2SLGBT+ Rights

ACLU of Oklahoma, working with Telford Naidu, filed similar motions and other documents about both cases. Henderson said those cases were also dismissed because the parents were women. “It’s heart breaking,” Rebekkah Newland said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to hug him. Every day spent waiting for a court ruling amounts to another day I haven’t seen my son.” Newland said she always wanted to be a mother. Though she and her ex-partner had been together for several years, and even though both decided they wanted a child, their relationship proved difficult. “We had been together for a couple of years, and we decided we wanted to have a child together. We had a friend who was willing to donate (sperm). So she became pregnant.” Shortly after that, however, Newland and her partner separated. “She became pregnant, then we parted ways,” she said. “She moved to Washington and I moved to Texas.” A few months before her son was born, Newland said her ex-partner wrote a letter, seeking to reconcile. “She said, ‘this is our baby and I want to raise him with you.’” Newland packed and moved to Washington. “I was devastated when we broke up,” she said. “So when I got the letter, I’m instantly packing my things. I wanted to be with her. This was our baby.” For a while things were fine. “We lived with her sister and brother-in-law until he was a few months old,” she said. “Then we got our own place.” But before her son had celebrated his first birthday, Newland and her partner split for the second and final time. They tried co-parenting. That arrangement—which lasted almost 10 years—seemed to work. “For a majority of his life we co-parented,” Newland said. “We were only together for those first 10 months. That was the only time we were together.” Newland’s desire to be near her son has taken her across the country. She moved from Texas to Washington, to Hawaii, then back to Texas, and eventually to Oklahoma, each time following her ex-spouse in attempt to be near her son. But somewhere during the past two years and the thousands of miles traveled, the co-parenting stopped. Newland was shut out of her son's life. “I haven’t seen him since last December,” she said. “It’s been horrible. I’ve been trying this whole time to hold it together, but it’s horrible. He is everything to me. I have no issue with picking up and moving, and quitting my job as long as I get to be with him. I don’t care where it’s at, I don’t care who I have to leave behind, just as long as I get to be with him.” Jennifer's story Jennifer Fleming and her partner Whitney had a child together in the fall of 2011. The baby was the child she had always wanted, Fleming said. The couple went to counseling for year to prepare for the child. “There was a long, complicated series of steps just to get pregnant,” Fleming said. “We tried to have a child off and on for five years.” Eventually they were successful. “When she was born I cut the umbilical cord,” Fleming said. “Later we went home and started our family.” Like so many other parents, Fleming juggled a job, doctor visits and the needs of her child against her relationship with Whitney and her own needs. “I was there for ev

June

Bridge v. Oklahoma State Department of Education, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma on behalf of three students, two of whom are high school students in Oklahoma City-area school districts and one student who is attending a public charter school in OKC.