DM -Italy erases names of gay mothers from birth certs

I guess the state benefits from knowing who the father is for purposes of child support, inheritance, preventing half siblings from inadvertently procreating. Who the bio parents are matters for all those things, rather than who the raising the child parents are. And children do have a right to inherit even from a completely uninvolved parent, and to be financially supported by the same parents while a child (hollow laugh on that one in practice).

I wasn't saying a stepdad needs to adopt a partners DC, certainly not for 'male protection'. But a man raising a child as his own who isn't the bio father can do that to ensure security for the child. Like your previous example of taking the child to school or giving consent for medical treatment, practical stuff that the parents raising the child need, and which aren't to do with biology. I think a step dad who partnered the mum after the child was conceived shouldn't be on the BC, that's just as untrue as naming two same sex parents as birth parents in my view. And yes I do think that a woman who birthed a baby in a surrogacy arrangement should be named on the BC, for the same reason.

As I said, I think that gay families are being screwed over here, they started families under one system and are now being forced out of legal recognition of those families with no alternative eg adoption or court orders in place. That's unfair and is punishing people who were abiding by the law at the time. But legal fictions is how we got the GRA when we should have got gay marriage. Legal fudging leads to unintended consequences. As a PP said, 'as the kick back of the populace against the TQ smash and grab raids starts, there go LGB rights with them. Thanks for that TQ.'

I get wanting your parental relationship to be reflected on the paperwork - I'm an adopter. I'm not on my DCs BC, but I'm their mother. So are the same sex parents raising their children they didn't give birth to.

Birth certificates are not and never have been a record of biological origins. Children of a heterosexual marriage have always been recorded as the children of the husband even if that is not biologically the case.

A birth certificate is a record that a child has been born and who their parents are. A non gestational mother is a valid parent. An anonymous donor is not.

I used an egg donor and my husbands sperm. I grew and birthed my babies. I am listed as the mother on the birth certificate. Should I not be?

Well, it comes down to what are birth certificates for?

My adopted daughter has a birth certificate which names me and my (same sex) ex as her parents. Children of married heterosexuals will automatically have the husband listed as father, even where conception is via sperm donor.

So in the UK I don't think there is any legal assumption that a birth certificate denotes genetic parentage so much as legal parentage.

In the Italian situation, at least one of the non-biological mothers supplied the egg, so she has at least equal claim to the sperm donor.

On a wider point, this thread - along with many others atm - is a worrying illustration of how much kneejerk homophobia is creeping back because of the reaction to gender ideology nonsense. It's real backlash stuff and people need to be more careful.

But isn’t the birth certificate intended not to show who is going to raise the child (this can change during the course of a child’s life!) but to be a legal record of who the child’s biological parents are (this can’t change).

@DustyLee123 as in, you think a sperm donor’s name should be on it over their actual second parent, the one who will raise them?

Parenting goes beyond gametes. I also think there are probably way more than we think whose father on the birth certificate is not the biological father anyway, so how would your system of lesbian partner erasure help with that?

Signalbox OK but you’re posting about unmarried straight couples’ rights to birth certification. That is a different legal situation compared to married straight couples’ rights to birth certification which is what I was talking about.

I was saying that a married man is automatically (unless legally challenged), the Dad on the BC of the baby that his wife has. Regardless of if they used a sperm donor. Regardless if his wife is having an affair and everyone in the world knows that the OM is the dad.

The married man’s right to do that is the analogy I was using for the married wife of the mum who gave birth in Italy. My point is why is she not allowed to go on the child’s BC
, if a married man is allowed to. It’s lesbophobia.

So you take the complete opposite view to UK law then. Would you also argue that the woman who gave birth and is more likely to breastfeed shouldn’t be entitled to maternity leave out of interest?

Thank you for your post *nothingcomestonothing. *You said:

The only benefit is that the BC states biological reality. You could argue that that is more to benefit the state than the individual child maybe. This being the sex and gender board, I think we're all keenly aware of the potential consequences of allowing feelings to replace biology on legal documents.

How does the state benefit from naming a man who may be not at all involved (or might be but the government DGAF about that) as a parent? I’m not sure how effectively putting sole parental responsibility on the woman who gives birth benefits the state, that mum or the child? How does it work practically when two parents intend to be in the picture and why is it better for the state to only acknowledge one? I mean, any benefit other than gratifying the lesbophobic impulses of the legislators?

I’d also strongly argue that being a mother married to another mother bringing up a child together isn’t ‘a feeling’. It’s not a delusion to escape misogyny nor a means to deny one’s own same-sex attraction due to homophobia, nor is it a sex fetishisation of misogyny. Lesbian parenting has nothing to do with gender ideology unless people are conflating same-sex relationships with same-gender relationships, which is not helpful or accurate.

But you can say that about a step father who does all those things, has raised the child as his own from birth and would always be thier dad if he and the mum divorced. That step father isn't and shouldn't be on the BC, but should and is able in the UK to adopt the DC and take on parental rights and responsibilities. If Italy allowed same sex couples to do the same, I think that would be better than knowingly putting non birth parents on a BC

If the stepdad was there from birth (and married to the mum at the birth time) then yes, he would be on the BC.
If the non-stepdad dad is on the BC instead of the stepdad, then that’s because (the stepdad wasn’t married to the mum) and the genetic dad and the mum put the dads name there, or she put dad name in there and neither dad nor current stepdad she was married to at the time objected (though I am not too sure about the legality of that one), or because the mum was married to the dad at the time of the birth and not the stepdad (saying nothing about who in reality is the child’s dad). I do hope we’re all agreed that BCs shouldn’t be retrospectively changed.

I’m confused why you’d argue that a stepdad should need to adopt his wife or partners’ previous kids though? That seems like a patriarchal idea coming from legitimising existing kids via a new marriage and new male protection. It also presumably acts to give the adults freedom to give everyone in the new stepfamily the same surname.

I can imagine that in some situations that the adoption then name change to a new surname, possibly the stepdad’s, or a new stepfamily double-barrel, for example might be very healing or very important for a child. But it’s not a given and it might be more complex and in some situations might be more about asserting something or denying something that could later be very difficult for the child’s sense of origins and identity, even if the adults prefer the changed of name and if the child was happy with it on childhood, which can’t be assumed.

All of which is worthy of discussion on a feminism board but for me, not in the way you’re posing it here as a ‘should’.

Parental rights and responsibilities of fatherhood are also not legally the same as BC rights and they can exist independently of what’s on the BC, so we also have to be careful not to conflate these in this discussion.
So I think we’re back to, why can’t the female partner married to the other mum of the baby at birth, go on the BC in Italy, when the stepdad that you mention would be allowed to do this?

I disagree with you that lesbian partners should be regarded as egg donors if that’s what you’re saying? (Would you argue that any woman who gives her egg to her spouse for making a baby is a donor then, including if the spouse happens to be male? Presumably you also believe that women who give their egg to a surrogate and then take the baby and bring it up should be considered egg donors too?

I’m glad we agree that The Italian government's ideology behind this absolutely is lesbophobic But I will agree to disagree with you that campaigning for same sex adoption is a better solution overall than campaigning for the right to lie on a legal document. I just don’t think genetic truth always has a safe place on BCs, for children or for women.

I agree with this. I’m bisexual. A lot of couples, usually same sex couples and some heterosexual couples included, overlook the child’s rights to know who their biological parents are. The birth certificate is a historical and legal record and it needs to be factual, not playing into the whims of adults.

they should add a section on birth certificates regarding PR and who has this, with the birth parent details remaining intact

Signalbox OK but you’re posting about unmarried straight couples’ rights to birth certification. That is a different legal situation compared to married straight couples’ rights to birth certification which is what I was talking about.

I was saying that a married man is automatically (unless legally challenged), the Dad on the BC of the baby that his wife has. Regardless of if they used a sperm donor. Regardless if his wife is having an affair and everyone in the world knows that the OM is the dad.

The married man’s right to do that is the analogy I was using for the married wife of the mum who gave birth in Italy. My point is why is she not allowed to go on the child’s BC
, if a married man is allowed to. It’s lesbophobia.

This really does read as someone who is applying a trans lense to lesbians’ rights. Women are not claiming biological falsehood when they seek for both their status to be recognised as parents. (Although you do know it’s not uncommon for one woman to produce the egg and the other woman to carry right?)

In U.K. law parenthood is a legal and cultural status more than it is a biological one. Centring this doesn’t mean children can’t be informed of their biological origins, but it does mean that the person who fulfils the second parental role from conception onwards is recognised as important and having all of the legal rights and responsibilities as a parent.

Sperm donors aren’t parents and don’t go anywhere near a birth certificate. Anyone who is arguing against a second woman taking the other parent slot is arguing for a child to be given less information, not more.