Protect Your Rights - LGBTQ+ Community

If you need to change your name or update identity documents, there are resources to help.

Check out GLAD Law’s Transgender ID Project for guides and assistance, though there may be wait times for legal help. The American Civil Liberties Union can provide legal info on name changes and gender markers, as well as additional resources on understanding your rights.

We and our partners are prepared to challenge any attempt to reverse the Supreme Court’s 2015 marriage equality decision. Additional protections for marriage also exist at the federal level through the Respect for Marriage Act and at the state level in Maine.

Because some are worried about what could happen in the future, we want to share some steps you can take to protect your relationship. This includes preparing estate planning documents through which you can designate your spouse, partner if unmarried, or another person to make decisions for you if needed, to be the caregiver for your children, and/or the beneficiary of your assets upon your death.

Here are some important legal tools to know about, which are usually prepared with a lawyer:

Power of Attorney: Allows someone to make financial decisions for you if you can’t.
Health Care Proxy: Lets someone make medical decisions for you if needed.
Will: Details what happens to your property and children if you pass away.

Marriage and having both parents listed on a birth certificate offer some protections, but a court decree of parentage (like a co-parent adoption) is the strongest way to protect your relationship with your child.

Parentage is the legal ruling that gives parents rights like making medical or school decisions, getting health insurance, accessing social security or inheritance, and handling custody. For more information on the path to parentage, click here.

Here are some additional resources to help you get started:

Resources for LGBTQ+ Parents in New England

LGBTQ+ Family Law Attorney Directory

There’s concern about changes to transgender health care, but there are still strong legal protections for transgender health care in Maine. We encourage you to talk to your medical provider about any concerns or options for getting HRT in advance.

Please also consult GLAD Law’s Transgender Health Care Questions for additional guidance.

Protect your accounts – consider setting accounts with photos of you to private.
Use strong passwords.
Utilize a password manager.
Create a separate email account specifically for password recovery
Utilize two-factor identification for all online accounts
Understand the privacy and harassment policies of the sites you use. See Right to Be’s Guide to Privacy and reporting on social media platforms.
Limit what you share: Turn off location services (Google and Android, IOS, apps)

Go to GLAD Law’s Digital Safety Guide to learn more.

First thing to know: In the event that Obergefell, the marriage equality Supreme Court case, is overturned, the Respect for Marriage Act would protect your rights. This means states that ban same-sex marriage would still be required to recognize a marriage as valid if it was performed in a state where marriage continues to be legal, like here in Maine. As long as Maine still honors marriage equality, your marriage is protected.

Action Items to Protect Your Relationship and Marriage

Check your beneficiaries on any insurance policies, retirement plans, bank accounts, etc. that you have to ensure that those are accurate.
Create – or amend if you already have one – an estate plan.
Update your will, and consider a power of attorney to designate someone to make financial decisions, to access your bank accounts, to sell your property in the event of your own incapacity or death. That can be your spouse, your significant other, or somebody important to you.
Consider an advanced healthcare directive to designate someone to make medical decisions for you.

If something changes in the future, there will still be time to get married in Maine because of the Respect for Marriage Equality Act.

Even if the freedom to marry is impacted, such changes will not occur overnight. If you’re afraid and considering getting legally married, please take the time to think through all of the automatic rights, responsibilities, and costs that come with marriage, whether at the time of death or divorce. Be sure to prepare a nuptial agreement if you wish to modify those rights. There’s no need to act impulsively.

If you want to protect your relationship without marriage, consider:

-designating power of attorney

– designate someone to make medical decisions for you with an advanced healthcare directive

– assigning beneficiaries

There are many rights and protections that accompany marriage on the state and federal level. Federal law does recognize some non-marital statuses, but it’s for a more limited purpose. There are more rights and protections associated with marriage on both the state and federal level. Note also that states don’t have to recognize other states’ non-marital statuses.

Maine has great nondiscrimination laws to protect LGBTQ+ parents who adopt or foster children.

There are several different types of adoption that can either establish or confirm a legal relationship between a parent and child in Maine.

Step-parent adoption is available to someone who is married to a child’s legal parent.

Second parent or co-parent adoption doesn’t require the parents to be married.

Confirmatory adoption confirms a parent’s existing legal relationship to a child in instances where that child is born through assisted reproduction, including IUI, IVF, and at-home insemination. Under a confirmatory job adoption, you need to file a petition with the probate court in the county in which you live. You confirm that you both consent to parenting, and that there’s no one else with a parentage interest.

It is critical to have a binding gamete donor (sperm donor, egg donor) or a gestational carrier agreement in place. Work with an attorney to get such an agreement prior to any pregnancy.

GLAD Law has a great resource with step-by-step instructions on how to complete confirmatory adoption.

Action Items to Protect Your Parent Rights and Secure Parentage:

Get a court judgement or adoption decree if you’re not the gestational or genetic parent of the child.
If you’re a trans parent and you’ve changed your name, update your child’s birth certificate to include your current name for document consistency.
Consider a co-parenting agreement to set out parents’ expectations about roles, responsibilities, and plans in the event of one parent’s death or divorce of the parents.
Consider nominating the other parent as a guardian in a will.

When traveling out of state, have multiple certified copies of marriage certificates, birth certificates, adoption decrees, power of attorney, and advanced healthcare directives. Keep copies of these documents in your travel bags and keep pictures or scans on your phone.

Before you travel, use the Movement Advancement Project or MAP to look up the different laws in that state. It’s a resource with a detailed explanation of what your rights are in each individual state across various topics like families and children, schools, healthcare, and more.

If your child is undergoing gender affirming care, consider creating a trust to ensure the continuation of that care should anything happen to you.

Use accurate names and pronouns for your children to avoid outing your child in the future and to ensure that records align with their legal name and gender marker.

Select a guardian under a guardianship nomination in your will in the event that they need to be cared for by someone else.

Regardless of federal laws, the Maine Human Rights Act protects students, including LGBTQ+ youth, from discrimination in all educational programs – including academics, extracurriculars, athletics, and training – based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. In addition, most schools have policies in place for the protection of transgender students. Bullying and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity can also violate the Maine Human Rights Act, depending on the nature and severity.

Maine’s comprehensive anti-bullying law prohibits bullying on school grounds and sometimes off school grounds when the behavior is tied to the rights of the student at school.

Head to GLAD Law’s Rights of LGBTQ+ students in Maine page for more info.

Talk to administrators at the school first. Report the incident to the classroom teacher first, then escalate to a principal if needed. Keep a written record of every interaction and correspondence. Take notes during in-person or phone conversations.
If the matter can’t be resolved internally, file a complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission. Before filing a complaint of discrimination, you need to notify the school administration and give them the opportunity to address the situation.

You may contact the Maine Department of Education for further information at (207) 624-6600 (ask for the Affirmative Action Officer).

If your child has a legal name change, then the school must change their records. Once your student graduates, their legal name will appear on their transcripts and if that differs from the name they’re using, it could be confusing to colleges and employers. Consistency is key.

There is concern that a federal ruling could change the landscape of gender-affirming care for minors; however, there is no way to predict the mechanism or the timeline of these changes.

Action Items:

Talk to your child’s providers about the options for stockpiling hormone replacement therapy.

Compile all of your care-related documents in one place and obtain all the documents you need from medical providers.

Disclaimer: There is no blanket guidance that will apply to every trans person. The right combination depends on your individual situation or your child’s situation and what your needs might be.

Some considerations:

Make sure that your state ID and/or license is consistent with your passport as they are most frequently used.

If you have an X gender marker on a passport, you may not be able to travel to certain countries per the U.S.Department of State. Keep in mind it may become more difficult or impossible to change a gender marker on a federal document in the future.

Action Items in Order of Priority:

Change your driver’s license or state ID. Make sure those two documents have consistent names and gender markers.

2. Update your passport name and gender marker as soon as possible. Currently, you can change your passport without any medical documentation.

Need help? Check out the Transgender ID Project for a step-by-step guide.

In an unlikely worst case scenario that the Supreme Court overturns Obergefell, which held that under the Constitution, states cannot deny marriage equality, and they overturn Windsor, which recognized that the federal government has to recognize valid state same-sex marriages, your marriage is still protected under the Federal Respect for Marriage Act of 2022. This act states that all states must recognize same-sex marriages validly entered into in another state or jurisdiction. They cannot deny people in same-sex marriages – that were valid in that other state – the rights and protections that accompany marriage. Federal law also must recognize valid state marriages.

Also, The Respect for Marriage Act was a bipartisan effort. To overturn this, the Senate rules require that debate among the Senators must be closed. The current rules set a threshold of 60 votes to end the filibuster. Under existing rules, it’s unlikely that it would get to that vote.

On the state level, in 2012, Maine was the first state to obtain marriage equality through an initiative process instead of through a court case or a vote by the legislature. Same-sex marriage was approved by the voters of Maine, 53 to 47%, four years before the Obergefell ruling.

Maine has a domestic partnership status, which is open to unmarried same and different sex couples who have lived together for at least a year. This provides a more limited set of rights and obligations. Domestic partnerships come with rights covering probate matters, guardianships, conservatorships, inheritance, protection from abuse, and related types of matters.

In 2023, a bill passed that allows for the amendment of a marriage certificate to update names and gender, as well as the designation of gender identity on a death certificate.

Action Items for Name Change/ Gender Marker Change on Marriage Certificate in Maine

Go to the state of Maine vital records website.
Fill out the VS-7 form.
Get your signature notarized.
Pay a $60 fee.

The VS-7 form can also be used for changing the gender of a minor or changing their first and middle names on a birth record, as well as other vital records updates.

Reminder: Document consistency is the most important thing. if you have most documents in one name, you’ll encounter fewer difficulties or obstacles if you update the others to match.

Action Items to Protect Your Parent Rights and Secure Parentage:

Get a court judgement or adoption decree if you’re not the gestational or genetic parent of the child.
If you’re a trans parent and you’ve changed your name, update your child’s birth certificate to include your current name for document consistency.
Consider a co-parenting agreement to set out parents’ expectations about roles, responsibilities, and plans in the event of one parent’s death or divorce of the parents.
Consider nominating the other parent as a guardian in a will.

The top priority right now should be changing your passport and social security since those are federal documents and the laws surrounding name changes are subject to change under future administrations.

In order to change your name on federal documents, you need a legal name change.

How to Change Your Name Legally in Maine

1. Apply for a name change through Maine’s probate courts.

2. Show up to your court date.

3. Pay the name change fee.

To change your gender marker in the state of Maine, choose between M, F, and X for your state ID or license. If you’re a minor, you need a guardian or parent to sign off on your gender marker change. If you’re an adult, you can attest that this is your gender. If your child was born in another state, you may be unable to change their gender marker on their birth certificate. Consider a passport for your child with the correct gender marker.

Make sure you update your passport to reflect the name changes or gender marker changes you’ve made on other identification. Document consistency is the most important rule.

When traveling out of state, have multiple certified copies of marriage certificates, birth certificates, adoption decrees, power of attorney, and advanced healthcare directives. Keep copies of these documents in your travel bags and keep pictures or scans on your phone.

Before you travel, use the Movement Advancement Project or MAP to look up the different laws in that state. It’s a resource with a detailed explanation of what your rights are in each individual state across various topics like families and children, schools, healthcare, and more.

A Power of Attorney is a legal document. It gives a person, usually a partner, trusted friend or family member, the power to act for you, or make financial decisions for you.

The most common type of Power of Attorney is called a Durable Power of Attorney. The word “durable” means that you created your Power of Attorney while you still had capacity, and that you intended for the document to remain in effect if you become “incapacitated.” You are “incapacitated” when you are too sick to make decisions for yourself or tell others what care you want.

Action Items for creating a Power of Attorney:

work with an attorney to ensure right language is in agreement
list out specific powers (giving gifts, control over electronic communications, etc.)
-make sure the document is signed by both parties
get the document notarized
make sure document is witnessed by two people

This is best practice to ensure the financial Power of Attorney will be recognized in the greatest number of states.

Here is more information about Powers of Attorney from Legal Services For Maine Elders.

Any spoken or written decision or instruction about the health care you want in the future is called an Advance Directive. You can tell your doctor or family what you want, but it is best to write it down.

Advance Directives are sometimes called Living Wills or Durable Powers of Attorney for Health Care. Click here for Maine Hospital Association’s Advance Directive Form.

A health care proxy is a person who is appointed by you to carry out your wishes and your instructions regarding future medical treatment in the event you become incapacitated.

Living Wills are usually directed at life-sustaining treatment and what you would want in that particular context. It provides your health care proxy with some guidance on health care decision-making.

Psychiatric Advance Directives (PADs) are designed to be used by people who are living with mental illness who wish to plan for periods of potential acute mental illness. They state treatment preferences for mental health care, and they can also name a surrogate decision making for mental health care decisions in case you become incapacitated. PADs can address preferences for treatment settings, mental health service provider preferences, hospital preferences (if hospitalization is unavoidable), transportation preferences (by ambulance vs. not), medication and dosage information, preferences for the form of treatment and information about what type of treatment you usually respond best to if that information is available, a list of emergency contacts, your childcare preferences if you have children, and more.

Requirements:

-notarized

-created by a competent adult

-signed by that person in writing

-witnessed by at least two people

Estate planning is the process of making arrangements for how your assets, your medical care, and guardianship will be handled if you become incapacitated or pass away. There are many parts to estate planning, and while there is a common misconception that it’s just about money, there’s much more to it. Having a will or trust as part of your estate plan is the best way to remove the onus on your surviving loved ones to handle your responsibilities and make sure that your wishes are honored.

If you are creating or updating your estate plans, here are some suggestions especially for LGBTQ+ people:

Make sure that your spouse, partner, or significant other, regardless of gender, is specifically named if you wish for them to benefit. It’s important to know that spouses are automatically entitled to a portion of your estate under Maine law, and if you wish for them not to benefit, you have to specifically articulate that desire.
Review existing estate plans and update them with changes in family composition, ensuring that they reflect your legal status.
If any individual beneficiary within your estate plan is trans, nonbinary, or gender expansive, ensure that your estate plan reflects that individual’s name and gender accurately. It’s also a good idea to use as much gender neutral language as possible.
If you have any minor children, name a guardian to care for them in the event of your death or incapacity. If there are incapacitated adults in your care, you should name a conservator.