2. Either the older child is the husband's stepdaughter or, and I do think this is more likely, Corey is her half-brother - not her stepbrother.
Just to nitpick this a little, you're genealogically correct, but there's a difference between how kinship terms get used to express degree of genetic relation and how they get used to express social affinity. And my family would absolutely have used "stepbrother" in that circumstance (and did, in a slightly different but very similar circumstance). I also know other families that do similar "this isn't our genetic relation, but it's how we relate to each other" things with kinship terms. E.g., my wife's "brother" is actually her first cousin, and it was years before I learned that.
This is why I use kinship terms as my rebuttal to transphobes: can I call a man my father if he raised me from my earliest memories to adulthood and I had no other father figure in my life, but he wasn't present at my conception? Yes? Then you can deal with gender reflecting social affinity and not just biology.
no subject
Just to nitpick this a little, you're genealogically correct, but there's a difference between how kinship terms get used to express degree of genetic relation and how they get used to express social affinity. And my family would absolutely have used "stepbrother" in that circumstance (and did, in a slightly different but very similar circumstance). I also know other families that do similar "this isn't our genetic relation, but it's how we relate to each other" things with kinship terms. E.g., my wife's "brother" is actually her first cousin, and it was years before I learned that.
This is why I use kinship terms as my rebuttal to transphobes: can I call a man my father if he raised me from my earliest memories to adulthood and I had no other father figure in my life, but he wasn't present at my conception? Yes? Then you can deal with gender reflecting social affinity and not just biology.