Culture

These Moms Just Became the First Gay Couple to Adopt in the Mexican State of Jalisco


 

Two Guadalajara women have become the first gay couple in the Mexican state of Jalisco to officially adopt a child, according to Puerto Vallarta Daily News.

Palmira Martínez Gallardo Valdés and Gabriela Flores Castro began the process of formally adopting their child — 5-year-old Ricardo — in February of this year and were granted approval by a judge in May. The adoption was finally certified July 13, when they received a birth certificate bearing the names of both mothers.

“The process has taken a long time, due to the pandemic,” Castro told the Mexican newspaper El Siglo de Torreón. “It took us about two and a half years to get all the papers and the certificate of suitability. It took a long time, but in the end we were approved and we are so happy to be here.”

Ricardo was initially taken into the care of the state after being abandoned just two days after his birth in November 2015. He was then put in a program run by the country’s child welfare system, known as the System for Integral Family Development, where the two women came to volunteer soon after.

There, they met Ricardo and bonded instantly. “Even when he was very small, we clicked,” Castro said.

Adoption by same-sex couples has been legal in Mexico since the country’s Supreme Court ruled in a landmark 2010 decision that the government could not withold legal rights on the basis of LGBTQ+ identity, according to Human Rights Watch.

The 9-2 verdict came in response to a challenge by the Mexico attorney general’s office to the 2009 legalization of same-sex unions in Mexico City, which was the first jurisdiction in all of Latin America to recognize full marriage equality. In the case, the attorney general’s office argued that the state was failing to protect the best interest of the child or uphold the concept of family by allowing same-sex couples to adopt.

The Supreme Court disagreed, citing a 2008 judgment from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in which the court ruled same-sex couples should have the same right to adopt that heterosexual couples and single people do. The ECHR also found that it was in a child’s best interest to have a loving family, regardless of sexual orientation.

In 2015, the Supreme Court reaffirmed its decision in striking down a law in the Yucatán Peninsula’s state of Campeche that barred same-sex couples from adopting.

While it’s been over a decade since marriage equality was first legalized in Mexico City, LGBTQ+ activist and consultant Enrique Torre Molina noted that queer and transgender people in Mexico still face legal and social obstacles. “That is why it is so important to have LGBT+ families, like the one formed by Palmira and Gabriela, willing to share their story with the media,” he tells them. in an email. “It is especially valuable when this happens in conservative states like Jalisco.”

Marriage equality is permitted in 20 of Mexico’s 32 states, including Jalisco, where it has been legal since 2016. Valdés and Castro decided to marry soon after same-sex unions were legalized and have been married for five years now.

Mexico as a whole has yet to legalize marriage equality, and while lawmakers made efforts to pass national legislation in 2019, the bill has yet to become law. The Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that it was illegal to ban same-sex marriages, but the ruling was considered a “jurisprudential thesis,” as the Associated Press reports. This means that the court’s opinion did not invalidate state and local laws.

The slow march to full equality across all of Mexico has not stopped LGBTQ+ couples from living their lives, however. In comments to El Siglo de Torreón, Valdés and Castro said their family is thriving and noted that Ricardo is much happier and healthier since coming to live with them.

“He has a family who will support him no matter what he does,” Castro said. “He came into this world to be happy, to be full of love. Us two, his first nuclear family, will always have his back.”

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