Sharon Bottoms Mattes—a central figure in a closely watched 1990s LGBT-related child-custody case—has died at 48, according to The Washington Post.
Mattes ended up losing custody of her son to her mother, Kay Bottoms, after the Virginia Supreme Court ruled four to three that she was “an unfit parent” because she was involved in a same-sex relationship.
Mattes eventually said during the legal battle that her mother’s boyfriend had subjected her to repeated sexual attacks, beginning when she was 12; Bottoms said she was not aware of any sexual abuse. Under questioning, Mattes admitted that she and then-partner April Wade occasionally kissed in son Tyler’s presence and, in private, engaged in oral sex—a felony that was not decriminalized in the state until 2014.
Tyler is now 27. Mattes married Bill Mattes in 2012, Facebook posts related.
The Post article is at http://www.washingtonpost.com.