Unknown Speaker 00:02 My name is Suzanne Goldberg. I'm a lawyer, staff attorney with Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. And for those of you don't know, lambda, we've been around 23 years, although I have obviously not been there all that time. And we do all sorts of test case, litigation on behalf of lesbians and gay men and people with HIV and AIDS. So what we really do is take cases where we try to change the law in some way or to secure rights for gay people, people with HIV. And I do a whole range of work there. Some family work, which is obviously what we're going to talk about today. But also, I've worked on anti gay initiatives with council on the challenge to the Colorado anti gay amendment, among others. But anyway, what I thought we would do is, how many people were at the plenary this morning, most of you there, okay, great. You know, when I was thinking about this discussion, I thought, you know, there are so many different ways we could approach the issue of what forming and maintaining lesbian families is really about. And one of the themes that came up this morning was obviously that the law is not a very good measure of what family is. And so I thought, one of the things we might do is actually reflect on, is that really true? Or does that necessarily have to be true? You know, are there ways to make the law better reflective of what families are? And then a whole second thing was just even in this title, you know, and I guess this is what I was trying to do in law school was to, like, of course, you never, like see a word without asking, Well, what does that really mean? You know, so when we say, forming of lesbian family, what does that really what are we talking about? For me? What are we talking about when we talked about maintaining? What are we talking about when we talk about a lesbian family? I mean, what does that mean, even home? So I thought that, you know, those are some of the big themes that I thought we could talk about. And then the other thing I thought would be helpful in all of this discussion is talking about, well, what are the purposes of family? You know, what are we trying to get at when we talk about forming or maintaining a family. But up before we start, I thought I would talk some, but really, that this is gonna be much this is much more suited for discussion, that we can each go around and say, our names, and just, you know, sort of what, you know, what do you do? Do you go to school here? Do you? Are you a lawyer, you whatever. But then also what it is, like, if you had to identify one or two things that informs your perspective on what family is run, what a lesbian family is? What would you say that is? Okay. You know, and take it for whatever. And because I think by, you know, through the mix of us that will actually help us get the discussion going. And so to be fair, I'll start. Like I said, my name is Suzanne Goldberg. And you already know what I do. But I think that the two things that really shaped my perspective on what else, not probably more than two, but two of the things that shaped my, my perspective on one lesbian families is partly my work at lambda and seeing lesbian families so defined or not coming into conflict with the law, and with each other, and the relationship of those families to the legal system. And then the second thing is sort of seeing me as a lesbian in connection to sort of my partner, and connection to the child, which we are about to have, which is my partner was the person on the panel this morning, who mentioned that her partner was about to have a child, or not about to but near future. Exactly. But also the families that I have with my friends. And so that's that's part of what she said for me. Just go around. Unknown Speaker 03:56 My name is Alex. I'm actually I work for American Express. And Smith College. So I have been trying to keep up with the Paris debate around this issue. I don't know I really haven't given a lot of thought actually, I think a bit more. I think a lesbian families, community, really not only just the two partners with communal raising of children. I to be honest with you, I guess that's one of the reasons I'm here because I have a lot of thought and maybe any perspective. And I I'm a corporate tax Unknown Speaker 04:36 attorney for American Express, Unknown Speaker 04:39 graduates College, the law school, this university, law school in the village and I guess my own struggle with family issues and families we choose as opposed to those we're born into comes from a conflict between a fairly traditional intellectualized Catholic Hi Unknown Speaker 05:04 my name is Renato I'm a PhD student at the Graduate Center of beauty institutional division formulas and families specifically lesbian couples like you have children together Unknown Speaker 05:21 then you'd like to work and also Unknown Speaker 05:28 I'm also co organizing a conference on lesbian gay bisexual transgender family participation in next year particularly and in terms of the family more think about this thing this is like the more confusing gets because we I used to be in the in the critical and now I have multiple relationships with different people, they have different relationships with different people. So where does it end, the way it becomes even if it seems like such a big deal for the general public trade laws that actually to women's relationships from the founder, but Unknown Speaker 06:22 at this point, I couldn't try to bake the traditional form so it's really the definition Unknown Speaker 06:37 which I'm sure is challenging when you're writing a thesis Unknown Speaker 06:42 it seems fairly clear but you then get support Unknown Speaker 06:50 so so obviously, this year focusing a lot on general philosophy and Child Child Development. And I guess in with that I find that mostly I approach family as a human race it's sort of being anything themselves but their function is to raise and create a person Unknown Speaker 07:29 I guess my own beliefs just come from what I was struggling with in the past couple of years and that kind of deconstruction of my own family as I knew it, and so like a cross between my upbringing and the beliefs that I've always hold on to I mean what I'm just so Unknown Speaker 07:55 proud of my interest Unknown Speaker 07:57 comes from I was raised by not like a lesbian couple of days I ate like an hour so consider many of those Unknown Speaker 08:08 and they were the question is Who are you sort of where are you You know, what are you doing in life at the moment but also what is it that informs your definition of what family is and specifically what lesbian families Unknown Speaker 08:49 I moved to the US several years Unknown Speaker 08:53 that I was actually Unknown Speaker 09:01 removed quite a bit depending on what me at this point Unknown Speaker 09:16 I've reached the point that ideally Unknown Speaker 09:25 we should have plus the uniforms Unknown Speaker 09:49 you really know what Unknown Speaker 09:59 I'm reading Good habits particularly interested in the center there's that definitely a functional perspective is and the reason I think the reason that that vision occurs in the first place is because of Jewish Unknown Speaker 11:10 which is I'm New York but I live specifically in a community Unknown Speaker 11:21 who are still involved financially, emotionally with their biological father especially strapped in so somebody, somebody's mother, some. So it's very, very cold loving and always one of the things that supports it is the fact that straight families get money being straight or they can do other things because of that, because of that structure support. So I'm interested in racing, and it's actually a student here. Unknown Speaker 12:19 And I guess my idea of lesbian family and split family, I think Unknown Speaker 12:25 it's a very individual thing. But I guess for me individually, I'm in a, like, long term committed relationship with a woman now, and we just want to have lots and lots of kids. Unknown Speaker 12:38 You know, I mean, it's amazing, because I think what, in terms of what a lot of people are saying, there are so many different types of definitions of family, we all could adopt, and some of them are informed by how we grew up. Some of them are informed by what situation we're in now, or what are the situations that people who we see around us. And you know, and that all works, right? I mean, in life, sort of, you know, going from one place to another one situation to another one country to another, you know, it's kind of, you're here, you're there. And at the same time is it's confusing, you know, there's not, and at the same time, as there is some social pressure to conform to a traditional definition of family, whatever that is, but let's assume it's a heterosexual married couple, you know, often with children, you know, there's no, there's nothing that tells you you can't think about family in a broad range of ways. You can think about it, however you want to think about it. You know, but part of the complication, an interesting complication that I think comes up, is when you say, okay, we can each have our own individual definition of what family means. What do we do them when we're confronted with the outside world? And what do we do when we want somebody some institution, some government agency to recognize our family? What's the definition there? Right. And so, you know, I think it's a very hard question to approach because there are a lot of ways to approach it, you can approach it from sort of, and I think we ought to actually try to approach it in both in these different ways. But you can approach it from well, what are the things that you would want based on a family membership? And then what kind of definition would you offer to the institution in question or the agency and question for who they should consider family and who they shouldn't consider family? Is this that say, you know, if you are in a situation of what hospital visitation should be anybody who presents themselves to the hospital and says that he or she is a family member? Or should they what, what's the definition that the hospital is going to use? And I actually think that that's a pretty interesting example to start with. If so why don't we actually jump from there? And the background story I'll get to it is that I don't know if I can't recall this came up in the morning panel. But how many people here are familiar with the situation of Sharon Kowalski and Karen Thompson? It says, as you know, I mean, if somebody wants to describe their situation as far as Unknown Speaker 15:30 my conscience is still Unknown Speaker 15:37 here was able to spell things out at this point, although it's I mean, she made them better last year. Unknown Speaker 15:45 Her parents to overhaul things the caregiver can make medical decisions. And what it led to crypto custody can make decisions, medical decisions back and forth, right now. Unknown Speaker 16:19 Guardianship difference for our perspective, but she's taken care of. Unknown Speaker 16:28 I think it was, it was important because Unknown Speaker 16:39 it's so here. So here we have this situation made is exactly as you described it, where Karen and Sharon owned a home together, they had exchanged rings, they were both quite closeted. So they didn't, you know what, you know, one typical definition of lesbian or gay couple is, you know, you hold yourself out as a couple to the community. And it would be hard to say that they did that. Certainly, some of their friends knew they were together as a couple, but many people did not. So Karen goes to the hospital after finding out that Sharon's been in this terrible accident. And they want the hospital morning and tell her what's going on. So the question is, for us, you know, what should the hospital require? You know, of somebody who shows up and says, I want to see this person, this is a failed family member of mine, you know, the parents were presumptively in and were granted custody. And the outcome of the case was eventually, seven years later, Minnesota appeals court held that they were a, quote, family of affinity. But it took seven years for that to happen. And in those during those seven years, Karen had a tremendous struggle and very little contact with her partner, Sharon, was while Sharon was kept in a nursing home, which was not at all where Karen thought she should be in terms of getting rehabilitation. We'll see that the interesting thing, they didn't actually define affinity, I mean, courts, when they look at this, you know, if they're sympathetic to a broader definition of family, then a spousal, you know, legal spousal relationship, we'll just, you know, come up with a term like family and affinity or functional family. Occasionally, there are definitions. But actually, there wasn't much of one in that case. I mean, I think the court was cognizant of the fact that they had lived together for a long time, they clearly know, Karen was able to present evidence showing that the two of them weren't that partners. But I mean, but really, I mean, the question for us is, how should How should the court define that? What should a court do I mean, a coordinate some standards? What what, you know, if you were in the hospital, right, and this and you have this problem, the situation is presented to you. You're the hospital administrator, you have the parents on the one hand, and you have this unknown person, on the other hand, what do you want to know? And you will allow family members to see a person who has become disabled and harm, and you will allow, somehow figured out the family member is the person who gets to make those health care decisions? What do you want to know? I mean, we've raised a number of different definitions of what we all think family is but you know, keeping those in mind. You know, if you're the administrator, what are you going to do? What do you what is it that you need to know? Unknown Speaker 19:41 Well, I don't know I patient, even when we were were little kids and they always had to go to the hospital. We were always like, I can't my friend compensate. You know, I always wondered why they don't just ask people who are in the hospital. Tell them who can come and see them who can do that. because it necessarily, does it automatically your family should be allowed. On what if there's a family that you don't want to see? At least that's if, if I was a hospital Unknown Speaker 20:17 what is the situation? Unknown Speaker 20:22 Same problem to see. I mean, assuming that the hospital, you know, has traditionally thought that like, like you point out that only family members get to come. And then, you know, and all family members have a right to come, including the ones that the patient might not want to see. Except that if the patient says I don't want to see that person, hospitals generally respect their wishes. But But that's, you know, outside of the narrow confines of that definition, people, everybody else is stuck, somehow either finding a sympathetic administrator, or proving somehow, you know, that they fit within this definition. But let's, let's see a situation where the patient actually can't express his or her wishes, which was the situation in the in this Sharon quality Karen Thompson case. Unknown Speaker 21:15 Look at that. Health care, proxy router, something like that? Unknown Speaker 21:20 Well, that I mean, that's certainly one way to do it, where, you know, people could have drawn up documents in advance saying, this is the person who I want to come visit me in the hospital, I mean, that's one way that we get can get around these problems. And or, here's the document that shows that this person is the executor of my will, and that this or this person is the beneficiary of my, you know, I, if, if I was faced with this situation, and I would go in, and here are all my documents, showing that my partner says I'm the beneficiary for life insurance, around the whatever, although there are situations where I might not need that. I mean, her mother's the beneficiary of her life insurance in my case. You know, I so, you know, where you come in and say, Look, here are all of the pictures of us together as a family. But I mean, seriously, I mean, when we left, but what is it? What What should the hospital require? How is the hospital supposed to know that this person shows up and says, I want to see this member, this person who I consider a member of my family should get to come in Unknown Speaker 22:21 your hypothetical? Heard? And I really hospital administrator, I wouldn't get a health care proxy or some other people. I wouldn't take I wouldn't see this complete stranger to the hospital patient can't express any wishes. I have no way to know this person. Good. Arm personally. Was the husband okay. Unknown Speaker 23:10 We're like, no, family, the family or, you know, medical situations, and we have family? Probably might have. To be it seems really age. Unknown Speaker 23:26 But I think I mean, it's, it's a little bit of both. I mean, certainly, it's traditional, you know, and a lot of traditions are put into policies, unquestioned. But in terms of your question, I guess there are two levels of it. I mean, sometimes, you know, hospitals will let in anybody who a patient consents to have come in, but in situations where persons persons in emergency care and are unable to, to give that consent, the hospital wants a way of restricting who can come in, so that you don't have a parade of people who don't know, the personnel, no other you know, in other situations, the hospital will say, Fine, whoever wants to come in, or whoever the family member authorizes to come in, can come in. So that's one situation. But the other situation is if a person doesn't have what's called a living will, which designate somebody to make healthcare decisions for the person one if he or she is unable, then is the family member traditionally, who is, you know, entitled to make those health care decisions. So the person needs an operation, somebody has to consent to the operation? Who can give that consent? You know, what I mean, what do you this is a real situation, what do you do? You have, you know, somebody who comes in and says, look, I've got the, here's the keys to our joint department. Right? Here's all of the pictures of us together. Here's an end. Let me tell you further, that this, you know, the patient hasn't talked to her biological parents in 10 years. And then you have the biological parents saying This is our child, we get to make the decision Unknown Speaker 25:04 is a tradition that gives the parents some rights was actually statutory somewhere that says, Unknown Speaker 25:14 oh, it's I mean, it's actually it's tradition that's been codified into law. But what it is, is typically, the parents have the right but if the person is married, then the spouse has that right. Unknown Speaker 25:26 situation, age Unknown Speaker 25:35 Well, that's true. But what if the adult person can't consent? I mean, then that's the problem. We've got here what you know, what do you do? You're the you know, you're sitting behind your desk. The doctor comes into you with this problem. We know we need to do this operation. We have two different people telling us that they have the right team to make the decision here. Rather than let's forget about the law for a second. Yeah, it's my favorite thing to do believe me. We have to do all the time we're doing what's being a good case is if we follow up, we'll never win. Forget about a lot. What should the hospital administrator be asking? Unknown Speaker 26:32 I think patience shows. Unknown Speaker 26:42 Let's make this harder. Let's say that there's no signs this person is totally totally, you know, physically non-communicative. She she started Unknown Speaker 26:53 going off to Unknown Speaker 26:55 college. That's I mean, that's actually true. But let's, let's like forget. I mean, let's take, let's take the toughest situation. Unknown Speaker 27:08 See, what is it that's making the patient? Unknown Speaker 27:12 Alright, so Okay, then let's follow that through for a second. Say, you know, biological parents come in, no reaction or there's a negative reaction. Say person who claims to be lover comes in, no reaction, negative reaction, say candy striper comes in, you know? What then happens? Yeah, I mean, I don't care. I you, but you have to make some kind of how what's your basis for making setting up some sort of a standard that allows you to make a decision? I mean, I don't want to belabor this issue, but we haven't really come up with anything. Unknown Speaker 28:16 What do you I mean, what's the policy? And you guys are resisting this hypothetical. But really, like, what, what kind of policy do you have in place? That tells you if the overarching policy of the hospital is that it should be a family member, and not a candy striper who the person doesn't know, making the decision about a person's medical care? The person who can't communicate medical care? Who doesn't have a living will? So you don't you don't know. You don't know. But what you do have are different people claiming to be family, and different people claiming that they should have the right to make this decision. One person, you know, you've got, let's say, the biological father, and you have the person who claims to be the partner. You know, leaving aside the situation, that is like what you're living in, where you have 20 people who come in and say, Look, we're all as much family as the parents are. You know, but you could I mean, clearly, we're just, you know, it's almost an easier case. If we talk about one partner, and and one or two parents, when you start talking about multiple partners, or friends, and parents and siblings and others. What are the factors that you'd want to know? What would you want to know? To make that decision? The absence of evidence, joint Unknown Speaker 29:47 cohabitation, and a sworn statement 30. A doctor, someone asked these people to carry out their lives in a way that's connected and interdependent Unknown Speaker 30:03 What about people who don't want associated? Church or don't have? I mean, it seems like any kind of it seems like anytime people are asking, I mean, obviously there's a need for anytime. Unknown Speaker 30:29 So what do we want to do that? Unknown Speaker 30:37 To do? Well, I just having these kinds of situations in ways, I think part of the problem is dealing with an institution that institutions recognize other institutions. Structures. I really joined back. Most people, I think most gay couples only come to us join bank accounts, because we've learned that that's, that's an identifiable saying, by the courts or by landlords when you try to keep your current via those kinds of things. But if you haven't, you haven't been dealing with institutions, it's probably but you still need to talk about medical situation. I can't thought about it, think about anything that isn't one institution speaks to another institution. So you have to kind of I think it's kind of like explore your, your life, find when institutions and they all really do intersect with institutions and security figured out which ones we do. So, you know, maybe we go Chico, Boss, boss, or some other thinking to buy an institution speak Unknown Speaker 32:04 to institution? Unknown Speaker 32:08 Very alternative. Unknown Speaker 32:12 And that's, you know, picking up on that, I mean, that's one thing a hospital administrator could say, right, is, we will give anybody who claims to be family here, the opportunity to prove that through whatever means you have available to you. And then, you know, we'll just shuffle it out. You know, on the one hand, we know that, you know, we know who the parents are, because of the birth certificate or whatever kind of documentation we have. But on the other, you know, we're willing to take a look, it's still very difficult, I would suggest for the hospital, then to say, if they get, you know, if we just think of what what what would we present, I mean, it might be joint bank accounts, in one situation, it might be both names on a lease, but if people don't own property together in some way, or what you have together is a dog or a cat, you know, where it usually isn't licensed to people, you know, then then it becomes much harder, then you say, Well, what do you look at? You know, and how, what are the sort of what are the things that that the hospitals should look at? Unknown Speaker 33:20 inherent danger. And in that scene, because you get from person to person that your patient may change from administrator to administrators, there always has to be individual hospital policy. It's laid out or rules laid out, so they understand what framework? Unknown Speaker 33:39 You know, it's it is it's very true. I mean, the other week, I mentioned earlier that I teach a law school class and what it is, when we were talking about these kinds of situations, one of the issues that came up as well, okay, you know, on the one hand, let's say the hospital is willing to accept a partner, not two partners, or three partners, but a partner as the decision maker. How do you distinguish a partner from a roommate, you know, a long term roommate, or a person who somebody shares their life with, but they don't have, there's no sexual relationship, there's no presumption of a sexual relationship, should that make a difference to the hospital? You know, but but these two people or multiple people consider themselves family to each other. You know, they have two cats together, they own a desk together, you know, that they work, they have a joint household budget, you know, they loan each other Unknown Speaker 34:36 presupposes that they live together and have a household together. I mean, in an ideal world, it would be very nice if people could determine for themselves, who will be the decision maker in that case, without any say so by anybody else, you know, Unknown Speaker 34:53 which I mean, which actually though, points out that, you know, most of the time we're in the position to name it to see To the weaker, it's only when we we become incapacitated, that we're not in the position to name the decision maker for us. But even so sometimes we named decision makers, and they're still not recognized. Right? I mean, I'm sure people are familiar with examples like that. But what's interesting is, you know, as we've been talking about this, we still have not if I was the hospital administrator coming to this Group for a consultation, and saying, okay, you know, help me out here, this is the situation, what how am I? How am I supposed to decide who gets to do this? Who gets to make the decision? Unknown Speaker 35:40 I mean, obviously, I'm just guessing. Unknown Speaker 35:45 Generally, that decision should be even mapable by somebody outside. I mean, for example, Unknown Speaker 35:54 if there were contingencies. And then for Unknown Speaker 35:57 example, if there were institutionalized national health care, then part of that could be, I mean, it was an example of everybody's been very, you know, some part of registering yourself who amongst themselves, and also with that, we do need to recognize the people whose livelihoods depend determined by health care. Unknown Speaker 36:30 So that instead Unknown Speaker 36:31 of deciding that there's one person or one, control my whole life but I don't really see that I don't really think there are any points for everyone to use that to try and decide that Unknown Speaker 36:54 the underlying point you're making is actually gets us back to the big question of what's the purpose of family? You know, and as you've just pointed out, the purpose may be something very different in different situations. If we just assume for the moment that it's okay to say that family will use family as the what assume that whoever is family in this situation can be the decision maker to use those terms kind of interchangeably, then who gets to be the decision maker varies depending on what the question is. And, you know, and if we can, you know, if we're sort of alive and can speak and can answer the question, it makes it a lot easier. And then what you're saying is that then that should be recognized as the person's will. Does anybody disagree with that? Unknown Speaker 37:40 It's important to distinguish between sufficient necessary conditions. I mean, for example, if you do have to have happy pictures, I think that's a sufficient criterion to say, Yeah, this relationship is not to say, unless you have a joint bank account. I think that's where it gets confusing when we say you have to have this agency D. Family, but rather to say, Okay, this is the case and when we consider your family, unable to say. Unknown Speaker 38:22 Which is exactly what the court did in the brushy case that was talked about this morning, where the Court said, okay, here were two men who had a long term relationship together in a rent. I was forgetting that case was control or stabilize, but at any rate, I think it was rent controlled apartment, which is obviously in New York City, a very valuable commodity. And family members get to stay when another family member dies. How do we know that this person was a family member and not just a short term roommate, or not just a roommate at all, which for some reason, roommates aren't allowed to remain even though family members are and Unknown Speaker 39:02 sexuality is very interesting homosexuality. It's not a right to have sex with other people. Although then again, sexuality provides some special relationships so I mean, why why should we be committed to each other? I never understand Unknown Speaker 39:29 why. Really, like what why. Unknown Speaker 39:33 Why is that interesting, especially for families or there are people who Unknown Speaker 39:38 consider themselves sexual partners but don't have sex. Unknown Speaker 39:42 Getting more complicated, what? Unknown Speaker 39:51 presumed to be in a relationship that was at one time sexual assault But also Unknown Speaker 40:06 I mean, so we get into this problem, but then we, you know, and one of the reasons, obviously, that those issues, you know that that stuff even matters is because courts that are looking at family, as you know, the owner, that family owns the power to make decisions about this person, if the person can't make decisions about him or herself, the courts have to have, and legislative chairs have to have some way to narrow that group of people potentially, that potentially very large groups of people down, right. I mean, there are large group of people, you know, whether you live in a household with 25 people, or you have 30, very close friends, or you have nobody who you would consider either a close friend or friend or somebody who you'd want to make decisions about you. The legislature is trying to come up with some set of rules that will generally govern who can make decisions about somebody else. They call it family, I think probably just to narrow things down. And then again, they insert the presumption that you probably own things together, once you get above a certain age, you probably, at least at one time were in a sexual relationship. But what you know, what's also interesting there is, you know, I was thinking, we could go through a series of hypotheticals and try to decide at what point let's say, Okay, it's not, I mean, I realized this is sort of an, if you can follow my train of thought here, let's say, you know, we're going to assume that people don't have to be married to be family. But you know, a person can be a decision maker for somebody else. But at what point does that kick in? Right? I mean, at what point do we trigger decision making power? At what point is it taken away? So say, you know, just to make this very easy, Jane meets Barbara, okay. They start to date, you know, at what point? Should they be considered family for purposes of say, should there be any limit to who you can put down at what should you have to have known a person for a certain amount of time before you can give them your health care proxy? Unknown Speaker 42:30 What should should J. J, I'm sorry, should Jane have to know Barbara for six months before she gives her the health care proxy or Unknown Speaker 42:40 make her own decision? Unknown Speaker 42:45 Distributed America 30 years also Unknown Speaker 42:51 social isolation. Okay, so she might be fabulous, as in terms of her parents, siblings or whatever, she may meet someone and feel a confidence. Yes, she should be cheap. She prefers to have that person over the state. She had achieved that. I mean, I think that some of us would prefer an individual who's stranger to the state or to our state. terrified to take it who might be your official, your legal next kin making important decisions? Unknown Speaker 43:41 So I think that harks back to some of you saying that the Coroner's Unknown Speaker 43:51 Court order legislatures, Unknown Speaker 43:52 legislators, I think the stakeholder families down to there's a hierarchy. So economically based. What we're struggling with is being outside. Unknown Speaker 44:12 I mean, I think Unknown Speaker 44:13 it is, it's an infrastructure of the family. That's the triangle. Unknown Speaker 44:28 But that's what actually makes these conversations so interesting, because for so long, lesbian families have not been considered part of the economic or legal based hierarchy that we raise these questions we forced these questions about what kind of family should be recognized or what would the appropriate definitions be in different contexts? Unknown Speaker 44:52 It seems to me psychology is about how to simplify the world. And we have to simplify the world in any number ways that we're going to get. And so we take things to be somebody, you know, when you get your dress a certain way we make certain assumptions, if you have certain talented user assumptions, we have certain education in certain assumptions and make these assumptions way. And in some ways, it seems that this notion of family, whatever, however, it's traditionally defined these things that we use to say, Okay, we're going to value that relationship in one way or another, associated with that condition. And then all of a sudden, women but wait a minute, you know, I'm family too, but not in the code not in the structure that you're used to see. And I think what there's because things, inertia, things. I'm not exactly sure what it becomes very hard for us to change as a us as a society to change was coded. How do we, how was it that we, that we value family, you know, and then get down to issues about sex. And I think that really, if you think back on substances assumption, sex is really procreation. But now we've sort of turned on its head, because now lesbian, gay men are having babies and procreate. And so in some ways, traditional structure, we're assuming what a family is composed of two adults and children, or a toddler, we're now playing as an arrow. And so we're playing with. And I think that's really scary. And in some ways, it behooves us to try and find a new coach that people will accept us, you know, they'll understand, okay, you fit that same kind of model, so. But if you don't have, if you don't live together, you may be in American relationship. But that is Unknown Speaker 47:22 when we think that we're complying with the code, for we try to comply with the code, and we think we have come up with all of the conditions that also describe a traditional married relationship, like, you know, especially the kind of economic indicia which have traditionally been used, like the joint bank accounts, even like CO ownership of property, like CO ownership of like, jointly parenting children, then suddenly, we're, you know, the tables turn, like you pointed out was, and we might have all the addition, but we're still not a family, you know, or the courts don't want to recognize this, that where the legislature doesn't want to recognize that when it comes up with some new way of defining family. You know, I mean, one obvious example is the Defense of Marriage Act, which Congress just passed and couldn't just sign, which suddenly says that you can even be legally married as a gay couple, and we talk about the most conservative traditional type of relationship recognition, and we're still not going to recognize your marriage. So it's, it's, it's, you know, we're dealing with this very complicated mix, right of how we, you know, what we, how do we pursue recognition of our families, given the broad definitions that we all hold to recognition of our real families? And at the same time, how do we have a realistic chance of making it happen? When there is this very deeply rooted way or code of understanding who fits in and who doesn't? You know, is there really any possibility of broadening that out? You know, one, one, when I just back to Jane and Barbara for a second. Okay, so Jane gives Barbara her health care proxy, after they've been dating for a week, let's say. And then you know, and then a date for a month, a few months. Barber moves in, you know, and let's even presume they become lovers. But let's just say they've dated they've become lovers and they've and they've dated for a month and Barbara moves in so Jane and Barbara now live together in the apartment that Jane owns. A month later, they break up. Now, if Jane and Barbara had gotten married after a month, a month later if they broke up, they'd have to go to court there would have to be a division of property. As it is, you know, as we all know, if Jane and Barbara breakup after a month now under our legal system as it is, you know, presumably bar We're just going to move out, hopefully for Jane. And that Barbara won't take all right, this all has to be sort of modified for New York City, you know, and then presumably, Barbara is not going to take all of Jane's furniture when she moves, and not take the dog that Jane has had for 10 years. But Barbara has become very attached to the dog. And she really likes the furniture. At what point? Does she have a claim on the property? You know, what point? Do we want a court to consider them family enough? That suddenly they have? I mean, should family you know, attach any rights to ownership? And if it does what it should Unknown Speaker 50:52 I mean, I mean, say, you don't even have to be a judge in that situation, say you're a mediator in that situation. And Jane and Barbara have come to you. And Jane says, Look, you know, I've lived here forever, I gave this woman my health care proxy, it's true. And I invite she moved into my apartment, I wanted that. But it's only been four weeks. And I want her out. And I don't want her taking my stuff. And Barbara says, she gave me this weighty responsibility of her health care proxy, she invited me to move in with her, you know, I left my other apartment. Now God knows where I'm gonna live. And I don't have any furniture. I wanted, I want half the stuff here. What do you I mean, again, talking about forming, maintaining and dissolving lesbian families. What do you do as the mediator? What's, what's that? Right. But we don't know how to maintain them unless we figure out about dissolve. But what do you do as the mediator? I mean, what's your parameter of what are the rights that come? When does this become labeled family? And what are the rights that come along with that? I don't think Unknown Speaker 52:06 they do it with married heterosexual for 20 years, I don't even know the soul. Probably the whole property division thing is, I don't even know how they do that. I don't know how people want people's money. Unknown Speaker 52:22 One way to say it's like whatever you came in. But she gave her she gets the cost. That's really Unknown Speaker 52:38 to go to medical school leases. Unknown Speaker 52:43 There's that she gave up her apartment, but she also had the weighty responsibility of being this person's health care decision maker for a month. And she didn't have to exercise it. But that was her responsibility. She had the health care proxy for Barbara had the health care proxy for Jane. She didn't do anything but she had that was her responsibility. Mutual Jane gave it to her. Barbara accepted it. Let's just Let's just say. So really, I mean, even leaving aside what the law is, which generally does give spouses a right to to divide property unless they have some agreement before the marriage of sort of a prenuptial agreement agreeing to a separate division of property. mean what should the mediator say? What What would guide you with this with these two? Would Jane and Barbara be a family? And if so, what rights come along with being a family do any come along with them? Do any come along with this four week old being a member of a four week old family? I think Unknown Speaker 54:01 common sense. Yeah, for example, you assume you assume that there's some kind of mutual trust and commitment. At some point. I doubt that you can hate each other so much within four weeks, they want to destroy you. So as a mediator, which really appealed to common sense reason, like Unknown Speaker 54:29 what is the common sense that's gonna guide you here? Unknown Speaker 54:32 It is. It's not using repealing marriage or legal marriage. It was in existence for four minutes. I mean, for four weeks or you know for exactly comparable in terms of its what we died to a judge. Making decisions. Unknown Speaker 54:52 Depends what state you live in. And it depends on the judge, but really, I mean, the property because in most states the property becomes jointly owned, you know, unless there are things that are excluded for one reason or another, and there there can be those things even without a prenuptial agreement. But then in those cases, I mean, certainly what's called the equities. But really it is what seems fair to a judge will help determine whether, you know, what really should come out of this. But whether it's for weeks or 40 years, the responsibilities and the commitment that the legal obligations are there. And so what part of what I'm raising here is, you know, at what point, you know, do obligations kick in our do people have more responsibility to each other, regardless of what their relationship is called in the law? Do you have more responsibility to each other? At 40 years, then you do it for weeks? At what point? Do the you know, how do the responsibilities kick in? And how would we set up a standard for judging that? St. Mary's? st sanctions, what are the considerations? There's no enforcement. It may be that gave up Unknown Speaker 56:30 so much that she is. Unknown Speaker 56:38 Right, I mean, so that's one big point is obviously, if Barbara, if Jane who has kicked Barbara out of her apartment now says, I don't care that you've lost your apartment, and I don't even care that you gave away all your furniture, because I promised you you could live with me forever. You're out of here. Barbara has no legal rights. I mean, she can't. I mean, I guess theoretically, she could bring some sort of a breach of contract claim that she wouldn't win. But but she really has very few or no legal rights in that situation, whereas the spouse, a legally recognized best would have rights in that kind of situation. But, you know, part of the question is, well, what should you know, leaving aside what the law actually says, what should the rights and responsibilities be? Where does our definition of family kick in? And do we assume that once you become family, whatever that is, that you have taken on rights and responsibilities that even when you no longer want to be family with this other person, you still have some sort of responsibility to him or her? Or them? Unknown Speaker 57:48 Obviously, in some sense, I think sort of the whole thing about marriage is this. Weird. I mean, we're let's put it that way it comes out of the tradition was one, it's really property oriented. It's procreation, oriented, Unknown Speaker 58:06 to the property that you're Unknown Speaker 58:09 very new that everybody gets married. And that, yeah, I mean, you don't enter into a more committed relationships, from one moment to the next, just because he went to Vegas and got married doesn't mean that you're more committed to that person. The moments after you got there. I mean, it's like the whole idea of complementarity and seven years, and there are examples within sexual relationships to that, of course, your commitments and your responsibility grows, the longer you together, the more you share, when you can be together for 20 years and not share anything with different departments not have any, any common economic base, whatever I mean, all these things. So in some ways, I think it's very artificial, that marriage in the artificial situation. Unknown Speaker 58:58 I mean, but that's why, you know, even leaving aside marriage, who we raised the question for ourselves, how do we form families? What does it mean to us to form a family? Why should that be important at all? And when do we expect to have that recognized by some outside person or, you know, let's say outside agency institution, what is you know, what kind of definition do we want that agency or institution to have to decide, this family should be recognized and that family shouldn't? Or do we want these agencies and institutions to say, Okay, anything you come to us with, you tell us it's a family, we'll accept that. And then if they if the agency does do that, and then you say, okay, and now our family, whatever it is, is breaking up and we want help in dividing up whatever we've acquired together, or even if not apart, but we've lived together or we've maintained, some kind of, you know, one of us fields injured or damaged by the fact that our relationship has broken up. You I court or mediator, I want you to get something for me from this other person because he or she screwed me, you know, he or she, he treated me unfairly he or she took something away from me. Or we have a dog together. You know, I mean, we think in terms of her traditional terms of property, we have a CD collection together we have we bought some books together, I mean, inevitably, are in the course of most relationships. He or she gave me a very expensive gift. I want it back. So there's the they're just these very thorny questions of, you know, what do we do, and there have actually been cases litigated over, somebody gave someone else an engagement ring, and then they broke up. And one rather, the other person wanted it back, I gave you this in exchange for promising to marry me. And now you're, you know, you know, they're very touchy issues. And I guess I keep pushing the questions, at least to encourage everybody to just think about, okay, if I was going to define my ideal family, what would I do? Unknown Speaker 1:01:15 I'll just wonder, was my own emotional tradition here? But would it make any difference to you or anyone else in the room? As I do that, four weeks, please, some facts you don't have too much concern for the person who, who did Jane. And I would probably ask Jane, definitely I devices, you should give her apartment spiders, something like that. I try to do something to get her back to where she was to make her whole to where she was before. But not necessarily sense that now that you've shared, you were going, but things would change. For me, I would have for emotional reasons, maybe not back once a different sense if they had become domestic partners, even though there's a waiting period, let's pretend there wasn't one, or had they had a commitment ceremony with the community present to recognize that that would make difference for me to make a difference to anybody else Unknown Speaker 1:02:13 a level of confidence. Unknown Speaker 1:02:15 Not, not for a month. Unknown Speaker 1:02:17 It's still a month, but they Unknown Speaker 1:02:21 I don't know. I mean, I think that what we make what what would help me is if all lesbian and gay people signed agreements at the first day of their relationship, that they will not go to the courts for justice, that they do not expect. We do not expect to find justice there. And we will not seek it. We will seek mediation amongst our own, or something like that. Were we know that that's not where we're going to go? Because those laws, those things do not apply to us, if we've been together for 25 years and have raised two children. Unknown Speaker 1:02:50 But even even if you go to the mediator, Unknown Speaker 1:02:53 yes, no, I know. I know. But what I guess I mean, is to develop as, as a community, a real set of principles that have to do with justice, and fairness and all kinds of nice things. Yes, I know, you would feel well, if they had a commitment ceremony, I would honor that relationship more. And I might feel like what do they need a commitment ceremony for? Or even if they had one, though? So no, no, what I'm saying is we would have different standards. But if we were compelled by the wider community, to work those standards out together, and have to go at it and figure it out. Rather than look to a legal system that in no way can be just to us, well, not in no way. But ultimately cannot be just to us Unknown Speaker 1:03:39 messing with the definition of family that we're trying to go toward and in making the kinds of standards that you're asking us as a community to identify this my instinct, like only my personal bias, does anyone else think that that's an additional factor? note stating, This time is Unknown Speaker 1:03:59 actually raised? Every one of you just raised something here about this question, because there are a couple of different threads going through here. One is the point that you're making that if we go to the legal system and say we've had a commitment ceremony, ceremony and exchange and health care, proxy, courts are probably gonna say, you know, we don't really care. So there's the idea of let's just assume of, Okay, we're gonna go to a mediator, you know, who understands the issues, what it means to be, you know, in a lesbian family, however, we define it here. But that that is something that's outside of the legal system, still the mediator in adopting whatever principles are the community and in trying to set on a set of Job Fair principles. The question you're raising is, say we have this four week relationship. What are the factors that the mediator should take into consideration? Should the mediator should it make a difference to the mediator if the people had a commitment ceremony, if the people Have you ever had the health care proxy border the factors that a mediator might take into consideration? Even if you had like the, if they signed up as domestic partners with the city? If you've had a four week relationship, are there different things that one that the family should do or could do that would trigger a different level of responsibility to the two partners could you each had comments into our relationship, Unknown Speaker 1:05:44 relationship and women complications of face to face is very complicated because and that really comprehensiveness increasingly Unknown Speaker 1:06:03 densely races, Unknown Speaker 1:06:05 and he said, the data is being increasingly gone through in that situation is to understand emotional Unknown Speaker 1:06:29 interrelationship between me and a Unknown Speaker 1:06:31 woman. But what I will do the lesson communicated, because, you know, has been telling me stuff, like, so I'm being very open about communication. Our community. Unknown Speaker 1:06:58 So, there are a lot of layers of complication here, because one of them is, you know, the system that in theory is set up to deal with these issues, doesn't deal with them responsibly, carefully, fairly, or well, for people who fall outside of that system, which are frequently women, generally people of color, generally lesbians and gay men in particular. But also, when we talk about okay, well, we want a set of principles adopted by mediators, which we still don't haven't figured out. But let's I mean, even if we could, who would the mediators be that would be applying those principles? Should they shift depending on the family unit that goes that that raises the conflict? But also, should the principle shift, depending on who the family is? Who constitutes the family, how old the people are, where national origins of the individuals in situation how many people there are, if there's an age difference in the couple, I mean, there's, you know, sort of an endless array of how many people are in a couple of minutes and material differences. Unknown Speaker 1:08:10 Once you give up Unknown Speaker 1:08:13 one principle set of principles guarding every decision. situation, Unknown Speaker 1:08:22 particularly, whatever is going on. Unknown Speaker 1:08:27 I think the really Unknown Speaker 1:08:28 the the question is, can Unknown Speaker 1:08:29 we develop code of ethics, that really each individual to really treat each other fairly? Or twice to? Possible? Maybe that's I don't know. Unknown Speaker 1:08:43 But then the question, there is safety going back to Jane and Barbara, you know, and the situation that you've presented, they've had a commitment ceremony. One of them feels like that didn't create any responsibilities. The other one feels like that created every responsibility. And so each person is really trying to negotiate with the other, but they come at it from such different places that ideally you could go to some mediator and say, well, here's where you might wind up in the middle. But even that is a very difficult situation. Unknown Speaker 1:09:17 So in other words, family life is just too complicated. Unknown Speaker 1:09:20 Apparently, is our conclusion here Unknown Speaker 1:09:28 more than ever conditionality. It's very important way, I mean, I guess it is a way to translate your relationship To be sufficiently challenging to people's perceptions. of marriage, I can say I married to you said pregnant. The data changes, this changes are not likely. Just seems to me that Unknown Speaker 1:10:47 the short there is something Unknown Speaker 1:10:55 I've been saying about code the code and I think that the unfortunate sort of glitch in the code is same sex people do this, so that you can deny, I've been in a lesbian marriage for years. And pretty much everybody who knows me, is married substance, substance. But I am every now and then I'm walking Unknown Speaker 1:11:35 into a deep hole. Unknown Speaker 1:11:38 And because I'm not in the cultures in the code, I think that even if the bill had been passed, and I could actually get still, the way that card works is not just people's hearts and minds and prejudices, and most people in this country better perceive as married. Oh, he's perceived. Unknown Speaker 1:12:13 I totally I totally agree. So I guess my question is, do we then take the trappings of as well as read through some of the will? You might need a committed relationship but you're not married? Unknown Speaker 1:12:30 You the danger that you forget there those holes in the ground? Yeah, yeah. Unknown Speaker 1:12:33 I mean, we change these to shoot these decisions is to change us, like 20 years, I think back 15 plus years ago and things. Unknown Speaker 1:12:54 Let me just recently, I think we're supposed to end this workshop. Now, if I know the timing correctly, I think but so let me just raise a couple of points, sort of following up on on what we've been saying. I mean, clearly, legal marriage is one way of getting that immediate, for kind of recognition and fitting into into the code. That list was just talking about, and also having it so that even if you fall into those holes, and you do break your ankle, so to speak, and you don't get even the familial recognition. You don't, you also can go to court and say, okay, you know, we don't even need this sort of, we don't need all of these principles we've been trying to craft here, we don't need to figure out who the mediators would be, because we've got the courts to turn to, obviously, there are still the problems with the courts. You know, the very deep rooted, multi level complex prejudices that most judges hold, but all sorts of people. So there's that issue. But then that's one way of dealing with the situation. One of the counter issues, I guess, is for people who don't want the full trappings but want some of them you know, where you want the agreement, you want the healthcare decision making, but you don't want the joint property ownership then what do you do what do you do if you want pieces of those are not pieces of those are the point that you made earlier about? What What if you want one person to get your dog and you want somebody else to make your health care decisions when you want someone else to get your house if you have one and somebody else to get all your books and someone else to get your CDs? I mean, obviously, there are ways of dealing with that. And those are some of the many things that people who have chosen not to or have been barred from getting married have done like through wills like through powers of attorney like through health care proxies, giving different people legal documents that say you I give you my decision making power, about my finances or my My health or my whatever. And in my will, I'll say you get this and you get that and you get that. So in other words, dividing up the kinds of responsibilities that you'd want to share out based on your family membership. So there's that whole set of issues. But then, you know, and then when we get back to where we started that kind of emergency situation where a person can't speak for herself or for himself. Is there any way other than legal marriage for us to offer to agencies who have to make the decision about who to recognize his family? What, you know, what kinds of criteria do we want to offer? Or do we think that they should be accepting and what kinds of criteria do we want to be suggesting, because truly the only way that those criteria are going to change. If we push them to change and are in through crisis, situations like that, though, that one situation to close it, let me just mention two, sort of complicated twists on these two more complicated twists on these situations. One that I'm dealing with right now, actually, in my office trying to figure out what to do, where a lesbian couple who have been together for over 10 years, one of the partners died, had a will instruct it in the will that her partner was to be the executor was to take care of burial arrangements and everything. partner wants to put up a tombstone saying, So and so beloved partner, daughter, friend, and whatever. And the parents had said, Absolutely not, you're not putting beloved partner on this tombstone. And the cemetery has said, we're not going to decide between the parents and the lover. And then the cemetery actually suggested, well, why don't the parents put up the tombstone in the cemetery, and the lover puts up a memorial in California, where she lives. And, you know, and so, somebody is going to have to tell the cemetery or not tell the cemetery, what it should do in this kind of situation. And without fitting in, if if the couple had been married legally, of course, one would think a legal executor would do that. But because Unknown Speaker 1:17:23 because there were not written instructions as to what was supposed to be on the tombstone from the deceased woman. The the cemetery has said, you know, we don't know that you're following the deceased instructions, and we don't know what to do. So you know, when we think about these complex, they're not just in the situations of the emergency medical situation. These are real life, things that come up all the time. Hopefully, they do, they come up fairly frequently. And we really need to, to think about as we're thinking about how to craft a definition of family, how to, or how to craft a definition of who should be recognized as having decision making power. How do we do that? How do we want to instruct other people to do that? And even if we choose to, to develop our own documents to try to accord these powers to to other people? What do we exactly need to say? And you're really limited if we don't say every single word we're going to do? And actually rather than going into more examples, since I think we're pretty much over time, I'll just thank you all very much for the discussion. I found it very interesting. I hope you all did to the person who had had it for 10 years, no question and you. May be