We Chose to 2nd Parent Adopt the Kids. 

My ex partner and I did second parent adoption as soon as we could after our son was born. Our son is now 18. The adoption was the best piece of mind I could ever haves asked for. We split when he was 6. We shared custody. And when he was 8 I was in a horrible accident where I had to be out of his life while on the hospital. If it wasn’t for the adoption, my family, that didn't know him because we live States away would have had legal rights. This is exactly WHY the adoption is necessary.

I'm also a kiddo who was adopted by my second parent (in my case my second mom)! As a adult now, I'm so grateful of how committed my parents were to creating love and security in our family. Intentional family building is something your kids will notice ❤

It's cruel that our reality is one where this is something queer people have to do to feel like we can fully protect ourselves and our families, and I wish with all my heart that the world only becomes more open and free for us and our loved ones in the years to come and not less so. Despite it all, I'm hopeful for the future, and it's people like you, Ash, that inspire that hope

To me this is a totally logical decision. Part of being a parent is planning for worst case scenarios so that your kids are protected. If Ash were out of the picture--temporarily or permanently--the person they and their spouse would MOST want to take care of the kids would be Gray. Legally securing Gray's parental rights is a loving and proactive thing to do. Kudos to you both.

Our daughter is adopted (by both of us), but we're still planning to meet with a lawyer to set up a will and trust, as well as a powers of attorney and health care directives. We also live in MN and are safe and protected here, but we like to travel, and there are still many states that have laws that threaten our rights. We just feel like it's best to do everything we can to make sure those who may want to harm our family can't do it. Regardless of where we might be at any given time.

Peace of mind is a very valuable thing ❤

I’m unfortunately still discriminated against, as a disabled person, I cannot get married to my partner because if I do, I will lose my insurance/benefits, because it’s assumed that whatever my partner makes/doesn’t make, should be enough to cover my medical costs.. So, we just live together, and will someday possibly consider a family.. but if we do, again, it’ll be so difficult because of the disability rules/asset limits, etc.. sigh!

I was legally adopted by my step-father after he and my mother divorced (and she ran away and lost custody/rights) and he always told me that he picked me (and legally speaking he did fight for me) and it has always made me feel extra super loved

Both of my parents are adopted. They have both reconnected with their bio parents and my mum's bio-mother has a wife, mum's reaction to finding this out was perfect: she turned to my dad and said "I have more mums than you!" (as he's also adopted he has 2, more than most but fewer than her 3). Please enjoy the wholesomeness of of boomer/Gen X parents. And yes; it's pretty wonderful having 5 grandmothers. I have so many knitted blankets. Additional heartwarming thing: my married grandmothers were both accepted by their families back in the 70s when they came out. One of the great-grandfathers had to be told to stop being silly by *his* mother, but he did so and accepted it.

Obviously, too, Mx. Ash, you prioritize highly the safety and security of your children! They will grow up knowing that you and Mx. Gray did everything humanly and legally possible to ensure their future. It's all about being loving parents. Much goodwill from Tampa, Florida, where the fight is on to ensure the rights of millions.

Having to adopt your own kid(s) to have the same rights is.... like what? That feels so unfair. I'm sorry you two had to go through all of that and excited for you too! ❤️

Not a lawyer and not from your state, but I always recommend seeing if you can file what's called civil indigency. In criminal cases, if a person cannot afford an attorney they are declared indigent. You can do the same thing on most civil cases. You fill out a form with financial info (bills, pay, etc) and the court determines if you qualify. My partner did this and got a $300 filing fee waived completely for a name change.

From what I've heard from my coworker who used to do birth certificates (though in a different state from you), assumption of paternity falls to the creation of birth certificates, which are themselves a legal document. Thus, if Gray were to be listed on the birth certificate, barring any other legal decisions regarding custody (such as divorce, emancipation, etc.), they would legally be considered whatever form of parent the birth certificate lists them as.

I hate that families who love their children even have to do this or worry about having their rights devalued. It's beautiful how you think of it as a celebration to show your love for your children. ❤

It's so funny to me how I get all warm and fuzzy thinking of you as a parent because you remind me of my dad when he was young, but also I think you're younger than me, so it's a weird but cute feeling.

I hate that this feels so necessary. But I'm glad that this was something you were able to do to protect your family! I'm so happy for you and for your kids ❤

This is my first video watching you, not sure how it popped up in my feed. But had to stop to comment and say you are so so sweet. Very kind hearted. I also value autonomy and being descriptive rather than prescriptive is ace. 👏🏽🤪💃🏽

its a scary world out there but i think its useful to hear your story of being so careful of your own rights

these two kiddos are so deeply loved 🥹 your family makes my tired, queer heart so happy! once again, thank you for sharing your journey. your experience is so valued and appreciated. i hope you, and your family are doing well my friend! ❤

i have a couple of friends who are in 3 parent families (in a couple of different scenarios) and it never occurred to me how parents rights would work in that scenario. we’re in canada so obviously laws are different here, but this is an interesting topic, and i appreciate you talking about it! i don’t want kids and neither does my nesting partner but i do have a partner who is married and they want kids. it’s an interesting world to have a queer family!!

Partner and i are both estranged from our dangerous families. We're getting a civil partnership to protect ourselves from if one of us dies and their families get rights over disposal of body, estate, etc. It's sad that it has to be that way, but since that's what it takes, that's what we're going to do.

Sucks that this was something you even had to consider, but glad you were able to find a way to make sure things keep working in the event of a crisis(hopefully this never has to be tested though)

Sending you four all the love. ❤

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience on this. I don’t know if it will ever apply to me, but it gets me thinking and makes me feel relieved as a teacher that there are parents who go to the lengths they are able to protect their children.

Rome's auntie saying hello! I'm so sorry that you as a couple had to even have these worries. I was so happy to hear of the babies & sending all the support ❤

I love your videos Ash! So good to see you put out a video to come home to as I'm working through my busy music ed degree.

So lovely to see how much you love your kiddos

Thank you for this video. My partner and I have been looking into second parent adoption in Minnesota. She will be carrying my eggs, so this was very helpful.

loved this video and seeing where your parenting journey takes you and gray!

Thank you so much for sharing! Super insightful!

Hey Ash, I have known about you for a long time and have followed you over the years and it was great to see you in my recommended videos again. I also live and grew up in Minneapolis so it is always great to see other queer people thriving here as well. Thank you for taking the time to record this very quick and simple explanation on your adoption with your partner. While my partner and I are not at the point where we would like kids yet, this is still a great video. Thank you for taking the time to educate others on Minnesota law regarding queer people.

I love how you can make such a difficult topic engaging because of your sweet voice and amazing video style!

Y'all are AWESOME parents! Your little buns will grow up knowing how much they matter to you! ❤🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍

So happy you are sharing this! 💙

Every child deserves a parent, but not every parent deserves a child. I’ve never watch your content but I feel that that kid will have a good life

Sounds like a great decision for your family. We are in the UK and married so both of our names are on the birth certificate. It just reads parent 1 and parent 2. I'm parent 1 cos I was the birth parent but rights wise its totally equal.

My husband and I are both cis/het and are trying to have our first child. I’m sorry for all the things LGBT parents have to do that we never even need to think about just because of their gender/sexuality :(

I'm so happy for you guys to have peace of mind, from legal security ❤ I love how many disclaimers and kindnesses your offering to all your viewers.. you'd hope it would be common sense but I guess after all the trolling/terfy/yuck stuff that has happened via the internet algorithms the last few years, it's just safest to to do that too. I'm looking forward to the day it won't be necessary and you can just be your joyous self on the internet again, and be safe and protected by that algorithm and internet common sense common kindness measures 🤞✨

Intrigued that you don't share info of your kids. I actually love it

Thank you so much for this! I live in Australia so I will need to look up the laws here. My wife and I will be using her eggs and I will carry. We are currently just starting the process for embryo freezing since I’m currently too unwell to be pregnant, but once I am well enough, hopefully within the next couple of years, we will also definitely be looking into second parent adoption.

Best of luck Ash & Gray love u both ❤

I am so happy this video popped up in my recommendations. I missed seeing your cute face in my feed! ❤

My wife and I also did a 2nd parent adoption. We used my wife's egg and she carried. However, we weren't able to legally be married in our state at that time. We wanted to make sure every legal aspect was covered so our daughter knew her family can't be broken apart because others don't agree. It gives her the same rights you listed.

Though I don't practice in family law, I've been to plenty of queer family law CLEs in Minnesota and... good call! This was the a wise course of action for all the reasons you discussed. Thanks for getting it out there; it's not something people tend to think about even when very intentionally creating families.

The autonomy disclaimer hit me hard, somehow. I think that it might be one of my highest prioritized personal values as well. It just ties up so many aspects of who I am that I always considered to be completely separate. And descriptiveness over prescriptiveness is a choice I love (to see and make). Thanks. For being who you are. And thanks for giving me that opportunity and verbiage for introspection.

oh, hello! my algorithm has brought me to your channel after a pretty long while, so it's interesting to see how your life has changed since i last watched. your content was really important to me when i was a young teenager trying to figure out my gender/sexuality situation. i'm very happy to see that you're still around :) this sounds like it was a good decision for you, and i'm very happy for y'all and the kiddos. be well

Not me but my high school history teacher was a gay man and partnered before gay marriage was really even on the table and they adopted two boys and essentially had to go through several long legal proceedings to secure their parental rights and their marital rights. The details are fuzzy to me now but I remember talking to him about this for at least an hour to understand a fraction of it.

Peace of mind is essential.

wow, I enjoy your videos so much... thank u for producing and metting us be part :)

Can you educate us further on the “expensive” part of this legal process? My girlfriend and I plan on doing something similar. Have me “donate” eggs and she carry said eggs. We live in Texas but plan on moving as soon as I’m done with my degree.

I know a lesbian couple who did this. One mom birthed the kiddos, the other legally adopted just to be extra super safe. Makes everyone feel a little bit better about all the possible terrible things that could happen

When I clicked on your video, it had 999 views, I was the 1k viewer! hehe! What wonderful foresight to make sure the kiddos are going to be taken care of no matter what may happen, although I also hope it will be unnecessary! I imagine there are couples out there who wouldn't know about this, and in making this video, will now know more ways to protect their families 💖 Hello from northern Minnesota btw 😊 (about a 1 hour drive north of Duluth) Frost advisory for tomorrow night after hitting 97 day before last, what!?! lol

Wow its wild that you had to do this for safety. We’re we live we just sent in an application for something called medmor (mother two I guess). Paper from the clinic had to be submitted and so on. Fairly easy in comparison.

I am registered as the “father” of my wife’s biological - and mine in my heart daughter. As me and my wife are both white and our daughter is not it’s pretty obvious that I am not biologically related to her, but she couldn’t be more mine than she is already. So our daughter can legally point to me and say “ that lady over there is my dad…”

Laws need to be changed for EVERYONE. My sister was legally married to an abusive person. She never filed for divorce (personal things). She ended up meeting an amazing person. They had a child. That person can not be on his child’s birth certificate because my sister is married to someone else. (This doesn’t apply to men - they can have children out of marriage and still be on the birth certificate) They do have options all which cost money.

I’m pregnant with twins from IUI with a sperm donor and my partner wants to do a second parent adoption because we can’t get legally married without them losing their Pell grants and Medicaid. The adoption sounds so expensive, after already paying out the ass to get pregnant and being surprised with twins! How much did it cost in MN for each adoption?

For me n my partners, bc poly marriage isn't a thing here, I'm considered the godparent, so if something happens to my partners our little one will go with me. Every relationship is beautiful

congrats 💙

In Europe this is very common and it also provides more protection so that people can't be pulled off the birth certificate and whatnot like what happened in Italy

Yes, legally protect yourself, your child(ren) & your property. You never know.

❤❤❤❤

German scenario: Me and my wife (both cis lesbians) are legally married. HOWEVER, any child that either of us gives birth to will only have one legal parent: the one that gave birth. The other one has to adopt the child in a long, expensive and intrusive process. Also, German health insurance covers up to 50% of the cost for IVF and other fertility treatments - if you're a straight married couple. Marriage equality is therefore not a thing in Germany, and we will have to pay a lot of money for both the conception and the legal security of our potential future kids. Funnnnnn

I was an in vitro baby born to my (straight cis) parents, but I am not genetically related to them. I was essentially “adopted” as an embryo but was never legally adopted because my state has the same laws. Motherhood is assumed from the birthing person and if the father is married to the mother then he is assumed to be the biological father. It’s kind of funny because legally I am their biological kid but in terms of actual biology I am not

Stupid legal maneuvers and expenses exist for normative families too. I am the "mother" in an apparently normative family (uk law doesnt recognise nonbinary or queergender), but we had 2 kids before getting married, because COVID delayed our wedding by 2 years. Getting married nullified the kids birth certificates and we had to apply for new ones? Nothing changed on their certificates at all, the certificates say nothing about whether parents are married, but they keep that info on their system, and apparently updating or making any changes to the computer system means they have to issue new certificates. What a waste of beurocractic time.

Yay for respecting people's autonomy! Parents (especially female presenting, in my experience) get so much unsolicited advice and judgement...

Good decision. I'd have done the same thing. You can't ever be sure what might happen.

Totally hypothetical question - would second parent adoption also safeguard the rights of each parent in case of divorce?

My mom is Poly and they have all sorts of legal problems surrounding their kids

I wish we had this option in Italy 😢 Here you can only adopt your partner's children if they were conceived in a previous straight relationship

My wife and I did second parent adoption (step parent adoption in Florida). I hate that it's called that cause it feels lesser than but it think it's safer to do it anyways. She did it for our son as I was the birthing and biological parent and I will be doing it for our daughter after my wife gives birth.

Does anyone know if Ash and Gray have ever shared what their kids call them?

Hi. I just found this channel and it says its their 2nd channel. Could anyone tell me what rhe main channel is please.

I know this is a state by state issue. I am just curious if both people are on the birth certificate doesn't that make them both the parents?

All parents should go through and work out what happens in the worst case scenario. If you and your partner were hit by a truck, who gets the kids? And make sure you keep it up to date, it's no good naming a grandparent who's deceased by the time your worst case scenario happens. It's horrible, but stuff like that does happen. Better to be prepared and never need it than need it and not have it, with the kids getting bounced around foster care.

Is it possible to write a personal message to you both, so not everyone can read? Thank you in advance

I’m pregnant and my partner and I aren’t married. He’s the biological father of our baby and we’ve been together for 10+ years and have bought a house together. So yeah, a serious and committed relationship. Still, we need to legally name him the father of our child (preferably before I have given birth) because otherwise he would have no rights because we aren’t married. I live in a pretty progressive Western European country so I was quite surprised that the laws are still so old fashioned and rigid by default. Luckily everything will be okay, but it will give us a lot more paperwork to do.

I didnt know it was expensive until you said it, that reallyyy sucks!!!!

This actually makes me wonder how the laws revolve around my sister's high school boyfriend and his twin. Canada, early 90s babies. A lesbian couple and a gay couple who were all close friends decided to make a pregnancy and co-parent as a foursome in two households. One of the gay men donated sperm to one of the lesbians, twins were born, and from day 1 they had 2 moms and 2 dads. I have no idea who automatically had legal rights to those boys when they were newborns besides the birthing mother and I have no idea if they did anything to legally add parental rights for any of the other 3 or if you even can legally add parental rights for more than 2 parents.

who ever is the legal parent would depend on state law...and would vary by state.

❤❤

This was true in Ireland for a very long time . Couples who spilt up meant you mat not see your child again.

I’ve researched because I can’t carry my future babies or use my eggs and in the UK a lesbian couple (I’m a lesbian) if the child was born outside of marriage, I would have to go to court when the baby is 6 months old and PROVE that I financially contributed to the making of the baby and have supported throughout the pregnancy and the baby’s life so far. So basically I plan to be married when I have kids 😂

We don't have marital presumption of parenthood for gay parents in my country yet (like the extension saying everything is gender neutral now), so a second mother, for example, always has to adopt and it's always pretty scary to have to wait over a year and go through a lot of procedures to be able to be recognised as a parent. If there are no people with uteruses in the relationship, it's even harder though because egg donation and surrogacy are entirely illegal in my country as well and you'd have to have enough money and capacities to go to another country to bypass that.

If I ever have kids, I am 100% doing this. Even if the laws stay exactly the same, adoption makes traveling as a queer family so much easier.

I'm going through this process right now doing second parent adoption of my baby as the non-birthing parent even though I live in Portland Oregon I would rather be safe

Not a unique situation but in custody court currently as a single parent.

Even though I'm an enby and both my partner and I are queer, we are "lucky" because any laws applying to our custody over our children will likely not come into question since we are in a 'straight passing relationship'. We have other problems but this is not one of them.

I have a queer family, but we luckily did not have to go down the route of second parent adoption since both of our kids are biologically both of ours. I'm transmasc and my partner is a cis man.

I am so sorry that you had to spend time, money and mental energy to think about this, when it should just be the natural assumption that you are both the parents!

We are currently awaiting our second child and then we will be doing a second parent adoption to both of our children

I was born in New Jersey, and at the time I was born, the law was such that if a "mother" (laws were very binary at the time, so all legalese related to birthing parents read "mother") were married and the baby did not belong to "her" "husband" (again, very cisheteronormative times) that "he would be filled in as the baby's "father" on the birth certificate anyway, unless he signed away his legal right to the baby explicitly. In my case, my mother had to do this twice, as she was married to the father of my older brother and separated when she had me with my dad and when she had my younger sister with her dad. I am not sure if this law has changed since then, but it would be interesting if it hasn't to see how they handle gay marriages in this case.Does that mean that the spouse of the birthing parent is de facto on birth certificates as father even if they are a cis woman?

if you used a sperm bank....i would think if the legal mother had a will or other custody document granting legal custody to the other mother, that should stand over any relatives of the legal mother...although there may be a fight.

I am sorry you have to go through this and have to take extra steps just because you’re a same sex couple, but also glad it can be done. Off topic, but I also feel no birth father should be put on the birth certificate, until DNA is done

Leaving a comment for the algorithm

The stupid thing is that it's been possible for two people of the same gender to be the legal guardians of children since before gay marriage was legalized, it just wasn't for gay people. A classmate from high schools legal guardians were two of her aunts. Because they were sisters, not partners, so apparently it was totally ok in those circumstances.

My hope is that this was a complete waste of time and money (in the nicest possible way). Congrats to you and your family!

I don’t know if this is something you’d share, but… what are you going to encourage your children to call you? I know you can let your kids decide, but most parents coax something out of them early on like “Mama” or “Dada.”

(quick rant) Just ridiculous that 2nd parent adoption is so expensive. Adoption, from purely a monetary standpoint, is trafficking humans for profit. Who the hell needs $$$ for Gray to be legally be titled "Adoptive Parent" for their own bio kids? What? Additionally, who needed 10K for my little sib to be privately adopted within my community??? There is no reason! Money drives me nuts! Anywho...your goblins are worth it and I am so glad you were able to afford the security you need to stay a family. ❤❤❤ Long live Queer Marriage and May the ridiculous amount of $$$$$$ involved in adoption be abolished.

This was a great move, the USA is scary when it comes to this sort of stuff and a fortress is needed!

Adoptee here. 1. Myka Stauffer was a thing before during the Pandemic. So no, publicizing that you're adopting doesn't automatically make you great people. It can also make you a horrible person, especially when you use children to capitalize on making profit on social media--which outside of adoption is horrible to say, but with the label of adoption, a lot of people somehow think is OK. And I ask those people why. 2. Permanent guardianship is also an option so it doesn't erase the child's roots and you aren't talking about owning children. 3. Adoption, as an industrialized and capitalist enterprise--as much as people try to ignore it is, is systemically problematic to the following groups (roughly in order): Poor People, Black People, Latine people, PoCs in general, people with mental health problems including addiction (and no, taking a child because the person is poor and addicted isn't an excuse because there are celebrities that were adicted and rich and white and their children weren't taken away, were they?), imperialistic and white savior notions towards children internationally (and labeling them cheaper someow), disabled people, and finally queer people--because of Course Texas, etc and literally the SUpremem Court came out and said the quiet bit out loud. I know that queer people in the comments might go, "But you're being anti-Queer" And I'm literally going to say, I'm queer and what about being queer makes you want to copy-paste straight people's system of family to legitimize queerness? Andrew Solomon, queer, and an adoptee decided against adoption and instead found a lesbian couple with his gay partner and hey decided to create 4 children together. More adults to take care of the children. The lesbian couple keeps 2. The Gay couple keeps 2. The families meet together once a year. But there are other arrangements like this as well. And I know someone is going to say, But I'm Infertile. See point 2. You don't need to own people in order to parent. That child belongs to another family and really, you shouldn't erase them. That child does not need to be "owned" by you.This tradition of owning children goes back to the Victorian era where they made children into indentured servants--because you know how children can consent to being basically slaves? Oh wait, they can't. So the renaming of children and the whole basis of adoption is based on indenture servitude--this was why the renaming was instituted. So you an have a sense of ownership. (Oh and I have references. I can also go back to the genocide of Alta California Tribe Indigenous Peoples on the origins of industrialized adoption) On Children Kahlil Gibran 1883 -1931 And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable. If you don't own your children, how do you know they belong to your family? You don't own another human being? How about starting there? Parents are a guide, not a master? If you want to be a master, then get into something like Bonsai. So I'm saying there are options other than adoption. Adoption is, in summary a failure of society to take care of its own, and the real question is, do you want to help people promoting it do that--to take children away from their families? Or do you want to donate to single mothers and other organizations focused on keeping families together? I would think harder and do your research about options and listen to all sides of the conversation before diving in.