Born: Unknown (circa 1965), United States (assumed)
Died: NA
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.
As the battle for equality under the law continues in the modern day, queer women have taken the fight to court. In 2012, April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse filed a lawsuit challenging Michigan’s ban that prevented same-sex couples like DeBoer and Rowse from jointly adopting their children. The women were both in their 40s at the time and had discovered that two “unmarried” people could not both adopt the same child, meaning that if something happened to one mother, the other would have no legal claim to parenthood and risked losing their child. “It was scary,” DeBoer said. “All along we thought we could protect our children, and we couldn’t.”
The women had been together since 1999, with a commitment ceremony in 2008. Legally, each was the adopted parent to two of their four young children, two of whom had developmental disabilities. Like many people, they were pulled into activism to protect themselves and their family.
Initially challenging the adoption law, their district court judge advised them to challenge the marriage ban instead. “We felt the judge’s implication was clear—either amend the proceedings to challenge the marriage ban, or the entire case could be dismissed,” their lawyer later recalled. “April and Jayne, as much as they wanted to get married and adopt their kids, never set out to challenge the marriage ban.” When they did so, and he ruled in their favor, a brief window opened where more than 300 same-sex couples married in the state before the appeals court put a stop to those licenses while the case moved through the court system. DeBoer and Rowse’s case was consolidated with others challenging same-sex marriage bans in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee, which were collectively rejected by the Supreme Court on June 26, 2015.