January 2019

DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12389
Published date01 January 2019
AuthorBarbara A. Babb,Robert E. Emery
Date01 January 2019
EDITORIAL NOTE
JANUARY 2019
As you may recall, Bob Emery said goodbye as Social Science Editor in our Editorial Notes in
this past Octobers issue. Now, here he is saying goodbye again (twice in fact: once here in our
Notes and again in his parting essay titled, More Research Is Needed)! This is his nal good-bye,
we promise! The January issue also ttingly includes a hello essay by incoming Social Science Edi-
tor, Marsha Pruett. Welcome Marsha!
Enough about us. FCR rings in 2019 with a diverse collection of thought provoking articles. We
begin with a special feature consisting of select articles from the 2018 Association of American
Law Schools Annual Meetings Program on Law and Mental Disability. Jasmine Harris introduces
the topic of the intersection of mental disability and family law and the articles that comprise the
special feature in her piece, Legal Capacity at a Crossroad: Mental Disability and Family Law.
She argues that scholars from the elds of mental disability and family law have not developed a
framework for dealing with parents who have physical and/or mental disabilities. In turn, she sug-
gests how examining family law issues through the lens of disability rights can improve decision-
making in this complex area.
As part of the special feature, Leslie Francis focuses on disabled parents in Maintaining the
Legal Status of People with Intellectual Disabilities as Parents: The ADA and the CRPD.She pro-
vides creative alternatives courts might employ when called upon to consider the termination of
parental rights of disabled parents.
The nal special feature article, Family Law, Parents with Disabilities, and the Americans with
Disabilities Act,by Robyn Powell, also focuses on disabled parentsspecically, those involved
in custody and visitation proceedings. She, too, offers concrete suggestions about how family courts
and family law attorneys can address individuals with physical and mental disabilities as they relate
to ones ability to parent.
Our rst regular article discusses the timely and important topic of transgender and gender non-
conforming children. Katherine Kuvalanka reports on her qualitative study of 10 families where a
custody dispute involved a child who was transgender or gender nonconforming. In all cases,
mothers afrmed the childs gender identity but fathers often did not. Kuvalanka discusses how
mothers were commonly blamed for the childs gender identity, coerced to try to change the child,
or the child was coerced directly. Courts, in turn, frequently did not understand the issues involved
in these cases or showed bias against non-normative gender identity. Importantly, Kuvalanka offers
a thorough and practical overview of the relevant legal and psychological literature, a contribution
that we are sure will be useful to our readership in educating themselves and others and thereby will
help to eliminate bias in the future.
Vicki Lens also examines bias in her article, Judging the Other.’” Based on ethnographic
methods of observations of 94 welfare and abuse proceedings, Lens focuses on racial, gender, and
class bias. She notes obvious disparities between the subjects of those proceedings and legal actors,
including caseworkers, in terms of race, gender and class. More subtly, Lens describes narratives
constructed by professionals that blame and shame poor women of color for their failures, rather
than considering how the context of their lives determines their actions. Lens emphasizes the
FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 57 No. 1, January 2019 56
© 2019 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts

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