Marital Presumption
Legal recognition of the parent-child relationship (“parentage”) is important for many reasons, including health care and school related decisions to economic security, and much more. But for both LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people alike, families are made in many different ways, and so there need to be multiple ways for the parent-child relationship to be legally secured. These maps illustrate some of the multiple pathways to parental recognition that are especially important for LGBTQ families.
All states have a marital presumption of parentage. This means that when a married person gives birth to a child, the person’s spouse is also treated as the child’s parent. Because this pathway to parentage depends upon being legally married, and the 2015 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell granted the right to marry to same-sex couples nationwide, the marital presumption is available to all married same-sex couples nationwide. For more on current state marriage laws, see MAP’s 2022 report: Underneath Obergefell: A National Patchwork of Marriage Laws.
See also MAP’s June 2023 report, Relationships at Risk: Why We Need to Update State Parentage Laws to Protect Children and Families, for further discussion of the importance of legal recognition of parent-child relationships, the many pathways to legal recognition of parentage, recent examples of modernized parenting laws, and policy recommendations for all states.
Recommended citation for this set of maps:
Movement Advancement Project. 2026. “Equality Maps: Parental Recognition Laws.”
www.mapresearch.org/equality-map/parental-recognition-laws/. Data as of June 12, 2026.
Recommended citation for this specific map:
Movement Advancement Project. 2026. “Equality Maps: Marital Presumption of Parentage.” www.mapresearch.org/equality-map/parental-recognition-laws//marital_presumption. Data as of June 12, 2026.
Percent of Adult LGBTQ Population Covered by Laws
*Note: These percentages reflect estimates of the LGBTQ adult population living in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Estimates of the LGBTQ adult population in the five inhabited U.S. territories are not available, and so cannot be reflected here.
