ LGBTQ Foster Care Project for its positive impact on the key agency that looks out for the well-being of New York City’s children! Because of these efforts, a growing number of agencies throughout the city now have the vital resources they need to protect LGBTQ children and families!

Is it so incredible that one could be involuntarily outed and functionally excommunicated “In This Day And Age?!” Sad to say, it is not. The selfsame title of the book by Isaac Namdar, M.D. chronicles his own personal experience of this tragedy which ultimately and paradoxically created a positive movement of communication within his strict Orthodox community. After being outed against his will and publicly censured by his rabbi and expunged from the membership roster of his synagogue, Dr. Namdar opened up an internet message board for all who wished to comment to do so publicly. This medium provided a podium which ultimately touched many chords that resonated within his close knit and very orthodox community. And he compiled all of the resultant dialogue into an eminently readable book which poignantly traces one man’s movement through the conflicts of loyalty to close knit ethnic identity, spiritual identity and sexual identity. It also tells a story of an ethnic minority struggling to come to terms with itself, its culture and its religion in a pluralistic society.

Isaac Namdar and Andrew Mitchell were married in a civil ceremony on July 1, 2009 and celebrated their loving union with a party for family and friends that October. A wedding website was subsequently created to share the happy stories and photos of the wedding and honeymoon for their intimates to enjoy. Little did either suspect the furor soon to be aroused in Isaac’s Orthodox community when this website was ‘crashed’ and the contents of the website made public in January of that year. A man who sought only privacy and peace had been outed by a stranger, against his will, and his world and his family’s world was certainly never the same.

The book “In This Day And Age?!” is a compendium of the discourse among members of Dr. Namdar’s tightly interwoven religious/ethnic community, as they grappled with the issues of spirituality, identity, Jewish law and customs and the morality attached to the denial or acceptance of the individual’s right to pursue his/her own path versus the needs of a community desperately seeking cohesion. The issues brought up by the many respondents on the message board Dr Namdar maintained as a forum are diverse, fascinating and show a genuine striving to come to terms with homosexuality as organic to their population and not some phenomena infiltrating from the outside.
Throughout it all, Dr. Namdar behaves with ultimate equanimity, reasonableness and an honorable willingness to engage in dialogue without compromising himself or his commitments. As he states, his goal in establishing a discussion board was to educate as many people as possible about equity and tolerance and, by the overall tenor of his account, he succeeded (of course, bigots on the fringes will exist within any religious or social group).

Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, spiritual leader of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah for nearly two decades, was the introductory speaker of the evening and moderator of the lively, open discussion that followed Dr. Namdar’s forthright presentation of his work. Renowned for her humanitarian outlook and unwillingness to back down in the face of controversy, Rabbi Kleinbaum’s presence gave evidence of New York’s Gay and Jewish work for dignity, equality and human rights for all.
CBST, not incidentally, is the largest LGBT synagogue in the world, and zealously pursues social action on all gay-related issues, including youth homelessness, health, aging and marriage equality as well as sponsoring an active transgender coalition. The synagogue’s “Strength Through Community” features guest videos by noteworthy members of the gay Jewish world who speak out against hate and bullying as well as directly addressing the epidemic of gay teen suicides.

Dr. Namdar’s book is available at amazon.com and makes for a lively and provocative read.

Written by Spencer Shear