Parental Rights as if Queer Youth Mattered.

Dominant assumptions about youth in the United States, as well as legal decisions that both draw on and reinforce these assumptions, limit the rights of all young people. This has a particularly destructive impact on those young people who either identify as gay/lesbian/bisexual or who fail to conform to normative gender roles. In this paper, I connect the issues that these youth face to the lack of rights faced by all young people. I argue that those who care about young people who fail to conform to sex/gender norms need to be part of redefining parental rights and responsibilities. Finally, I suggest that the Convention on the Rights of the Child provides a important beginning for this redefinition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]