The State Bar of Michigan LGBTQ+ Law Section is pleased to present another LGBTQA law theme issue. Our section was honored to have a theme issue back in 2019, and it is great to be able to share some highlights of what the section has accomplished in its eight years of existence. Looking back, three things stick out to me: collaboration, inclusion, and change.
COLLABORATION
Over the years, the section has strived to collaborate with other State Bar sections. We have worked with the Family Law Section, the Young Lawyers Section, and the Criminal Law Section, just to name a few.
One major victory was years in the making. The section collaborated with legislators and other community stakeholders to reform parentage laws to treat LGBTQ+ and other nontraditional families equally. On April 1, 2025, the Michigan Family Protection Act became law, which reduces — and in some cases, eliminates — the need for families to go through a costly and invasive process to get documentation confirming their parental status. Additionally, one law repealed was one that made Michigan the only state to criminalize surrogacy contracts; it now protects surrogates and families using surrogacy and in vitro fertilization. Significant reforms also expanded usage of the affidavit of parentage by strengthening protections for parents who conceive via assisted reproductive technology and artificial insemination. This new law paves the way for Michiganders to start families and save time and money on government paperwork, and it promotes equal treatment under the law.
The section also recognized the need to support younger lawyers and encourage engagement with the Bar by sponsoring a booth at the Institute of Continuing Legal Education’s Family Law Institute as part of the 2020 Young Lawyers Summit and creating a mentoring process within our section. After all, a section performs at its peak with strong leadership, a community of dedicated supporters, and that comes with supporting the younger generation at the beginnings of their career.
While these collaborations are more recent, I would be remiss not to mention that in the section’s beginnings, we worked with the Michigan Law Revision Commission to address problems identified in the 2016 draft report titled “Same-Sex Marriage: A Review of Michigan’s Constitutional Provisions and Statutes.” The hope was to spur legislative reform to a multitude of gender-specific laws that needed to be neutralized following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015.
Finally, something I found rewarding and inspiring was the section’s sponsorship of and participation in the third annual Gender and Sexuality Moot Court Competition at the Michigan State University College of Law in March of 2024 and 2025. Not only was the competition directed by section member and MSU law professor Heather Johnson, but I served as one of the judges in 2024 and was impressed with the talented law students who came from across the country to compete.
INCLUSION
The section adopted a position to remove the third sentence from a proposed amendment to the Michigan Code of Judicial Conduct Canon 2(F) that reads, “A judge should be particularly cautious with regard to membership activities that discriminate, or appear to discriminate, on the basis of race, gender, or other protected personal characteristic” and replace it with “A judge shall not hold membership in any organization that practices invidious discrimination on the basis of religion, race, national origin, ethnicity, sex, gender (including transgender), or sexual orientation.”
The section, while recognizing that most people — including most transgender people — are either male or female, acknowledges that not everyone fits into those categories. For example, some people have a gender that blends elements of being a man or a woman, or a gender different from either male or female. Some people don’t identify with any gender, and some people’s gender changes over time. People whose gender is neither male nor female use many different terms to describe themselves, with nonbinary being one of the most common. The section worked to change SBM forms to include nonbinary as a gender identity.
CHANGE
The section’s focus on collaboration and inclusion is aimed at effectuating change. And we have seen a lot of positive changes for Michigan’s LGBTQ+ community. The section shared its collective knowledge and submitted amicus briefs on equitable parentage and LGBTQ+ protections under the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, created and sent LGBTQ+ bench cards to Michigan judges, and made presentations to various agencies across the state to ensure our courts are culturally competent.
It’s incredible to write about all the section’s accomplishments in just eight years, but there remains a lot of work ahead of us. Please reach out to me, Kerene Moore, or anyone on the council if you have questions or would like to get involved with the section.