Tracing Windblown Seeds

This chapter explores how genetic information supersedes other technologies as a biometric for migrants lacking proof of identity. It also examines the inherent privacy and societal issues of using genetic evidence as a substitute for human identity. As concerns about border security increase around the world, policymakers are turning to genetic information as a biometric for tracing individuals entering the country, processing refugee claims, and screening for human trafficking. Since many migrants travel without proof of identity, genetic information is useful for establishing identity, particularly for verifying family relationships. The United States has had the authority to collect DNA of immigrant detainees for the criminal database since 2009, in large part to detect repeat border crossers and immigrants who commit crimes in the United States. In addition, recent efforts to thwart immigration fraud and human trafficking include use of DNA relationship testing to verify claims. In the future, immigration courts might consider DNA testing for ancestral origin to verify refugees’ ethnicity claims—an approach that might help a stateless person seeking refuge to provide evidence of country of origin. Each of these expanded uses of genetic information beyond traditional criminal investigations could result in stigmatization of individuals or entire populations if applied broadly. Moreover, the geneticization of families and individuals undermines the social constructs that underlie human relations and self-identity and could lead to discrimination against nontraditional families or revelation of unintentional family secrets that could endanger individuals.

“Will They Be Good Enough Parents?”

Physicians often wrestle with whether patients will be “good enough” parents and how much responsibility providers have toward the well-being of the future child—whether to treat all patients and, if not, whom to reject and how to decide. Providers see not only married heterosexual couples but “nontraditional” families, including single-parents-by-choice; lesbian, gay, transgender, or HIV-infected parents; and more “unconventional” types of reproductive arrangements, including gamete donations between sisters and brothers as well as mothers and daughters serving as surrogates for each other. Other couples may seem “highly neurotic” or emotionally unstable. Yet eventual child-raising abilities are tricky to predict. Over time, social attitudes toward certain types of nontraditional families have also been changing. Providers face questions about future blurry and confusing roles in families, children’s welfare, and competing medical, personal, moral, scientific, and social considerations.

The Gender Socialization of Children Growing Up in Nontraditional Families

We study how childhood exposure to a nontraditional family (a working married mother, a married mother that is the primary breadwinner, or a non-married mother) affects gender role attitudes in young adulthood. Boys and girls develop more liberal gender attitudes when they spend more time with a non-married mother. In intact families, boys' gender attitudes, more than girls', appear positively influenced by the role model of a working mother, especially if she is also the primary breadwinner. However, the effect of childhood exposure to a mother with greater economic power on boys' gender attitudes is smaller in more gender conservative families.

Implications of Obergefell for Same-Sex Marriage, Divorce, and Parental Rights

This chapter examines the implications of the landmark US Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges for same-sex marriage, divorce, and parental rights. Heralded as one of the most significant civil rights victories in recent memory, Obergefell had an immediate impact on the lives of same-sex couples by providing uniform and nationwide access to both marriage and divorce. It ended a confusing patchwork of state laws, some of which recognized same-sex marriage and some of which prohibited not only same-sex marriage but also domestic partnerships and civil unions. Obergefell also ensured that all same-sex married couples would be eligible for federal benefits regardless of where they lived. The longer-term effects and applications of Obergefell remain unclear, especially with respect to parental rights. In addition, Obergefell has ignited a backlash of religious exemptions law and concern remains that marriage equality may further marginalize nontraditional families and those who choose not to marry.

Decentralizing Family: An Inclusive Proposal for Individual Tax Filing in the United States

2010 Utah Law Review 605 (2010)The debate in the United States over individual versus joint federal income tax filing is at something of a crossroads. For decades, progressive - and, particularly, feminist - scholars have urged us to abolish the joint return in favor of individual filing. On the rare occasion when scholars have described what such an individual filing system might look like, the focus has been on the ways in which the traditional family must be accommodated in an individual filing system. These descriptions generally do not take into account - let alone remedy - the tax system's ongoing failure to address the tax treatment of nontraditional families. More recently, scholars concerned with the sexual-orientation-based discrimination that pervades our tax laws have proposed extending joint filing to same-sex and, in some cases, unmarried different-sex couples. But these proposals are equally problematic because they merely widen the privileged circle by extending the tax advantages provided to traditional families to other relationships patterned after the traditional family (and only to such relationships). Especially in view of the growing complexity of family arrangements in the United States, I find neither of these proposed paths to be desirable. As an alternative, I lay out a third path in this article that has a different, more inclusive destination. Relying on the Canadian experience with individual filing and proposals there to move "beyond conjugality," I sketch the outlines of an individual filing system that, where appropriate, recognizes all economically interdependent relationships for tax purposes -- and not only those that are patterned after the traditional family headed by a married different-sex couple.

Whose family fits? Categorization and evaluation of same-sex and cross-race-parent families

As family structures diversify, attitudes towards “nontraditional” families (e.g., same-sex-parent and cross-race families) appear to be becoming more favorable. Despite more favorable attitudes, we propose that explicitly and implicitly people view nontraditional families as less family-like than traditional (i.e., heterosexual, same-race) families. We also propose that people will hold the behavior of nontraditional (vs. traditional) families to higher standards. In Study 1, participants explicitly rated nontraditional (vs. traditional) family photos as less family-like and as less loving. In Study 2, using a reaction-time measure, participants took longer to correctly categorize nontraditional (vs. traditional) families into the family category, suggesting that at an implicit level people have greater difficulty recognizing nontraditional families as “family.” In Studies 3 and 4, ambiguous (i.e., positive and negative) behavior licensed more harsh evaluations of a nontraditional family—but did not affect evaluations of a traditional family—relative to learning only positive family behavior. Despite survey data that suggest that people’s views of nontraditional families are becoming more favorable, our evidence indicates that people nonetheless harbor prejudice against certain family structures. Beyond documenting two biases against nontraditional families, this work highlights the need for prejudice researchers to examine meaningful levels of social identity, such as family units, that are intermediate between individuals and broad social classes.

Reproductive policy and the social construction of motherhood

Background. Reproductive technologies allow women to embrace or forgo motherhood, but a woman’s ability to make autonomous reproductive choices depends on access to these technologies. In the United States, public policies — laws, regulations, appropriations, and rulings — have either broadened or narrowed this access.Question. Have U.S. public policies affecting reproductive choices conformed to attitudinal distinctions about motherhood itself?Methods. I identified policies covering infertility, contraception, and abortion and examined them contextually within the Ingram-Schneider social construction framework.Findings. Women’s choices fell within social construction quadrants as being positively portrayed and powerful; negatively portrayed but powerful; positively portrayed but powerless; and negatively portrayed and powerless. Married heterosexual women embracing motherhood were likely to be viewed positively and to reap benefits. Women forgoing motherhood, poor women, and women seeking to form nontraditional families were likely to be viewed negatively and to bear burdens; critical among these burdens was restriction of access to technologies that could be used to support a decision to avoid motherhood or to achieve motherhood through nontraditional methods.Conclusion. Yes, U.S. public policies affecting reproductive choices have conformed to attitudinal distinctions about motherhood itself. These policies may also have altered those choices.