General note
Jeanne Jullion spent her junior year of college in Florence, Italy where she met and later married her Italian husband. They
returned to the U.S., had two sons, the youngest of whom was two, before Jeanne recognized that she was a lesbian and could
not longer be a conventional housewife. The separation seemed cordial at first. Her younger son, Johnny, lived with her. Luca,
her older son, lived with his father nearby and there were visits back and forth. Eventually, concerned about the paternalistic
values with which her older son was being raised, Jeanne tried to gain custody of seven-year-old Luca. Her husband countered
with his own request for custody for both children citing Jeanne’s lesbianism. In the face of a conservative judge and a family
court services investigation that included blatant anti-gay questions, Jeanne took her case to the streets. She was transformed
from a shy housewife into an eloquent speaker for the rights of lesbian mothers.
As dreaded, she lost custody in the preliminary court proceeding. Without notice, and in her absence, the police took four-year-old
from her home. After months of waiting, her appeal was denied. However, the pressure her case brought on the court forced
the beginning of a re-evaluation of homophobic policies. At the final trial she was evaluated primarily on the basis of her
parenting, and was awarded custody of Johnny and visitation with Luca. Tragically, against Jeanne’s protests the judge allowed
the father to take the boys to Italy on a vacation. He never returned. It took nearly four years and a harrowing “kidnapping”
before Jeanne was able to bring Johnny to live with her. Luca remained in Italy. The full story of Jeanne Jullion’s case is
beautifully told in her book, Long Way Home (Cleis Press, 1985).
Jeanne speaks in 1994: “Luca is 25 and does computerized accounting for an Italian bank. As he was growing up I visited him
and we talked on the phone, but I wish I’d gone more often. He and John are extremely dose. My parenting of John was conducted
in considerable isolation, with very little information. A chorus of voices of my family, church and the judge accused me
of being driven by my own selfish agenda. I feared I would hurt this boy-child in some deep way. John and I would come upon
a new age of his human development and it was all fresh territory. I wish I had known then that it is truly all right for
us to raise our kids.” John, at 21, stated in a radio interview that he doesn’t feel all that different from his other male
friends, that they all are having to figure out how they want to be men. (June 2002)
