Queer Parents Unite! Our rights are under threat
A run-down on the unfolding situation in Italy and information about how to protest
It’s time to protest! From Gay to Ze is joining forces with our friends at LGBT Mummies, The ELC* and Stonewall to organise a protest outside the Italian Embassy in London. Scroll down for more information on the unfolding situation in Italy.
In January, Italy’s right-wing government ordered state agencies to cease registration of children born to same-sex couples. Now they’ve taken it a step further: a state prosecutor in northern Italy has ordered the cancellation and re-issuance of 33 birth certificates of lesbian couples’ children.
Non-gestational mothers are receiving letters informing them that they are being retroactively removed from their children’s birth certificates. New birth certificates are being issued listing the name of only one of the child’s mothers.
We can’t even begin to imagine how traumatic this is for the families involved.
Until March, there were several Italian cities where same-sex couples could be listed as “parents”—as opposed to “mother” and “father”—on birth registrations. But the Interior Ministry then began sending letters ordering an end to the practice.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, made anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric a cornerstone of her campaign for office. She opposes allowing same-sex couples to adopt as well as marriage quality, calling civil union “good enough” for LGBTQ+ couples.
“Yes to the natural family, no to LGBT lobbies,” she declared last summer.
Under current Italian law, the member of an LGBTQ couple who is not legally recognised as a child’s parent could lose custody if the legally recognised parent dies or the relationship ends. It would also make that parent accessing medical care for their child, signing the child up for schooling and so many other essential aspects of parenting unnecessarily difficult.
Pro LGBTQ+ politicians in Italy have condemned the legislation as discriminatory, and The Human Rights Watch said: “Italy should immediately reinstate the women removed from their children’s birth certificates and drop its ban on the registration of children born to same-sex couples.
“Authorities should pass inclusive parental-recognition bills that explicitly recognise the legal parenthood of non-gestational lesbian parents.”
Surrogacy has been illegal in Italy since 2004, but recently the Italian parliament has approved a bill criminalising people who go abroad to have children via surrogacy. The bill, passed in the chamber of deputies with 166 votes in support and 109 against, is aimed only at Italians and envisages fines of up to €1m (£856,690) and jail terms of up to two years for those who break it.
The measure needs approval in the Italian senate before being passed into law.
Meanwhile, same-sex couples are barred from undergoing IVF and can only adopt their stepchildren. Italy became the last Western European nation to legalise same-sex civil unions in 2016.
There have been protests happening across Europe this weekend. Join us to protest in London!
It will be a peaceful protest and children are invited. Any questions please ask here or DM on Instagram