It was roughly two weeks after her son Mirek was born that Corinne Gurtler discovered she'd have to adopt him if she wanted her name to appear on the birth certificate.

Gurtler isn't Mirek's biological mother; her partner, Cai Krikorian, is.

Still, she was surprised in late January to discover she'd have to adopt her own child before she could be listed as his parent on the birth certificate – the couple had looked into the issue when they were planning to get pregnant.

On the Yukon's Vital Statistics website, it clearly stated that the new birth certificates allow same-sex parents to be registered, Gurtler told the Star Tuesday.

"We thought, ‘woohoo, don't need to worry about that, done deal.' So, we had our baby and registered him,” Gurtler said.

What the website hadn't made clear, is that the non-biological parent would have to adopt the child before registering as his parent.

"I was pretty upset because we were sure that this was allowed,” said Gurtler.

"I was like, ‘you're kidding me, I'm supposed to adopt my own child? This is just ridiculous.'”

This is not the situation for heterosexual parents who use a sperm donor to conceive. The father does not need to prove paternity – Gurtler called it presumptive parenthood.

Gurtler and Krikorian sent out a mass email, alerting their MLA, Health and Social Services Minister Doug Graham, Jan Stick, the NDP Health critic, and the Yukon Human Rights Commission to their situation.

"The human rights commission phoned us back and said, ‘come in,'” said Gurtler.

The couple is now proceeding with a human rights complaint against the government.

"We just kept getting the same information from the Yukon Party saying, ‘you know, yeah, we know it needs to be changed; your options are adoption.'

"I don't know how many times I was told I was supposed to adopt my own child, and I was ready to lose it with the next person who told me I was supposed to adopt my child,” Gurtler said.

"This faulty understanding that that is just a perfectly OK solution is, it's beyond me,” she said.

The government has announced it will bring forward amendments to the Vital Statistics Act and the Children's Law Act during the current sitting of the legislature to correct the discriminatory elements of the legislation. As well, Graham has said the government is also looking to amend six other pieces of legislation.

But the parents want action now.

Until the laws are passed, Gurtler's name won't be included on the birth certificate, unless she adopts Mirek.

She said the human rights commission has tried to explain how the department could immediately issue a certificate to the parents, as the Yukon's human rights legislation supersedes all other laws. The government, however, insists it can't do that until the law is changed.

Gurtler also wonders why it has taken the government so long to bring this legislation in line with the Yukon's human rights laws.

This has been an issue since the territory legalized same-sex marriage in 2004, she noted.

"We're not the first same-sex parents who've tried to register our child. Everybody's been told, ‘adopt, adopt, adopt.'

"Most people have gone that route because they just can't bother to fight it; it's just too much work, which it is, it's a lot of work,” she said.

"One couple, who did adopt, contacted us and said, ‘we went the adoption route, we were new parents, we were too tired to fight it. It took a year; it was awful.'”

On May 9, 2012, Darius Elias, the MLA for Vuntut Gwitchin, brought forward a motion urging the government to undertake a full review of the territory's family, child, and property laws and to address various issues, including those which discriminate against same-sex couples.

While Graham said Tuesday he wasn't aware of this issue until Gurtler and Krikorian raised it, the government has been alerted to the problem at least once before.

"In 2012, someone brought it to their attention and they chose not to do it,” said Gurtler.

"My partner's much more optimistic than I am, and she believes this is going to be resolved quickly,” she said.

"When I have it in my hand, I'll believe it, because they've put it off and they've put it off and they've put it off.

"I don't know how many people they've sent down the adoption road, which is clearly discriminatory,” she said.