I have been receiving a lot of calls—some from past clients, many from people who looked me up in a panic—and the central question is: “What concrete steps can I take to protect my family from risk in a second Trump term?”

As I have given the most up-to-date advice, I saw my colleague Amira Hasenbush wrote a fantastic article on the subject. She advises having estate planning documents in place, taking steps to legally recognize a gender transition, and, if you have genetic material cryopreserved, determining whether to move that material to a storage facility in a friendlier state.

Amira also suggests confirming your parentage with a second-parent adoption or judgment of parentage. I totally agree. This recommendation applies primarily to families who conceived with the assistance of a sperm donor (anonymous, identity release, or known) and gestated the pregnancy themselves. Families who fall into this category include same-sex couples, queer or nonbinary couples, trans men and their spouses/partners, and single parents by choice. People who built their families by surrogacy or adoption typically have a court order determining their joint parentage already.

The follow up question I get a lot is, why? Particularly when the non-biological parent is already listed on the child’s birth certificate. That’s usually the start of more questions, so let’s go through each one by one:

Q: IS BEING ON THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE ENOUGH?

The short answer is that our families need a court order that is entitled to Full Faith and Credit under the U.S. Constitution. A final judgment of parentage or adoption must be recognized by courts in all states. Translation: A hostile judge is not allowed to disregard the judgment for policy reasons. A birth certificate, on the other hand, is not a court order. Much like a marriage certificate in the pre-Obergefell days, it does not have to be recognized in other states. A hostile judge can disregard your child’s birth certificate.

The longer answer gets into questions of conflicts of law, choice of law principles, and the details of legal parentage–esoteric subjects that are not often taught in law school and topics that many other lawyers do not fully grasp. But here is my best encapsulation: When a judge considers a family law issue, generally speaking, he or she applies their own state’s law, not the law of the state where the child was born. Meaning if you lived in New York, but re-locate to a red state, the red state judge will apply red state law to decide if the non-genetic/non-gestational parent is LEGALLY a parent. (Without question a non-biological parent is a parent, my job is to make sure the law recognizes you as one.)

Q: DOES MARRIAGE HELP?

If you were married to the gestational parent, the law in all states presumes you are the child’s second legal parent. Vital records will record you as the second parent. In New York this presumption is very strong and cannot be rebutted easily. However, in other states the presumption is much weaker and is treated as a presumption of paternity, or genetics, not of parentage. In those states any proof that the non-gestating parent is not a genetic parent can be enough to rebut the presumption. The result is that the second parent would be determined not to be a legal parent.

Q: WHAT IF MY CHILD WAS BORN IN ONE OF THE 12 VAP STATES?

If you were unmarried and your child was born in one of the twelve states, including New York, that provides a voluntary acknowledgment of parentage (VAP), vital records will record you as a parent – and you will be recognized as a parent in that state and the twelve states that have VAPs. What we do not know is whether hostile states will recognize the VAP and whether the federal government under the Trump administration will recognize it. The VAP is not a court order, it is a purely administrative process. There is a federal law that requires acknowledgments of paternity for cisgender, heterosexual couples to be recognized in all states, but whether that statute will extend to recognizing VAPs has not yet been considered by courts. I absolutely believe they should be entitled to the same weight. I have less confidence that they will be given the same weight given the current makeup of the federal courts and attitudes of red states. What I hear from law professors and lawyers who practice in red and purple states is, unfortunately, the VAPs will not be recognized.

Q: HOW CAN THIS EFFECT AFFECT POTENTIAL CUSTODY/VISITATION ISSUES?

Being a legal parent is necessary because only a legal parent has the right to ask a court for custody and visitation. If you are not a legal parent, you could lose all your rights to see your child and participate in her life. Some states have developed other legal theories to allow someone who has functioned as a parent in a child’s life to acquire these rights. These causes of action allow you to get into court to ask for your rights, but they are often highly contested cases that will require a trial and many years to resolve.

Q: WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO DO ALL THIS?

Truthfully, we shouldn’t have to. This is one of the ways that queer families face discrimination embedded in the legal system. Going through the process of a second-parent adoption or judgment of parentage is not fun. I have to acknowledge that. However, it is an insurance policy against what is coming. The process allows you to make the determination regarding who your child’s legal parents are. And to do it at a time when you and your spouse or partner are on good terms. Most of the cases arise in the context of a divorce or separation where the parents are fighting over the children and the gestating parent tries to exclude the non-gestating parent from the child’s life. Less commonly, if the gestating parent dies, hostile family members may try to exclude the non-gestating parent and petition for guardianship over the other parent. (This is another reason to make sure you have a will.) If you complete the judgment of parentage or second-parent adoption, you take these issues off the table.

Q: IS IT TOO LATE?

A final note, these processes can be done at any time. I have handled second-parent adoptions and judgments of parentage for families with children as old as ten – and New York allows adult adoptions. But as a lawyer, I can say that if you are concerned, the best time to do it is now.