States of Equality: Chris Strickland in Mississippi

Chris Strickland was born and raised in Mississippi and recently went back to school and completed a bachelors in criminal justice. Chris is a Mom, and not unlike many other Americans, Chris’ first marriage ended in divorce. But for same-sex couples, divorce can have a number of harmful consequences, especially when the marriage was never seen as “legal in the court’s eyes” to begin with. Having married before the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision, Chris Strickland had a tough time getting her marriage acknowledged in the state of Mississippi, and following the divorce, had to fight to secure legal parentage of her children.

Regardless of marital status, a court-ordered adoption remains the best, safest way to secure parental rights for LGBTQ families.

Divorce is always difficult, but for Chris, it included losing rights to her children. Chris and her ex-wife had previously decided to have a baby using an unknown sperm donor, who had waived their parental rights. Chris parented the children in her relationship, with one son even bearing her last name. But after the divorce, the judge disregarded the joint process the same-sex couple went through to form a family. At Chris’ custody hearing, Rankin County’s Judge Grant ruled that Chris did not have any rights to her child born to her ex-wife, but that the unknown sperm donor did. Although Judge Grant ruled that Chris had no parental rights, he did rule that she must pay child support. Chris challenged the ruling with the help of local attorney Dianne Ellis and Beth Littrell of Lambda Legal, and eventually the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled in her favor in April 2018.

Chris’s legal struggle is far from over as the case was ordered back to Judge Grant to decide on custody of Zayden Strickland this fall. Dreaming of a day in which all same-sex parents will have rights to their children, biological or not, Chris shared her story with Family Equality Council for our #StatesofEquality series.

Read more about the Chris Strickland’s case history on Lambda Legal’s website.

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Transcript

Chris: Family to me means that you have honor, responsibility, companionship. That you have somebody that can hold you when you need to be held, and that’s the way I want my sons and my daughter to know that’s what family is.

Chris: I am a lesbian parent of four children, two biological and two with my ex-wife. 2013, my ex wife and I agreed that we would raise the boys together. I was not put on the birth certificate [inaudible 00:00:35] because the state of Mississippi did not recognize our marriage.

Chris: August 2015 I filed for divorce, and joint custody. October 2016, I finally got my day in court to be able to get divorced and I thought I was going to get some rights to my children, and I didn’t. They’re saying because two women couldn’t make a baby, and that we weren’t married when we adopted the first child, even though we were together for 15 years, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that he called me Momma, and he looked up to me as his parent. It didn’t matter that one is named after me, and my other son has my last name. It didn’t matter, all that.

Chris: He would not give me any type of parental rights, my whole world fell apart. Because I don’t want to be a part time mom, I want to be a full time mom. So the day we got together at the Supreme Court, of course they followed the battle that took several months, and that was the longest few months of my life. It was tough, it was really tough. I spent a lot of restless, a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of tears. But come April 5th, Mississippi finally stood up to the plate and gave us the win that we deserved as a family in Mississippi. Stating that I did have parental rights to my son. Number one, I couldn’t even breathe.

Chris: I’m still not done, we have court October 1st for determined custody, but at least it’s one step forward for the state of Mississippi and myself. And other people that are in my position, and for those that are still fighting, it doesn’t get easier, but it will get better. And you’re not out there alone, we’re here. And it’s one case at a time, and one day at a time, and only thing you can do is get up breathe, and keep fighting. All the children need their parents, no matter what. I just hope that my boys understand that in the future, that I did this for them. So they could be happy, successful in their adult life.

Chris Strickland was born and raised in Mississippi and recently went back to school and completed a bachelors in criminal justice. Chris is a Mom, and not unlike many other Americans, Chris’ first marriage ended in divorce. But for same-sex couples, divorce can have a number of harmful consequences, especially when the marriage was never seen as “legal in the court’s eyes” to begin with. Having married before the Supreme Court’s Obergerfell decision, Chris Strickland had a tough time getting her marriage acknowledged in the state of Mississippi, and following the divorce, had to fight to secure legal parentage of her children.

Regardless of marital status, a court-ordered adoption remains the best, safest way to secure parental rights for LGBTQ families. Divorce is always difficult, but for Chris, it included losing rights to her children. Chris and her ex-wife had previously decided to have a baby using an unknown sperm donor, who had waived their parental rights. Chris parented the children in her relationship, with one son even bearing her last name. But after the divorce, the judge disregarded the joint process the same-sex couple went through to form a family. At Chris’ custody hearing, Rankin County’s Judge Grant ruled that Chris did not have any rights to her child born to her ex-wife, but that the unknown sperm donor did. Although Judge Grant ruled that Chris had no parental rights, he did rule that she must pay child support. After years of challenging that ruling, the Mississippi Supreme Court finally ruled in her favor in April 2018.

States of Equality: Chris Strickland in Mississippi

Few things are as powerful as a personal story. As part of our States of Equality campaign, Family Equality Council is sharing stories from LGBTQ families who have faced discrimination across the U.S.

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