{"id":255534,"date":"2026-06-04T18:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T18:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/255534\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T18:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T18:54:10","slug":"new-york-gender-neutral-parenting-bill-sparks-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/255534\/","title":{"rendered":"New York gender-neutral parenting bill sparks backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republican<\/a> politicians in New York<\/a> are enraged<\/a> by bills that would make the state\u2019s child custody laws gender neutral<\/a>, despite anti-male bias in child custody decisions sparking years of<\/a> outcry<\/a> from many conservatives.<\/p>\n

A bill recently introduced into the New York State Senate would tweak current family court and domestic relations laws<\/a>, swapping gendered terms like \u201cmother\u201d and\u201cfather\u201d for gender-neutral terms like \u201cparent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Luis Sep\u00falveda, a Democrat from The Bronx, introduced New York Senate Bill 9316<\/a> after a similar bill<\/a> created last year never passed the Senate. A connected bill, Assembly Bill A8382A<\/a>, was introduced by Assemblymember Amy Paulin, a Democrat from Westchester County, and has already passed both of the state\u2019s legislative chambers.<\/p>\n

Other changes under the Senate bill would challenge presumptions around both the gender and guilt of defendants in child custody cases. That includes switching terms like \u201cpaternity\u201d and \u201cfiliation\u201d to \u201cparentage,\u201d and the phrase \u201cputative father\u201d to \u201calleged parent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perceived bias against men in child custody decisions has long been a talking point for men\u2019s rights activists and conservative politicians. But how these changes may relate to fairness in child custody cases has been overshadowed by outcry from conservative influencers and New York Republicans<\/a> who denounce it as an example of \u201cwoke\u201d ideology<\/a> breaking down gender norms and wasting legislative time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s woke culture run amok,\u201d said Gerard Kassar, a former state legislator and chair of the Conservative Party of New York State, according to conservative tabloid the New York Post<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s an example of how out of tune the New York legislature is. It\u2019s an unnecessary and wasteful use of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senate bill also moves toward language more inclusive of LGBTQ+ <\/a>people, using \u201cgestating parent\u201d instead of mother, removing phrases like \u201cshe and her husband,\u201d and using gender-neutral pronouns throughout.<\/p>\n

Conservatives who spoke to the Post expressed concern that the bill\u2019s passage may lead state lawmakers to modify more laws to make them gender neutral.<\/p>\n

Sep\u00falveda, the Senate bill’s sponsor, did not return a request for comment from The Advocate. But Paulin, who sponsored the related Assembly bill, told The Advocate that state lawmakers introduced the bill based on recommendations from New York\u2019s family court system itself.<\/p>\n

In January 2025, the Family Court Advisory and Rules Committee, a state-run advisory group made up of New York family court judges, issued a recommendation<\/a> that the court substitute existing gendered terminology in the state\u2019s family court law with gender neutral terms.<\/p>\n

\u201cNotions of parenthood have shifted dramatically in recent years,\u201d reads their recommendation report. \u201cThe committee is proposing a measure to fill this gap and to modernize New York\u2019s statutory structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paulin said the Office of Court Administration, which oversees the state’s court system, urged lawmakers to remove gendered language from the laws, making criticisms of the bills unfounded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Office of Court Administration asked for this bill to modernize the law to respect all families in whatever form they take,\u201d Paulin told The Advocate. \u201cThat’s all this bill does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: This piece has been updated to include a comment from New York State Assemblymember Amy Paulin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republican politicians in New York are enraged by bills that would make the state\u2019s child custody laws gender…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99550,61420,99551,99552,6105,4683,99553,9,11,10,49,51,50,96444,99554,233],"class_list":["post-255534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-child-custody","tag-custody","tag-custody-lawsuit","tag-custody-rights","tag-families","tag-family","tag-gender-neutral","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-parental-rights","tag-parenthood","tag-parenting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}