<table><caption>**Table 3.5** Logistic regression models on the partnership status (marriage vs. non-marital union) by type of couple, Spain 2017 (coefficients)</caption><thead><tr><th colspan="2">Type of couple</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Opposite sex (ref.)</td><td>1.00</td></tr><tr><td>Same sex male</td><td>-1.11**</td></tr><tr><td>Same sex female</td><td>-1.08**</td></tr><tr><td>Age</td><td>0.13**</td></tr><tr><td>Age squared</td><td>0.00**</td></tr><tr><td colspan="2">Educational level</td></tr><tr><td>No university degree (ref)</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>University degree</td><td>0.04**</td></tr><tr><td colspan="2">Family structure</td></tr><tr><td>No children (ref)</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Children</td><td>1.10**</td></tr><tr><td colspan="2">Citizenship composition</td></tr><tr><td>Both Spanish (ref)</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Both foreign</td><td>0.62**</td></tr><tr><td>Intermarriage</td><td>-0.35**</td></tr><tr><td>No children (ref)</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Children opposite-sex</td><td>1.00**</td></tr><tr><td>Children same-sex male</td><td>0.46**</td></tr><tr><td>Children same-sex female</td><td>0.60**</td></tr><tr><td>Constant</td><td>-4.08**</td></tr><tr><td>N</td><td>64,872</td></tr><tr><td>Log likelihood</td><td>-18588.246</td></tr></tbody></table>

Note: * p < .05, ** p < .01

Source: Spanish Household Survey, INE

Note: Sample not weighted

dren the probability of being married does not differ from same-sex and opposite-sex couples. Even if these results refer only to the Spanish case, we can infer without risk that family structure matters when it comes to formalizing partnerships and that the compositional effect of having lower fertility rates partially explains the lower marriage/registration rates of same-sex couples. For the same reason, it could explain the recent increase of lesbian crude marriage rates across Europe observed in the previous sections.

### 3.4.2 Discussion

Nuptiality and fertility patterns have always been connected. Traditionally, marriage was the earlier step and the necessary condition for childbearing. As we have discussed above, the relationship between these events has been substantially altered in recent decades. We could even argue that now parenthood often works as a deter-
<figure><img src="image_18.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 3.7** Predicted probabilities of being in a married couple according to type of couple and family structure</figcaption></figure>

Source: Spanish Household Survey, INE

Note: the multivariate model includes the following variables: age, educational level, citizenship combination of the partners

minant of marriage: children first, marriage second. This new reality of family soci-
ology helps us to understand same-sex nuptiality. As long as the fertility patterns of
same-sex couples are lower than those of opposite-sex couples, their nuptiality rates
might also stay low.

The fact that the proportion of parents is lower for lesbians and especially for
gays might also imply that their attitudes and expectations about marriage are dif-
ferent and less favourable to marriage. In this direction, Hank and Wetzel (2018)
argue that “accounting for individuals’ expectations might contribute to better
explaining why, for example, marriage-like partnerships and cohabitation are less
frequent in gay and lesbian couples than in heterosexual couples”.

Considering the role of parenthood raises new questions for the future: if samesex
family formation changes and its fertility rates increase, having more couples living
with common children (and not for the most part children who were born to previ-
ous couples) might incline these parent couples towards marriage and at the same
time might also modify the attitudes towards marriage of childless same-sex
couples.
## 3.5 Conclusion

The frequency of same-sex marriage or registered partnership can be associated through statistical analysis with macro as well as micro factors. At both levels parenting appears as one of the key determinants.

At the societal level, we rely on international comparisons. In different countries, the content of the laws organizing access to marriage or registered partnership is associated with the frequency of union legalization, at least for women, not for men. In particular it is the case when countries enlarge the consequences attached to legal recognition in the domain of parenting. The result is an increase in the frequency of lesbian marriages while gay marriages tend to stagnate. The other consequences attached to legalization have no such impact.

At the micro level, we take advantage of the diversity of individual situations to compare nuptiality among homosexual and heterosexual couples, all other things being equal. We show that in Spain gay and lesbian couples marry less than different-sex couples but that this difference is substantially smaller when they have children. That confirms the importance of parenting in the decision of homosexuals to marry, but there are strict limits to the explanation given the low proportion of lesbian couples with children and the still lower proportion among gay couples.

For a more encompassing analytical framework it is tempting to treat the introduction of same-sex marriage as one of the various forms of union diversification that characterizes the second demographic transition, and to consider the factors associated with the latter as relevant for a global explanation of trends and levels in same-sex marriage. Our efforts in this direction have not been successful. That suggests to us that the second demographic transition does not constitute a comprehensive framework for the understanding of homosexual marriages.

Nevertheless, the comparison of attitudes, expectations and behaviours of same-sex and different-sex couples regarding marriage and parenthood is the most promising avenue to investigate. Homosexual nuptiality is a recent innovation and the evidence accumulated is still scanty: we need more data to explore its determinants.

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**Chapter 4**

**Same-Sex Parents Negotiating the Law**
**in Italy: Between Claims of Recognition**
**and Practices of Exclusion**

Marina Franchi and Giulia Selmi

**Abstract** Italy represents a particular case in the panorama of Southern Europe; it is going through a very crucial moment when issues of sexual politics are at the forefront of the political and societal debate. Against the backdrop of the plurality of ways in which individuals arrange their intimate lives, the increased visibility in the public and political sphere of LGBT issues, and the de-traditionalisation of gendered relations, we are witnessing a strong, at times violent heterosexist/conservative backlash. Against this background LGB individuals organise their intimate lives, make reproductive choices and develop strategies to protect themselves and their most vulnerable next of kin. Drawing on qualitative interviews with gay and lesbian couples in Italy this chapter aims to investigate the intersection between the context and the ways in which individuals in same-sex relationships organise their intimate lives. It highlights the impact of the law and the socio-cultural context on the intimate choices of individuals, but also contribute to the growing body of literature that complicates the assimilation/disruption dyad and caution against the translatability of notions of heteronormativity and homonormativity.

**Keywords** Intimate citizenship · Norms · Parenting · Heteronormativity · Familism

<footnote>M. Franchi
London School of Economics, London, UK
e-mail: m.franchi@lse.ac.uk</footnote>

<footnote>G. Selmi (✉)
University of Verona, Verona, Italy
e-mail: giulia.selmi@univr.it</footnote>
## 4.1 Introduction

Familism and family matters are profoundly conservative cultural constructs that came to represent an internationally renowned trait of Italian culture. The centrality of the family has been incorporated into the Italian welfare regime where access to services and support, predicated on legally recognised kinship relationships, can be restricted to those who form care and support networks that are not legally recognized as family. Public and political discourses are occupied by a notion of the natural family fostered by Catholic Ideology and defended by political parties across the spectrum. Against this background, subsequent governments since the early 2000s routinely failed to approve laws that would provide legal recognition to same-sex unions. Only in February 2016, the Italian Senate approved the Cirinna bill by an overwhelming majority. The law however excluded parents with no biological ties with their children from any recognition of parenting rights.

Such provision would have granted legal recognition to parents with no biological ties with their children. Within this scenario, LGBT individuals routinely negotiate the absence of legal recognition of their family, a task that becomes particularly costly in relation to parenting, since social parents are legally and socially invisible. Drawing on 29 in-depth interviews carried out with gay men and lesbian women aged between 20 and 60 years-old in five urban centres in Italy, this chapter analyses how respondents account for their experiences of parenting and analyses the practices enacted to be recognized as a family. In the context of the tensions that characterize contemporary Italy such practises carry a hefty symbolic and material costs. Does the absence of norms is conducive to opening a space for queering the family heteronormative ideal? Or, on the contrary, this void forces gay and lesbian couples to perform the heteronormative script in order to fully access citizenship rights?

## 4.2 The Long (and Incomplete) Road to Equality: LGBT Rights in the Italian Context

In order to make sense of the narratives that are analysed in the following sections, here we delineate the background against which the interviews have been collected, and sketch the social and legislative status quo that affected the interviewees' experiences. At the moment of conducting the interviews the Italian legislative system was still lacking any legal recognition for forms of unions other than heterosexual marriage and any law aimed at tackling homophobic violence, despite the continuous warnings of the European Union and the pressure of many groups and LGBT rights advocates. Approving a law has been, for subsequent governments since the years 2000s, a challenging political endeavour. During the Prodi II Government (2006-2008) two different bills reached the parliamentary vote in less than 6 months; the DICO bill (February 2007) and the CUS bill (July 2007). Both bills were supposed to regulate the relationship between two cohabiting adults.
Both bills have been fiercely opposed by conservative politicians and religious hierarchies that perceived the legal recognition of same-sex couples as a threat to the ‘natural family’. LGBT advocates, on the other hand, criticised both bills for being a weak recognition of rights. Both texts, in fact, posed serious constraints to the legal effects of the partnership they aimed to regulate, in order to emphasise its status as different from marriage. Neither the DICO bill nor the CUS bill ever became laws. For a long time after the demise of the Prodi II Government, the issue of de facto unions was kept off the political agenda. In September 2008, Berlusconi’s government drafted a bill entitled *Disciplina dei diritti e dei doveri di reciprocità dei conviventi* (DidoRe — ‘Regulation of the rights and duties of reciprocity on the part of cohabitees’). The bill never passed the barrier of the Justice Commission of the Chambers of Deputies (Donà 2009: 343–344). Following the resignation of Berlusconi in 2011, the issue of the facto unions was again pushed out of the political agenda. Whilst it being a very contentious topic across parties, sexual citizenship rights were often framed as dangerous to the stability of governments as well as less of a priority in view of the ongoing economic crisis (Crowhurst and Bertone 2012: 416). The Renzi administration, supported by a very diverse coalition of parties, in power from February 2014 to December 2016, had been willing to reopen the discussion. Only in March 2015 the Justice Commission of the Senate reached a final agreement on a text on civil unions (the so-called *Cirinnà bill*, named after the first signer) aiming at legally recognising same-sex couples. The bill has been approved in May 2016 and finally became law.

The approval of the Cirinnà law has been defined by some as a milestone in the legal recognition of LGB couples in Italy. Others, however, define it as a watered-down recognition of rights (Mancina and Vassallo 2016), that emerged from a set of compromises within different groups of the Government majority. A central point of contention has been the legal recognition of parenting rights. In its original version the bill incorporated a provision that would allow social parents to be legally recognised. Right before the vote at the Senate, however, on February 26th following the *Five Star Movement's* withdrawal of support, the Prime Minister Renzi stripped the step-child adoption from the bill allegedly as a move to gain a solid majority and grant its full approval. The provision would have granted the right to adopt the children of one's partner to LG partners legally recognised under the new law. During the months that preceded the approval of the *Cirinnà Law* same-sex parenting rights became the forefront of the political and societal debate.

Public spaces were increasingly occupied by conservative Catholic Associations such as the *Sentinelle in Piedi* (Standing Sentinels) arguing that the recognition of same-sex couples and in particular their parenting rights was a threat against a ‘natural order’ (Garbagnoli 2014) that was particularly threatened by the ‘marketisation of life’ in relation to surrogacy. The debate was punctuated by references to biology, blood ties and the ‘natural family’ (Lasio and Serri 2017) hence reaffirming heterosexuality as the one and only prerequisite to (good) parenting. Societal anxiety around non-heterosexual parenting is not restricted to the Italian context (see also Butler 2002, Fassin 2001) and it is often evoked through the discursive trope of the wellbeing of the child that is constructed as impaired by the lack of complementary gender roles (Saraceno 2012).
At the core of these groups’ protests was a fierce attack to what they termed *l’ideologia del gender* (the ideology of gender) and *la teoria del gender* (the theory of gender) an umbrella term defining any feminist and LGBTQ claim ranging from anti-bulling and anti-discrimination educational programs to gender equality and reproductive rights (Selmi 2015, Garbagnoli and Prearo 2018). Their argument is informed by a determinist understanding of gender, sexuality and family. Anti-discrimination policies are here understood as tools for undermining the primacy of heterosexuality as the premise for full citizenship rights.

Such a premise is also protected by a relentless opposition to any bill recognising homophobia as an aggravating circumstance in hate crimes. Conservative groups and part of the Catholic Church denounced any attempts to legislate against homo-phobic hate crimes as acts against free speech and frame them as attacks on the Catholic Church itself and on far right-wing groups and parties. Subsequent drafts have also been strongly criticised by representatives of LGBT groups, who ques-tioned their efficacy in tackling institutional homophobia and the impunity of politi-cians and religious representatives. In particular, a draft presented in 2013 included an amendment proposed by Gregorio Gitti (PD-Partito Democratico) which stated that the definition of hate speech cannot be applied to opinions expressed within political parties or religious, cultural, and educational institutions de facto emptying the bill of its transformative power.

In opposition to the actions of a conservative part of the Italian society, local and regional governments have been at the forefront of implementing inclusive, non-discriminatory good practice, as well as creating a space for action and advocacy, especially at the time of collecting the interviews. For instance, local government created registries that granted some recognition to forms of unions in the form of cohabitation registries, way before the approval of the Cirinnà law in 2016. In over a hundred local governments in Italy, such registries were open to both heterosexual and same-sex couples and granted access to housing benefits and locally regulated services such as childcare and health care. While these provisions had no effect at the national level and outside the borders of the constituencies, municipalities and regional governments have been central to fostering cultural change that contributed to the creation of the conditions for the national law to be approved.

Following the approval of the Cirinnà law local authorities have been playing a particularly crucial role in the battle for the recognition of parental rights. The majors of many cities (i.e. Turin, Bologna, Milan, Palermo, Naples, etc.) are tran-scribing the birth certificates of the children born abroad by same sex parents; and since 2018 they are re-issuing the birth certificate of children born in Italy from same sex couples adding the name of the parent without biological bonds with the child in order to grant them full rights. Together with a series of rulings on stepchild adoption issued by several juvenile courts since 2014 (Farina 2017), local authori-ties are playing a key role in filling the equality gap between straight and same-sex parents and in fostering change toward the full recognition of sexual citizenship rights to LGBT couples and individuals.

Italy, then, appears to be characterised by an ambivalent attitude toward LGBT rights (Trappolin 2009): on one hand, public attitudes towards LGBT families and
couples are changing (ISTAT 2012), on the other, the inclination towards denial of
LGBT experiences (Bertone 2009a) is still persistent, and non-heterosexual life are
routinely marginalised. In this context the legal recognition of sexual rights keeps
being a difficult and tortuous path.

## 4.3 The Discrete Scent of ‘Family’: Changes and Resistance to a Social Model

The Italian public sphere is characterised by a peculiar resistance to “allowing dis-
cursive space even for a homonormative (Duggan 2003), familialised subject,
despite the attempts made in this direction by LGBT movements” (Bertone and
Gusmano 2013: 261–262). It is against this context that normativity and resistance
become blurred concepts that need to be carefully unravelled. In a scenario were
LGBT families are increasingly participating in public debates and claiming recog-
nition from the State, marriage and the family appear to retain the high symbolic
value that has characterised Italy’s modernity (Rosina and Viazzo 2008; Ruspini
2005), and the hegemonic norm of the nuclear family remains incredibly strong
(Ruspini 2009; Bertone 2009b).

In the context of Italy as elsewhere, claims for recognition of partnership, parent-
ing and inclusion in the welfare state can be interpreted as having the power to
produce and transform circulating meanings regarding family, sexuality, kinship
and rights (Plummer 2003). The shift of discourses and practices from the political
margins to the centre has often been defined as destabilising and potentially genera-
tive of new meanings. In particular in the West, the claims for recognition of the
LGBT movements in the past decades has been interpreted as reconfiguring notion
of belonging to the community of citizens (Weeks et al. 2001; Weeks 1998).

However, the claims for legally recognised relationships and parenting rights
have also been interpreted as overlooking the normalising power of state recogni-
tion (Butler 2002). In the recognition of relationship and parental rights, it has been
argued, lies the exclusion of forms of parenting and relationships that evade the
monogamous, dyadic family form. The recognition of lesbian and gay rights has
hence been interpreted as revealing how, while heterosexuality might in specific
instances no longer be a *sine qua non* requirement for the recognition of rights,
“heterosexuality has not yet been displaced as the reference point for “equality” and
“normality”” but is maintained as the norm that polices the boundaries of belonging
and exclusion (Richardson and Monro 2012: 65).

A similar tension with regard to the normalising power of individuals’ context
can also be traced in the sociological theories of late modernity. Within a sociologi-
cal framework, theories of de-traditionalisation and transformations of intimacies
such as Giddens’ (1992), and Beck and Beck-Gernsheim’s (1995), explored how
interpersonal exchanges and kin formation develops in contemporary society once
the functionalist traditional model declined and produced a “wholesale democrati-
zation of the interpersonal domain” (Giddens 1992: 3). Within this frame, great
emphasis is placed on the way in which late modernity is characterised by a dis-
placement of traditional ties and an emphasis on individual choice thus fundamen-
tally reshaping the societal landscape (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1995;
Giddens 1992).

This post – familial family (Beck-Gernsheim 1998: 70) is constructed around elective ties and it is understood as creative and self-determined both in terms of the constitution of kin networks and of emotional and relationship rules. Relationships therefore are imagined here free from societal and structural constraints and indi- viduals are thought as able to negotiate their needs and desire free from power relationships. In this understanding, gay men and lesbian women have been defined as pioneers of ‘pure relationships’, which individuals enter on equal terms and which might end when those individuals’ needs are no longer met (Giddens 1992).

These understandings have been met with scepticism by many scholars (Gabb 2008). In fact such theories appear to not take into due consideration how gendered politics of care continue to generate constraints (Skeggs 2004). Further, they do not account for the ways in which gender (Jamieson 1998) class (Skeggs 2004) sexuality and ethnicity (Hey 2005) place ongoing constraints on the possibili- ties of the self as a ‘reflexive project’. At the level of the analysis of norms, it is also important not to overlook the hegemonic power of the ideal of the monogamous, generative couple sustained by the ideal notion of romantic love. Theories of detradi- tionalisation and individualisation also keep the couple (even if democratic, dialogic and equal) as the main reference for the development of an intimate life project. As Gross argues the couple is still a ‘guiding cultural ideal’ that permeates much of the Western societies. As such it invests also those LGBT communities that while in opposition with the heteronormative model still cannot escape it. As a normative ideal it remains a point of departure for any relationship narrative where the couple is the only suitable, desirable, thinkable project. In unveiling the hegemonic hold of the ideal of the couple in Contemporary America, Gross not only questions the potential of de-traditionalisation but also highlights the resilience of patriarchal beliefs and practices (Gross 2005: 297–301). As Gabb (2008) points out, families remain the norm of the structural framework of our private lives. The increasingly visible LGBT families “rather than destabilizing normative models testify the power of familial ideology in representing the family as the best ways to live our lives” (2008: 16). Families are therefore expected to conform to a two-parents model that remains the condition for recognition of same-sex parenting (Roseneil et al. 2013: 18).

It is however always necessary to take into consideration that normative power and destabilising forces are always dependent on the context. Roisin Ryan-Flood in her work on lesbian motherhood explores the reproductive choices among lesbian women in Sweden and in Ireland (2005). She argues that the “way in which lesbian parents in the two countries reinvent and reinscribe prevailing discourses of the fam- ily according to their own situatedness as social and cultural actors highlights the significance of context to understandings of lesbian parent experiences, possibili- ties, and constraints” (2005:190). In so doing Ryan-Flood warns about the crucial role structural constraints and societal values play in shaping the very definition of normative/hegemonic and disruptive power (2005).
## 4.4 Methodology and Sample

In this paper, we draw on 29 in-depth interviews focusing on the daily life experiences of gay and lesbian couples and parents. We conducted the interviews between October 2014 and 2015 before the Cirinnà law was approved with gay men and lesbian women that described themselves as in a long-term relationship. Twenty-two were individual interviews with one member of the couple, while seven were performed with both members.

Three cities in the Centre-North and three cities in the Centre-South were selected to carry out the research. Alongside the socio-cultural differences in terms of family values and ties between north and south, the six urban contexts where selected due to their different features in terms of local policies on LGBT families and individuals inclusion (i.e. city register of same-sex partnership, policies against discrimination, etc.) and the different degrees of relevance of the local LGBT movements (i.e. number of associations, advocacy programmes with the local government, etc.). The spectrum of policies represented in our sample, allowed to gather different life experiences in relation to the social context individuals live in. Within these six cities, participants were selected through a snowball sampling technique thanks both to personal contacts and the network of Italian LGBT associations that were asked for support to recruit participants.

On the whole we interviewed 13 men and 22 women. The youngest respondent in the group was 22 years old, while the oldest was 62. While we aimed to have an even distribution in term of age, in the sample those who are around or over 40 years old are overrepresented. This is a direct consequence of the focus of the research that aimed at collecting stories of people dealing with family issues (housing, planning parenthood, childcare, elderly care, etcetera) and hence conditioned the age of the participants. For instance, in Italy the average age when one becomes a parent is higher than the rest of Europe, and more so for people in a same-sex relationship.

At the time of the interviews, thirteen participants were parents or were expecting a child, while two were going through ART in order to conceive. Seven women had (or were having) children within a same-sex relationship (six through ART and one through self-insemination), while three women had children conceived while in a previous heterosexual relationship. Two men had children while in a previous heterosexual relationship, one gay couple had children through surrogacy and another one was fostering.

Interviews lasted on average between 1 hour and 1.5 hours and were transcribed verbatim. The interview script began with a generative question on the couple/family story in order to encourage the participants' storytelling (Riessman 2008). Then *ad hoc* questions were added to encourage further discussion about processes of visibility and identity negotiation in the circle of family and acquaintances as well as in the social context. We included also questions on the encounter with the public sphere (i.e. public services, institutions); and our informants' experiences of discrimination and homophobia. For the purpose of this chapter, we will draw particularly on the interviews collected with parents or prospective parents. The reason is
twofold: first, the legal situation of same sex parents has not changed after the approval of the Cirinnà law, therefore the narratives we collected back then still mirror the actual challenges of gay and lesbian parents and their children; second, same-sex parenting epitomizes the tensions between the on-going change in family and kinship configurations and the endurance of heteronormative family models (Bertone 2015).

## 4.5 Navigating Heteronormativity in Contemporary Italy

One key feature of narratives is the uniqueness and the peculiarity of each story that refers to a specific subject in a situated context (Bruner 1996). However, even if every story is unique and peculiar, personal narratives are performed through and in relation to public narratives (Somers and Gibson 1994) or cultural repertoires. Social actors can embrace or challenge such tropes by contributing to their transformation and the construction of new stories (Plummer 1995). While heteronormativity is a “fundamental organizing principle throughout the social order” (Green [2002, 521], quoted in Gamson and Moon [2004, 48]), it is also the social and symbolic repertoire available to individuals to shape both their subjectivities and their public identities (Rosenfeld 2009). The analysis of the narratives collected therefore can open up a space for understanding how heteronormative discourses “are both subverted and reinscribed” (Ryan-Flood 2005: 201). We will explore the interviews collected first to grasp how and to what extent these narratives challenge or queer the notion of couple and family; second to explore the relationship between these narratives and the specific societal and legal Italian context.

### 4.5.1 Forcing the Boundaries of Heteronormative Kinship

As Ahmed points out on her notion of discomfort of queer families and couples, the point is “not about assimilation or resistance, but about inhabiting norms differently” (Ahmed 2004: 155). Some of our respondents’ stories offer a space for redefining or, better, for forcing the boundaries of heteronormativity and for building new meanings able to account for their specific experiences. In doing so they challenge the notion of family trying to carve out space for their experiences (Franchi and Selmi 2018). In the accounts of some respondents the notions of coupledom, family and kinship are challenged through language. By trying to qualify their intimate relationships, interviewees creatively re-work the traditional mean-ings of the family to widen them and to make room for their experience (Gabb 2005). The family (and what follows in terms of heteronormativity, gender roles,
etcetera) remains a cultural reference, but the narrative of the interviewees allows some shifts of meaning. For example, Gaia describes as *non-familial* the relationship they (her, her partner and the donor friend) want to create and as a ‘non-paternity relationship’ the one she and her partner envisage between their future child and the donor.

G: Then we identify a donor, a friend that for various reasons was perfect and was willing to be part of the reproductive process but also was willing to gamble with us on the possibility of forms of non familial relationships, but sentimental relationships...I don't know how to explain it... he was, in principle at least, willing to create a relation of non-paternity with the newborn...

R: What do you mean by non paternity?

G: Not being a father from the legal point of view, hence not recognising (legally, the child), not taking on him the duties and honours of the role, and then being a male figure in the emotive universe of the boy or the girl that though does not imply being a father. Now like... I am going to say the nearest thing I can imagine in my stereotyped universe, like an uncle, but then he might not be an uncle and we might want to call thingumabob and it means whatever will grow out of (the interaction) between the two of them... (Gaia, 41)

A similar situation occurs in the story of Stefano and his partner, a gay foster couple.

We do not feel the necessity to introduce ourselves... we arrive, that is what we are. Me and him, me, him and the boy [...] My partner once said to a guy who lived next door and wanted to visit us: "Yes, I will be delighted (if you visit us), so you will meet my family, my (male) partner and our *affiglio*" we coined this term *affiglio*, that comes from *affido* (foster) and *figlio* (son). (Stefano, 49)

Stefano explicitly uses language to challenge their invisibility. By using the word ‘*affiglio*’ Stefano challenges the trope of “as if we were a couple and parents like the others” (Cadoret 2008) and forces the boundaries of kinship to make room for their specific intimate relationships. A similar naming practices is narrated by Chiara while describing the way her two children call her and her partner:

> They call me mamma obviously. In a very spontaneous way, because I am always here.... I live here... and consequently... mamma... they also call me babba.... This is something I am really proud of... it happened because of a bad cold they caught last winter... They could not say mamma... it came out as babba. I loved it so much that I insisted on babba and now when they have to distinguish us they say mamma and babba... I think that babba really breaks every prejudice... (Chiara, 40)

‘Babbo’ is a regional variant of ‘papà (father)’, here the word is re-gendered to accommodate Chiara as social mother. In a context that not only excludes parenting from legal recognition but also vociferously denies their very existence in the public sphere, the practices of naming and defining appear central in the narratives of some of the families and families-to-be. These narratives do not displace dyadic and differentiated form of parenting but do challenge the boundaries of kinship lexicon impacting a societal discourse that exclude them.
4.5.2 Love Is All You Need?

In other respondent’s stories, mutual love and commitment emerge as key symbolic resources to account for their experience and define themselves as ‘legitimate’ fami- lies. Emblematic is the story of Enrica who at the time of the interview had been with her partner Roberta for 9 and a half years, got married in a North European Country 2 years before and had two children. As in many other narratives, the story of their couple and their family develops as a sequence of events that naturally arises from love, passes through cohabitation and finds their successful completion in the birth of their two children. The way Enrica narrates the couple’s decision of becoming mothers is particularly interesting:

E: After few time she expressed the wish to have children. For what concerns me.... Actually it wasn't an existential need, I never felt I would have been incomplete as a woman if I wouldn't have had children. Neither did she, however something resounded inside her. She always tells me that she thinks I am the person that made her feel capable to carry on such a life project. Honestly, I would have never had children with anyone else.

R: Why you say that?

E: I have many girlfriends that at some point felt the need to becoming mothers, and this is totally respectable. But for me it was a project... something that grew with her and even if I had many relationships before, this idea (of having children) never arose before. I like her as a mother, as a parent, how we are able to combine each other with our very different characteristics...and our children are the way in which we reaped the fruits of our love. (Enrica, 44)

Enrica's narrative of the decisions that lead to her and her partner's pregnancies resonates profoundly with the 'self-reflective' project ideal (Giddens 1992) that is envisaged as free of constraints and presents itself as rejecting any gendered expec- tations. She has a twofold trajectory in her story: on one side, she explicitly posi- tions her parenting project out of the traditional and naturalizing narrative of procreative female roles and underlines twice that she doesn't feel that having chil- dren is what defines her identity as a woman. On the other, the ideal of the modern democratic monogamous couple defined by love is dominant in her narrative. The refusal of a normative gendered role is counterbalanced by the love that becomes generative of both the desire to have children and the act of having children. In doing so however, her narrative still maintains procreation as the ultimate goal of the monogamous couple. A couple that she narrates following the script of comple- mentary roles.

We are really interchangeable... but for reasons that have to do with our personalities. I am much more 'homely' and Roberta is much more 'outdoorsy'. She is always outdoor, on the bike, running... and eventually, we realised that the children ended up identifying a Mother Home and a Mother Play... I am more Mother Home and Roberta is more Mother Play... even though the girls stay home also with Roberta and play also with me the one they get really crazy with is Roberta... And with me... I don't know, we bake cakes together, bis- cuits for Christmas, we decorate the Christmas tree... but for instance, we both help Mirella with her homework... since I work from home more often, I am more... maybe I do the daily shopping. Also, I love cooking, so it is natural for me to take care of lunches and
dinners. However, on Sunday night is usually Roberta who cooks dinner... she cooks crêpes for everyone and... and that is the exception to the rule... we eat while watching a movie.... (Enrica, 44)

The ‘mother-home’ vs. ‘mother-play’ narrative resonates with a differentiation between a caring homely role and a more social outdoor role but in doing so disrupts its gendered assumptions. Enrica explains the division of roles within the parenting couple as the results of an organic encounter between hers and her partner’s ‘natural’ inclinations and the children’s desires. Gay and lesbian couples challenge *de facto* the assumptions that sexual complementarity mirrors sentimental complementarity and, above all, generative complementarity that guides traditional notions of couple and kinship (Cadoret 2008). Enrica’s narrative, however, is tied to the heteronormative repertoire of a difference (between the partners) that is essentials to meet the children’s need. As in Ryan-Flood’s analysis, also in the case of our interviewees, we can see a tension whereby lesbian mothers seek to both repudiate and affirm heteronormative discourses that generate from their location and contexts and “are both constituted through and resisting of particular narratives of kinship” (2005: 201).

The tension between constitution and resistance is clear also in Enrica's discussion about both pregnancies, the role of the sperm donor and the subsequent negotiation of his parental roles. Enrica and his wife choose a friend as sperm donor, who was unwilling to play a parental role within the life of the newborns. While he pays yearly visits, he does not have any parent-like or relative-like relationship with their daughters.

> We knew we did not want a project shared by four people. We always wanted to be the two mothers of our two children. [...] At one point we had this desire to... it became a really strong desire to not leave Mirella alone! We liked the idea of a brother or a sister for her [...] this time... I mean the second time I tried and I got pregnant really fast. (Enrica, 44)

He was the donor for both pregnancies as a way to create a biological connection between siblings. In this decision, it is possible to trace a tension between the desire to conform to a normative/biologically informed ideal of the family and the desire to disrupt the dominance of blood ties. Enrica's narrative does not contemplate alternatives to the dual parenting couple but, at the same time, acknowledges that there is the possibility of a 'natural' desires of their children to know their biological roots. Hence the decision for a known donor. The biological/natural trope became central in Enrica's narrative around the use of a single sperm donor for both pregnancies. Somehow the biological link, subverted in the case of the parenting relationship, is maintained to solidify the relationship between siblings. In Enrica's narration of the decisions that led to the second pregnancy, it is possible, once again, to see the dominance of the trope of love free of constraints. Enrica refers to the 'child interest'. In her narrative is central the desire not to leave their first child alone but there is no explicit reference to her position with regard to Roberta, the legally recognised parent of their first daughter. While this is acknowledged later, it is not expressed as the reason why a second pregnancy was planned. The dominance of a narrative organised around love does not leave space for acknowledging power dynamics in the dyadic couple- and in particular how the lack of legal recognition
can impact the relationship. The *family* is narrated as a harmonious, conflict-free realm. By mobilising heteronormative narratives Enrica displays normativity as a desirable/comfortable place to be (Ahmed 2004: 147). Enrica's narrative is shared by other participants that equally construct the parenting project as connected to love and the fulfilment of the couple.

Unlike Enrica, Benedetta put forward a different narrative; while still relying on tropes of love and monogamous coupledom, her narrative underlines several times the problematic features of this process. A social mother-to-be, Benedetta is also thinking about getting pregnant herself, after her partner, but her narrative does not revolve around the desire to give birth as a woman nor around the desire to complete/complement the couple-project.

> Because I intend to... next summer maybe... or maybe next autumn.. to try but... but I really do not have this pregnancy thing... I'd do it only to create a familial bond on both sides. Between me and the child my partner is carrying and between her and a child I could potentially carry ... so that... I mean, I do not know... I fantasise that this will prevent a possible break-up... what I mean is [it will prevent that one of us is] stronger than the other. But I mean... unfortunately when you are 40... because I had relationships before her, really committed relationships that I never thought would ever end... even now that they are over I realise how I imagined them to last forever. (Benedetta, 38)

Central to Benedetta's narrative is the need to solidify the ties among her, her partner and their future child by complicating them, legally and emotionally. In Benedetta's narrative, the complexities of the parenting project and the lack of legal recognition to parenting are revealed and made explicit. A space is created to complicate the trope of *love until death do us part*. In so doing the power dynamics between the parent who is legally recognised and the one who isn't and their families of origin are also recognised. In the above, the impact of social and legal structures became apparent and difficult to escape, as it becomes evident how they might shape or have shaped the decisions of our respondents.

### 4.5.3 The Context-Dependent Challenge of Heteronormativity: The Role of Legal Constraints

The narratives analysed so far highlighted the tension between the comfort and discomfort with the heteronormative script and the ways families negotiate dominant meanings of family and coupledom. As discussed above, the Italian context is dominated not only by the trope of the ‘natural family’ in public discourses, but also by the absence of legal recognition. Besides the absence of recognition of the social parents, access to ART is denied to single women and lesbian couples, surrogacy is prohibited, and adoption is open to married heterosexual couples only. These legal constraints force LGB couples to travel abroad in order to conceive their children.
Lack of a legal framework for same-sex parents, therefore, influences the range of material options available to gay and lesbian couples as Silvia points out:

> I don't want to run the risk that, at some point, someone shows up and says "Since we are genetically tied, he is my son" ... The Italian law allows this. (...) This means that even a (donor) friend is risky. If we had a legal recognition of parenting rights, I would not have had any problem (...) but as it is not so, it is way too risky, especially for the parent that is not legally recognised. (Silvia, 41)

The choice of recurring to ART abroad with an unknown donor and to retain the parental roles within the lesbian couple rather than an act of conforming to the dyadic heteronormative model of parenting and coupledom is here framed a 'bounded choice' resulting from the lack of sexual citizenship rights. In reading these narratives it is crucial to reflect on the constraints of the context in which they are produced and reflect on the role the heteronormative script plays in granting LG couples' cultural intelligibility (Butler 1990).

Cultural intelligibility is a disciplinary regime that strictly defines the symbolic resources available to individuals to perform their identity and a normative framework that defines the social field where identities can have a legitimate expression. Such a framework conditions who can be considered as a legitimate (and recognizable) subject. The necessity of being culturally intelligible becomes crucial when advancing claims for legal recognition of parenting rights to juvenile law courts. As discussed above, given the absence of a national law, Italian same-sex parents have appealed to law courts since 2015 to be granted parenting rights:

> The lawyer explained to me that (the result of the claim) really depends upon which Court (will examine your case), however, even in the case of a court willing to examine your case (of a step-child adoption) you have to demonstrate that your cohabitation dates back five, six years, that the child recognise you as... that he or she spent (with you) Christmas, the summer holidays (...) so, if in five, six years there still won't be a law, then we can try the step-child adoption, in the meantime we collect Christmas Cards, letters, home movies, as other couples told me (they are doing)... (Gaia, 41)

Christmas cards, home movies, and proof of a stable cohabitation materialise the couple's cultural intelligibility and become markers of a familial project worthy of recognition. The strategies of the Rainbow Families movement resonate in Gaia's narrative as the possibility to strategically adhere to normativity in order to pursue one's aim. As Benedetta discusses, this strategy is a response to the precariousness of the process of recognition. At the time of the interview, only one couple had been successfully through the process of step-child adoption; while at the time of writing several couples have been successfully through it, the process of scrutiny by Juvenile courts remains the same. Successful outcomes are framed as linked to the ability to demonstrate, during the trial, the couple stability, cohabitation and parenting long-term project as key prerequisite to be recognised as a 'good' (and worthy of recognition) family:
Because the deal is this... there is no blueprint, they are making it up... the Rainbow Families association is helping us by saying that, statistically, it works to collect as many documents as possible [demonstrating] the existence of a shared familial project... from the pictures in the labour unit... in the clinic... both signatures [should appear] on every document. We both signed every document. When he will be born... for the nursery [the association suggests] that we ask to be both included in every documents. Because the only couple that managed... we are talking only about one sentence that might eventually be challenged... the couple followed this path... *the consolidamento familiare* (family stabilisation)... And they demonstrated the familial project, the family, the affective and economic ties... within the couple and between the non-biological mother and her daughter. (Benedetta, 38)

Requests for the legal recognition of same-sex couples, whether in the form of gay marriage or same-sex partnership, have been criticised as upholding values that replicate the discursive structures that reifies heterosexual family and kinship (Butler 2002: 21). The legal recognition of same-sex couples, as well as the debate on gay marriage, are framed as shifting the boundaries of acceptance to the stable monogamous couple, reaffirming the exclusion of queer sexualities (Butler 2002: 17; Bell and Binnie 2000). The forms of kinship that remain unnamed or do not respond to the possibility of legitimation, become in turn unintelligible (Butler 2000, 2002). The process of legitimation is in the State's own terms and to agree to it requires to abide by its lexicon and norms. However, cultural intelligibility has very material consequences in contemporary Italy. Not to participate in it comes at a cost of not being legally recognised in a context characterised by a strong familial welfare. Within this framework, gathering 'evidences' of being a 'proper family' rather than being defined as an homonormative move that solidify dominant discourses on family and kinship, could be interpreted as a 'contextual challenge to heteronormativity' (Ryan-flood 2005) that strategically manipulates the cultural and social resources available in order to claim citizenship rights.

## 4.6 Conclusion

LGB parents in Italy negotiate a societal context that, while more accepting of same-sex relationships (ISTAT 2012), keeps considering same sex parents unthinkable (Lingiardi 2013). The unthinkability of LGB parents, it has been argued, derives from a perceived misalignment of gender, generativity and parenting (Ferrari 2015) and is then reflected on and amplified by the lack of full access to citizenship rights. As discussed in the introduction, while a law has now recognised partnership rights, parenting rights are still denied to the parent who has no biological bond with the child(ren), a law on homophobia as aggravating circumstance in hate crimes is still missing, and access to ART is denied to lesbian couples and single women. Moreover, Italy is currently experiencing a strong backlash against minoritized groups. The frequent attacks on women and LGBT rights are exposing families that do not conform to the heteronorm, to homophobic violence in the public sphere
(Garbagnoli and Prearo 2018). Against the discursive violence of right wing politics and part of the Catholic Church, however, an increasing number of court cases have been recognising parenting rights to non-biological parents, de facto bypassing the Government's lack of action.

In this conflicting scenario, characterised by increasing institutional homophobia as well as support from the judicial power, gay men and lesbian women organise their intimate lives and manipulate the limits and resources of the Italian context. As the analysis conducted above has shown interviewees employ a set of different strategies to account for their familial and kinship relationships and to have those recognised by society.

These strategies sit often in an ambivalent space that both challenges and reifies the couple norm and the heteronormative model of kinship construction. Naming practices acknowledge roles that are not contemplated in public discourses such as that of a donor, a social mother, or a foster parent. On one side, gay and lesbian parents manipulate the lexicon of heteronormative kinship and in so doing they performatively create a new set of words that contribute to making a lesbian mother or a gay father as thinkable. On the other side, however, the lexicon of heterosexual kinship is hard to be displaced; even those experiences that aim to challenge the heterosexual family structure continue to use it as their reference point. Challenges to the dyadic couple still allude to a conventional family lexicon to define the affective and caring relationships that different adults might have with a child. Similarly, the trope of love and complementary care roles resound in our respondents' narratives. The dyadic parenting couple is rarely questioned as the starting point of parenting and love – conflict and power-free – is evoked as the generative device of the family.

At this stage, however, the tension between normativity and disruption appears to be an insufficient framework to account for the interviewees' experiences. From a certain perspective they seem to adhere to a homonormative ideal of coupledom and parenting that reproduces traditional kinship models and ideals. However, once we take into account the Italian context, these narratives reveal a strategic adherence to norms. They unravel how hegemonic norms govern cultural intelligibility of couple and kinship relationships. In a context of lack of basic parental rights and conservative beliefs around gender, sexuality and the family, adherence to the narrative of a 'proper' family appears to be strategic. In fact, it can be a way to gain access to social recognition and as in the case of court hearings, to legal recognition of one's parenting rights.

As some narratives showed, families seem to perform a strategic use of the heteronormative repertoire in order to challenge the material legal constraints and claim for sexual citizenship rights. In light of the collected narratives, we suggest thinking beyond the dichotomy of assimilation or resistance to heteronormativity and homonormativity and instead paying attention to the multiple and varied ways in which gay and lesbian parents' strategically manipulate the norms that are excluding them.
# Appendixes

## Appendix 1: Participants

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>Pseudonym</th><th>Sex</th><th>Age</th><th>Couple Status</th><th>Parental Status</th><th>Geography</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>Carlo</td><td>Male</td><td>46</td><td>LAT</td><td>No children</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>Gaia</td><td>Female</td><td>41</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>Going through ART at the time of the interview</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>Alessandra</td><td>Female</td><td>36</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>No children</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>Silvia</td><td>Female</td><td>40</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>No children</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>Lara</td><td>Female</td><td>36</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>No children</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>Cristina</td><td>Female</td><td>51</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>1 child, previous heterosexual relationship</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>Ernesto</td><td>Male</td><td>60</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>2 children, through surrogacy</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>Marco</td><td>Male</td><td>40</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>No children</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>Enrica</td><td>Female</td><td>44</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>2 children, through self-insemination</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>Silvio</td><td>Male</td><td>62</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>No children</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>11</td><td>Maurizio</td><td>Male</td><td>52</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>2 children, previous heterosexual relationship</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>12</td><td>Daniele</td><td>Female</td><td>45</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>No children</td><td>South - City</td></tr><tr><td>13</td><td>Andrea</td><td>Female</td><td>43</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>14</td><td>Giorgia</td><td>Female</td><td>38</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>1 child through ART</td><td>South - City</td></tr><tr><td>15</td><td>Tiziana</td><td>Female</td><td>36</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>16</td><td>Flavia</td><td>Female</td><td>60</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>2 children, previous hetero relation</td><td>South - City</td></tr><tr><td>17</td><td>Anna</td><td>Female</td><td>46</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>No children</td><td>South - City</td></tr><tr><td>18</td><td>Irene</td><td>Female</td><td>22</td><td>LAT</td><td>No children</td><td>South - City</td></tr><tr><td>19</td><td>Francesco</td><td>Male</td><td>32</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>No children</td><td>South - City</td></tr><tr><td>20</td><td>Domenico</td><td>Male</td><td>46</td><td>LAT</td><td>No children</td><td>South - City</td></tr><tr><td>21</td><td>Giorgio</td><td>Male</td><td>28</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>No children</td><td>South - City</td></tr><tr><td>22</td><td>Benedetta</td><td>Female</td><td>38</td><td>LAT</td><td>Her partner was pregnant at the moment of interview</td><td>South - City</td></tr><tr><td>23</td><td>Maria</td><td>Female</td><td>34</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>Going through ART at the time of the interview</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>24</td><td>Elisabetta</td><td>Female</td><td>34</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>25</td><td>Amanda</td><td>Female</td><td>38</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>1 child through ART</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>26</td><td>Isabella</td><td>Female</td><td>37</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>27</td><td>Serena</td><td>Female</td><td>36</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>Pregnant at the moment of interview</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>28</td><td>Donatella</td><td>Female</td><td>46</td><td>LAT</td><td>2 children, previous heterosexual relationship</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>29</td><td>Chiara</td><td>Female</td><td>40</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>2 children through ART</td><td>North - City</td></tr><tr><td>30</td><td>Valeria</td><td>Female</td><td>40</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

(continued)
<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>Pseudonym</th><th>Sex</th><th>Age</th><th>Couple Status</th><th>Parental Status</th><th>Geography</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>31</td><td>Tommaso</td><td>Male</td><td>45</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>2 children, previous heterosexual relationship</td><td>South - City</td></tr><tr><td>32</td><td>Elia</td><td>Male</td><td>55</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>33</td><td>Riccardo</td><td>Male</td><td>59</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>No children</td><td>South - City</td></tr><tr><td>34</td><td>Luigi</td><td>Male</td><td>54</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>35</td><td>Stefano</td><td>Male</td><td>49</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>1 child in foster care</td><td>South - City</td></tr><tr><td>36</td><td>Fulvio</td><td>Male</td><td>56</td><td>Cohabitation</td><td>No children</td><td>North - City</td></tr></tbody></table>

## Appendix 2: Interview Outline

After the first generative question, all others were asked only if the interviewee(s) didn't mention the theme autonomously.

### Generative Question

Can you tell me the story of your current relationship?

*(explore both genealogy and actual situation)*

### SECTION 1 – VISIBILITY

1. Are there contexts where you are not visible as partnered in a same sex relationship? (i.e. work, university, family of origin, friends, landlord, etcetera). If yes, can you tell me in which ones and why? Is it a joint choice with your partner or not? How do you manage it?

2. Concerning the family of origin:

* Can you tell me about the last family celebration?

3. Concerning the workplace:

* Do you take part in work events when partners are invited?

* Do you usually tell colleagues about your holidays?

* Do you have pictures of your partner and/ or your children on your desk/ at the workplace?

4. Have you ever been discriminated against for being in a same-sex relationship?

* If yes, can you tell me what happened?
5. Do you think that being visible in a same-sex relationship exposes you differently to discrimination or homophobia?

## SECTION 2 – COUPLE AND MARRIAGE

6. Have you symbolically celebrated your union? (i.e. a ritual, a party, etcetera)

* If yes, can you tell me how it went? Were your families of origin invited and/or involved in the organization?

* If no, do you think you will celebrate one day? How do you wish it will be?

7. Do you think that the legal recognition of your union will change your daily life?

* If yes, how? If no, why? (investigate both the symbolic level – as the public recognition – and the material level – as the taxation, access to public services, etcetera.)

8. Which legal form should this recognition have? (i.e. equal marriage, civil unions, registered partnership, etcetera). Why it should have this specific form of recognition?

9. Do you think that the legal recognition of same-sex unions would counteract homophobia and discrimination?

10. Do you think that a law against homophobia would change the quality and safety of your life? How?

* Which rights should the law protect?

* If no, why it wouldn't change it?

## SECTION 3 – CHILDREN AND FAMILY LIFE.

11. How many children do you have? How old are they?

12. How and when did you decide to have children? [for those interviewees who have (or are having) children within the couple]

13. How did you decide to have children? (i.e. ART, self-insemination, surrogacy, adoption, co-parenting, etcetera).

* Why did you choose this way over others?

* Did you tell your family of origin about the decision of having children? Did it change your relationship with them? If yes, how?

14. What changed in your life when you became a parent? Explore the relationship with the families of origin, the workplace (parental leave, visibility, work-life balance) and within the couple (negotiation of care roles).
15. Did you feel supported beyond the couple? I.e. kinship networks, friends' networks.

16. Can you tell me about your experiences with public services as same sex parents

* the first pediatrician appointment?

* the enrolment to pre-school/school?

17. Has your child(ren) ever been discriminated for having same-sex parents?

* If yes, can you tell me what happened? What did you do?

* If not, are you worried it could happen in the future? What would you do in such a situation?

18. Did you decide how to deal with potential negative events as a break-up or death? (i.e. private agreements, will, etcetera).

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# Chapter 5
## Same-Sex Families Challenging Norms and the Law in France

Matthias Thibeaud

**Abstract** Legal context has become more inclusive for same-sex couples in French society over the recent decade. It was not until 2013 that the marriage law was amended to allow same-sex couples to marry and adopt children. However, the law still lacks collateral parenting rights: access to ART and surrogacy are still illegal in France for same sex couples, and they must turn to foreign countries to access these rights. Consequently, same-sex parenting is a bit of a “makeshift job”, i.e., a legal and social grey area. This chapter analyses how lesbian and gay individuals deal with the law to “make” family, based on a series of in-depth interviews. The retelling of the procreation process they adopt and the story of their daily life as parents provide revealing examples of the different way they negotiate the legal and social obstacles they face. With many roads leading to parenthood, one key aspect of same-sex parenting is the legal recognition of the status and obligations to parent(s), whatever their gender, sexual orientation or number. The different same-sex families configurations challenge the certainties about the “right way to be parent” supported by the law, questioning the dominant and legitimate definition of the “normal” family.

**Keywords** Same-sex parenting · France · Family policies · Assisted reproductive technology · Surrogacy

### 5.1 Introduction

A bill permitting female couples and single women to access assisted reproductive technology (ART) in France will be presented to the National Assembly in 2019 as part of the revision of the French Bioethics Law. If the bill is voted, ART will no longer be reserved to heterosexual couples, becoming legal for all women regardless of their conjugal status or sexual orientation. The bill is a further example of the progress achieved on the rights of sexual minorities in France in the last few decades,

<footnote>M. Thibeaud (✉)
French Institute for Demographic Studies (INED), Paris, France</footnote>
other key breakthroughs including the legalization of the civil partnership (PACS) in 1999 and same-sex marriage in 2013. The political and social debates preceding the legalization of same-sex marriage focused on the issue of filiation and same-sex parenting. While the law of 2013 made it possible for same-sex couples to adopt, it failed to respond to the full set of issues raised by the plurality of existing same-sex families. These legal advances have been accompanied by the increasing social acceptance of homosexuality in French society, as reflected in the latest major survey on sexuality in France (Bajos and Beltzer 2008). But that acceptance remains socially differentiated and is more prevalent among young people, women and the most educated. Reticence over same-sex parenting remains more persistent, even if French society is no longer as divided as the media hype around the “Manif pour tous” demonstrations may have suggested. The survey shows that 53% of women and 46% of men accept the idea of two women raising a child together and 46% and 34%, respectively, of two men doing so. The underlying social logics appear to be similar to those at play in the acceptance of homosexuality but are heightened by the strength of gender-specific perceptions of maternity.

Despite the legal obstacles and constraints in terms of social acceptance, a number of same-sex parent families now exist in France, though they are difficult to identify (Rault 2009). Demographer Patrick Festy estimated that the number of children living with a same-sex couple in 2005 was between 24,000 and 40,000, the large majority with a female couple (Festy 2006). More recently, the French National Institute for Statistical and Economic Studies, INSEE, estimated the number of same-sex couples at around 200,000, 10% of them living at times with at least one child. A variety of family arrangements are involved, with most children being born from a previous union and some living part of the time with the other parent. The study confirms that women represent the majority, at roughly eight couples out of ten (Buisson and Lapinte 2013).

Supplementing a quantitative approach, this chapter looks at the way in which lesbians and gays manage their visibility, couple and family, as well as the difficulties they are confronted with owing to their homosexuality as regards the existing legal system in France. The chapter draws on the results of the French part of a comparative survey made in a number of European countries in 2014 and 2015 as part of the European research project, FamiliesAndSocieties<fnref n="1" />. On the basis of semi-structured interviews, and with a sociological approach inspired by Max Weber's comprehensive sociology<fnref n="2" />, the idea was to explore how lesbian and gay sexual minorities “construct families”. The research work was informed by a number of questions. What legal and social obstacles do these individuals face in their efforts to become parents? What kinds of access to parenting are open to them? What are the different types of same-sex parenting configurations? How do they address the normative expectations weighing on families? To what kinds of domestic arrange-

<footnote n="1">¹This research project led to a range of publications: (Digoix et al. 2016, 2017, 2018), and a university dissertation: (Thibeaud 2015)</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Max Weber's comprehensive sociology seeks to understand the meaning of social activities on the basis of the meaning given to them by individuals.</footnote>
ments does this give rise? How are parental roles negotiated among the various family configurations? What kind of visibility is given to same-sex-parent households at child care institutions? What types of difficulties do they encounter?

From a qualitative standpoint, the survey population was constituted so as to comprise the broadest range of profiles relative to the social phenomenon addressed, the idea being to obtain in-depth information on the experiences of the most diverse population possible. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were administered, seven of them with the two members of a couple and seven with individuals, for a total of 21 people interviewed, self-identified as lesbian or gay<fnref n="3" />. The survey population thus included a diverse range of family configurations – including single parents, two parents and multiple parents – and parenting access methods, such as adoption, artificial insemination with a donor (AID) or in vitro fertilization (IVF), gestational surrogacy, and children born from a previous heterosexual union. The interviewees comprise ten women and eleven men, aged from 26 to 57 with a median age of 43, living in Paris or the suburbs of Paris (six interviewees), in another large French city (four interviewees) or in rural areas (four interviewees). However, the population is relatively similar in socio-cultural terms, most of the interviewees belonging to a high socio-occupational category and with at least a Bachelor's degree or equivalent. While the distortion may largely stem from the way in which the sample was recruited<fnref n="4" />, it also clearly reveals the characteristics of the studied population, as the declaration of homosexual or bisexual practices is more common among people with university degrees, all generations combined (Bajos and Beltzer 2008), and people in a same-sex couple have a higher education level than the population as a whole (Rault 2017). All of which suggests that same-sex parenting underscores the importance of socio-cultural status, with same-sex parenting, because it remains subject to considerable social constraints, calling for substantial resources in economic, cultural and activist terms.

Before presenting the results of the survey, the concept of same-sex parenting will be reviewed, along with previous work on the subject in France. In 1997, the *Association des Parents et futurs parents Gays et Lesbiens* (association of parents and future gay and lesbian parents, APGL) referred to same-sex parenting as “any family situation in which at least one adult who is the parent of at least one child self-identifies as homosexual.” The concept of same-sex parenting was forged as part of an activist viewpoint to lend visibility to families whose social reality was hitherto hidden and was gradually adopted in everyday speech. The term covers a range of configurations, distinguished by the number of “day-to-day parents” and the reproduction method used, be it AID, insemination from a heterosexual relationship, adoption or gestational surrogacy. In other words, same-sex parenting may involve a single parent self-identified as gay or lesbian, a parental couple of the same sex, or a coparenting arrangement between different parents – in a couple or otherwise and at least one of whom self-identifying as homosexual – who agree to

<footnote n="3">³See the information on the interviewees in the appendix.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴Recruited through organizations and the personal network of friends or family.</footnote>
bring into the world and raise one or several children. As such, same-sex parenting involves a number of distinct situations, each one raising specific issues.

The growing visibility of same-sex parenting in activist, media and political milieus has generated considerable scientific interest in the question. Extensive work was produced on the subject in the 2000s in France, following on from queer studies in the United States. Anthropologist Anne Cadoret (2002) paved the way with the first ethnological approach to same-sex parenting. From a clinical sociology perspective, Emmanuel Gratton (2008) has explored the desire of men to have a child and a new form of paternity through interviews with gay men who are or aspire to become fathers. Virginie Descoutures (2010) has focused on lesbian mothers, and in particular on the norms weighing on the relationship between maternity and homosexuality. Also of note is the work of Martine Gross (2012), who has addressed the paternity of gay men by looking at how they access parenthood. She has also demonstrated the difficulty of the social sciences to produce research on same-sex parenting, a research topic that apparently still carries little legitimacy in France at the start of the twenty-first century (Gross 2007).

The present research work aims to contribute to these studies through an approach based on institutional political sociology<fnref n="5" />, until now relatively unexplored. This theoretical framework is particularly conducive to explorations of same-sex parenting as it breaks with preconceptions relating to the dominant norm of the two-parent homosexual family. With this approach, families can be seen as a set of practices, norms, constraints and conventions that are formalized, stabilized and interiorized to a varying degree and whose apparent self-evidence makes them harder to read. From this viewpoint, access to parenting is conditioned by a set of rules that structure what may be referred to as the “family order”. The latter defines which agents are authorized to legitimately form a family (any adult old enough to procreate), the composition of the “teams” that these agents may form (a two-parent couple, with the exception constituted today by the possibility of adopting as a single person), the way in which the conception of child is to proceed (heterosexual sex, together with the possibility of ART for heterosexual couples unable to procreate, as well as adoption) and the official registration to which the resulting configurations are subject (and notably declaration in the civil status records). These rules governing the establishment of filiation and access to parenting are controlled by the state, which has the power to institute the various configurations that may legitimately claim to constitute a “family” in our society. The family order refers not just to the framing of parentage but also to the way families work on a daily basis, through numerous more or less formalized prescriptions on the “right way to be a parent”. In this respect, a number of “institutional guardians”<fnref n="6" /> exist that convey normative perceptions of what a family should be, issuing calls to order that are more or less binding as regards school, administration, medicine and religion, as well as the close rela-

<footnote n="5">⁵For a summary of existing work, the reader may notably refer to (Dulong 2012) and (Lagroye and Offerlé 2011)</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶The expression is relatively similar to what Virginie Descoutures (2010) refers to as “normative agents”.</footnote>
tional environment through friends, family, work colleagues, and so on. All families
are thus confronted by a form of control that is as legal as it is social. Given their
atypical character relative to the dominant model, same-sex-parent families serve to
highlight these forms of regulation, together with the possibilities of micro-
resistance that they offer. The theoretical framework enables thinking on the room
for negotiation held by individuals relative to norms. They have a certain room for
manoeuvre with these norms, which do not completely limit their practices and
perceptions.

This chapter begins by examining the normative guidelines on the conception of a child, looking at how lesbian and gay parents access parenting within the legal and social confines facing them. It also reviews the specific issues relating to different same-sex parenting configurations. It then goes on to investigate the daily life of same-sex-parent families, addressing the ways in which lesbians and gays approach their roles as parents through arrangements with the gendered hierarchical model dictating the division of domestic tasks. The chapter also analyses the relationship of these individuals with infant care institutions.

## 5.2 Becoming a Parent: Conceiving a Child in the Face of Legal and Social Norms

To become parents, lesbians and gays are required to deal with the legal and social
constraints governing the access to parentage in France. The legalization of same-
sex marriage in 2013 enshrined this possibility in the law, but it remains extremely
complicated to accomplish in practice.

In France, ART remains limited to heterosexual couples, pending the presenta-
tion of a bill that would make this possible for female couples and single women, to
be examined by the French National Assembly in 2019. Gestational surrogacy is
also illegal in France, but, like ART, can be accessed outside France. ART can thus
lead to the recognition of the rights of the biological mother's partner relative to
their child, subject to an adoption as part of a marriage, which is not without obsta-
cles. Gestational surrogacy poses problems as regards the change in the child's civil
status. Meanwhile, though adoption? has been authorized as part of a marriage,
demand in France is substantially greater than the number of children available for
adoption. Outside France, practically none of the countries traditionally open to
international adoption authorizes people known or declared as homosexual to adopt
children, according to the French adoption agency. The legal restrictions on access
to parentage are supplemented by powerful social norms. The dominant family
model conveys a number of normative expectations, chief among which are the
difference of the sexes (the idea that a child needs a father and a mother) and having

<footnote n="7">⁷For more information on adoption, the reader may notably refer to the work of Bruno Perreau (2003, 2012)</footnote>
two parents (raised in a household by two people), which are often said to be neces-
sary conditions for the child’s psycho-social development. Perceptions equating fili-
ation with “blood ties” also remain highly pervasive. In addition, a differential
perception of parenting skills appears to exist according to gender, as reflected in
the greater social acceptance of female single parents and same-sex parents than of
their male counterparts (Bajos and Beltzer 2008).

To become parents, lesbians and gays are obliged to deal with these legal and
social constraints, drawing on their resources and social situations and in accor-
dance with their own value systems and perceptions. They may place more or less
importance on the presence of a paternal or maternal figure in the family, on couple
parenting, on the establishment of a biological connection with the child, or on the
question of “origins”. Each same-sex parenting configuration is built case by case
on the basis of the prevailing legal and social norms. The issues stemming from
these norms are analyzed on the basis of the accounts given by the interviewees of
how they chose to conceive the child and become parents.

5.2.1 Coparenting

Coparenting is a family configuration in which a woman or two women forming a
couple join forces with a man or two men forming a couple to conceive and raise a
child together. The survey population included three such situations, involving two,
three or four parents. Philippe (interview 10), 43, single, is the father of two girls
aged six and eight with Caroline, a heterosexual friend. Laurent (interview 5), 36, is
the father of a 1-year-old boy with Vincent, his partner, and Marine and Sophie, a
couple of friends. Alexandre (interview 4), 26, single, is the father of a 3-year-old
boy with a couple of female friends.

The interviewees' explanations of their choice of family configuration shed light
on the way in which they address current social norms and their own system of
perceptions of the family. Some of the coparents interviewed said that they were not
particularly concerned about establishing a biological link with the child. They
stressed the importance of investing on a daily basis in the child, which they see as
the best definition of what parenting means. According to Alexandre:

I wasn't obsessed about it 'having to be my blood'. This is really important for some people and I respect that. But for me, parenting isn't about blood... Even parentage in itself is just about being there for the child and passing on values. Quite simply, we are there for him, and he is there for us.

For Alexandre, being a parent is not “about blood” but a commitment to the child (“being there for the child and passing on values”). In this respect, Virginie Descoutures’ analysis (2010) is particularly enlightening. She inverts the terms of the kinship/parenting couple. The second is often perceived as a sub-set of the first, with the establishment of filiation instituting the parent as such, which conditions their investment in the child. Inversely, she encourages the idea of “parenting as a set, of which filiation is a component among others”, thus making a conceptual
distinction whereby parenting can be thought of as a combination of reproduction, filiation, parental work<fnref n="8" /> and parental authority – aspects that do not always overlap. The importance placed by the interviewees in the commitment to the child can, in the light of this analysis, be seen as a challenge to the basis of parental legitimacy, based less on establishing parentage through the transmission of a genetic link via reproduction and more on the recognition of the commitment and day-to-day parental work.

The choice of this configuration can also be motivated by the desire to provide the child with a parent of the other sex. The attitude towards gestational surrogacy of the interviewees having opted for coparenting revealed the importance of this question, as reflected in the words of Laurent:

> Was the idea of having women involved in parenting important to us? I think so, even if I'm totally for gestational surrogacy, with all the right conditions. And I also think that a couple of men can raise a child perfectly well. But I think we liked the idea of having mums around.

Gender difference within the parental arrangement is important to him. As stressed by Martine Gross (2012), the presence of a maternal figure helps to reduce the transgression of social norms by defusing potential criticisms of the lack of skills on the part of men to raise children alone. The importance granted to the presence of a mother can be seen in the words of Philippe, who also talks about the importance of telling the child about its “origins”:

> It's true that when I thought about having children, I didn't want to deprive the children of a mother or access to their origins. That's why I ruled out adoption, because to me it seemed... Gestational surrogacy also isn't the answer for me because... for me, it is important to know where you come from. Who your mum was, who your dad was, your grandparents, their history, and so on. And it's true that I thought I would be depriving the children of that [...] When talking about adoption, sometimes I'd say I was a little against it, because it clearly cuts your roots. For me it's like a tree, it needs roots, it needs... [...] This is why in structures with two dads and two mums, at least the biological parent is there, and so the history is there.

For Philippe, the issue is not just about providing the child with an accessible origins story. It is also about ensuring the presence of the biological parent(s) within the parental configuration to confirm the child's part in a family lineage. Justifications for the choice of coparenting thus reflect a certain stance on the part of the interviewees in respect to perceptions of the family, parenting and the interest of the children. In a certain manner, their configuration is about taking prevailing social norms on board as well as their own values and moral judgments.

The coparenting configuration also raises specific questions in that parenting is disconnected from conjugality and reproduction. As such, the choice of coparents is vital when choosing this model and motivated, according to the interviewees, by emotional and social proximity. For Alexandre, “it is not possible that they be

<footnote n="8">⁸Parenting work is defined as “the countless educational, domestic and healthcare actions and interiorized mental loads that life with a child requires, as well as the implicit contract of the parent, who ensures this socialization ‘work’” (Descoutures 2010).</footnote>
unknown". He has known his couple of women friends for a long time and stresses that he shares their activist values and political convictions. Philippe has also been friends with the mother of his children for a long time, as have Laurent and his male partner with their couple of women friends. In these situations, conception was via home insemination, as assisted reproductive technology is reserved to infertile heterosexual couples. With home insemination, the biological father gives his sperm to the mother, who proceeds herself with insemination. Humour is often used to defuse embarrassment about these "practical exercises", as Alexandre refers to them.

Recognition of the place and status granted to each parent is an important factor in coparenting. Managing multiple parents and/or the disconnect between conjugality and parenting requires that negotiations be conducted to determine each person's place. Alexandre and his couple of women friends drew up a coparenting charter in an attempt to plan for any possible problems. While the document has no legal value, it "at least makes people ask themselves questions". The charter includes items on the child's last name and first name, the place and status of each parent, the custody arrangements, and the management of any crises. The document was drafted as part of an intentionally reflective approach, which preceded the realization of the parenting project. The interviewees often present an enchanted image of their family configuration, serving to prevent the problems inherent among couples from having an impact on the relationship with the children, as Philippe:

> There is no love between the parents, so there is no rivalry. You won't hold it against the other person if they don't love you enough. So the children are not an issue [...] it's a very calm family, with no conflict between the parents. The children are not an issue.

But it can be difficult for interviewees to express the problems they have encountered during a semi-structured interview. They may appear as a challenge to the social legitimacy that the interviewees are attempting to gain. However, some of the individuals hinted at some of the obstacles they have faced: "the difficult thing [in initiating the project] was to do with each couple and making decisions between four people, which is always rather delicate. It really is a difficult construction, you have to be inventive" (Laurent). Possible identification models are scarce in multiparenting, which may lead to difficulties in terms of coordination between the parents involved.

In addition, the lack of legal status relative to the child remains a difficult aspect for parents whose filiation has not been recognized. Registration in the civil status records and the transmission of the surname appear to play a vital role in recognizing oneself as a parent and being identified as such by friends and family. Laurent, the biological and legally recognized father of the child, admits that there is "a certain amount of frustration relative to the law" concerning the legal status of his partner and that of the partner of the biological mother and legal mother of the child within the multiparent arrangement. The four of them organized a "parenting ceremony" in which they pronounced their commitment as parents in front of a few witnesses, the aim being to make up for the legal shortfall and give the coparents a symbolic legitimacy, which they felt they lacked. The position of Laurent's partner in the family set-up also caused some frustration relative to his own parents: "for my mother in particular, it was hard to accept that he wasn't the biological father". The
commitment of grandparents to their grandchildren largely hinges on parental status (Herbrand 2014). Laurent said that his partner's parents “were less involved”, that they were “a little bit the fifth wheel on the wagon”. The choice of the child's last name and first name is often a matter of statutory “tinkering” for the coparents, including for Alexandre:

> In terms of the recognition of the child, legally speaking, he has a mother, Patricia, and a father, myself. And so he has my family name, added to by Patricia's family name. His second middle name is the family name of Régine, the second mother. So the three names appear in the civil records, even if his family name is really mine and that of Patricia.

Legal registration here appears to be a way of consolidating Régine's status as a mother. In Laurent's family configuration, the child also has the family name of its two biological parents, but the two other coparents chose the first and second middle names of the child, as a way of legitimizing their roles as parents.

The decision to coparent is relatively transgressive with regard to family norms. It requires the development of a form of relational inventiveness outside the model of the two-parent heterosexual family, with the emphasis placed on daily commitment to the child. The lack of legal recognition of coparents can be compared with that of parents-in-law in blended families<fnref n="9" /> and highlights the insufficient consideration of these situations on the part of the law.

### 5.2.2 ART and Sperm Donation

The legal framework for assisted reproductive technology (ART) in France is set out in the Bioethics Laws of 1994 and 2004, some of the provisions of which were revised in 2011. The use of ART is legal for heterosexual couples who are infertile or unable to have a child without risk. However, it is legally possible for single women or female couples to access ART outside France, notably in nearby countries such as Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands. Five female couples in the survey population used ART: Lucie and her partner (interview 2), Liliane and Odile (interview 3), Danièle and Catherine (interview 6), Magalie and her ex-partner (interview 11), and Laure and Murielle (interview 12).

Talking about how they became mothers, the interviewees repeatedly bring up the issue of the absence of a father at the start of their project. This often led them to initially consider coparenting with a man or a male couple or a donor from their circle of friends. In the end, however, they opted for ART owing to concerns over multiparenting (Laure and Murielle), fears that the mother without legal recognition would not find her role as a parent in such an arrangement (Magalie) or unsuccessful meetings with coparenting candidates (Danièle and Catherine). Becoming a parent is a long and trying process. Catherine and Danièle chose ART in the Netherlands,

<footnote n="9">⁹For more information on these issues, the reader may refer to the work of Florence Weber (2013) and Jacques Marquet (2010).</footnote>
their son being able to request access to his origins at the age of 16. After seven unsuccessful attempts at artificial insemination, they decided to try in vitro fertilization (IVF). In all, they made 12 trips to the Netherlands. Magalie and her ex-partner opted for home insemination with sperm donated by a friend. Fertilization occurred on the ninth ovulation cycle for the first child, but the conception of the second proved much more complicated. It took 3 years and 30 inseminations, some of them at home, some of them in a clinic in Belgium, before Magalie became pregnant. Laure and Murielle went through an LGBTQI+ parents organization to find a man who would accept to be a donor while remaining anonymous and having no involvement in the life of the child. They also chose home insemination, acknowledging that they had taken a risk, as they could have been dealing with a donor seeking to cause them prejudice. It should be said that their approach, as with that of Magalie, could have resulted in criminal penalties, sperm donation in France being strictly supervised. When talking about initiating their project to become parents, the interviewees stressed the importance of gaining the approval of their friends and families. Some of them also benefitted from the assistance of a general practitioner or gynecologist, who supported them in their project in France.

The place and status of the mothers involves issues similar to those seen in coparenting. While the legalization of adoption for same-sex married couples in 2013 enables the partner of the biological mother to become the second legal mother of the child, it does not respond to all existing situations. Catherine and Danièle are not planning to get married. Consequently, Danièle, who gave birth to their son, is the only person with recognized rights and parental duties concerning their child. On a day-to-day basis, Catherine's care for their son is thus subject to the varying degrees of zealousness of the relevant institutions or individuals with whom they are in contact (crèches, schools, doctors, etc.). "It's always a grey area. We make things as we go." Danièle drafted a will designating Catherine as guardian in the event of her death, but the final decision in that event would be made by the family council, which does not guarantee that Catherine would be able to continue raising their son.

Making ART legal for all women in France, regardless of their conjugal status or sexual orientation, would make it easier for lesbians to conceive a child. As things stand, it remains more complicated for the non-biological mother to obtain parental status than for a heterosexual couple. If the couple are not married, the non-biological mother may not recognize the child. If they are married, no equivalent of the presumption of paternity exists; the non-biological mother is required to file for adoption.

### 5.2.3 Gestational Surrogacy

Gestational surrogacy consists in a woman transferring her parental rights and duties to a child that she has carried and to whom she has given birth to one or more people, who may be referred to as "intended parents". Gestational surrogacy has been illegal in France since the Bioethics Laws of 1994. If practiced in French ter-
ritory, the intended parents, the gestational carrier and any intermediaries may face criminal penalties. Gestational surrogacy practiced outside France is possible, in countries where it is legal or not prohibited, but transferring birth certificates issued in foreign countries to the French civil status records may prove difficult. While the filiation with the child's biological father is now recognized – the result of several judgements condemning France by the European Court of Human Rights – grey areas remain in establishing the filiation of the partner of the intended parent and that of a single woman or female couple.

Gestational surrogacy has a particularly high entry cost, leading to financial, as well as social and legal, constraints. Among the interviewees, two male couples opted for gestational surrogacy, in the United States: Patrick and Michel (interview 7), and Bernard and Charles (interview 9). The reasons for choosing gestational surrogacy are often informed by a rejection of coparenting, as illustrated by the case of Patrick and Michel:

Michel: "[...] Yes, also because [gestational surrogacy] was our only possibility... Since with coparenting, you have to find...

Patrick: It's complicated, it's sharing... It's shared...

Michel: It's shared custody...

Patrick: Like a divorced couple...

Michel: And the experiences we heard about, when it worked it was great, but when there was the slightest problem, it went badly..."

The parallel they draw between coparenting and the family situation of a divorced couple shows their desire to be involved full time with the child and their refusal to “share” the child with a third person or another couple. Opting for a surrogate mother creates a distance with the figure of the mother both from a biological standpoint (the surrogate mother has no blood ties with the child) and a social standpoint (there is no day-to-day mother as there is in coparenting). People also choose gestational surrogacy because they reject adoption, in which there is no genetic connection with the child. “We ruled out adoption because it was already complicated and when we discussed it we wanted to have a genetic link” (Michel). Another interviewee commented, “So it really is our child because there is a genetic link between the child and us.” To the interviewee’s mind, the “truth” in filiation is based on establishing a genetic link, which is not the case with adoption, the fear with the latter being that paternity may be called into question.

Couples having chosen gestational surrogacy tend to defuse on an unprompted basis criticisms about the lack of a mother and the commodification of the female body, which reveals the importance of the social disapproval to which this form of conception exposes them. To reduce the transgression of being a father without a mother, Michel places his couple on the same level as an infertile heterosexual couple seeking to have a child:

> A lot of couples today also have problems having children... [...] Fortunately, our way of having a child, apart from the surrogate mother, and the medical aspect, is common today. Yes, common, for any couple with fertility problems, which leads to the same system as us.

This is a way of evacuating the specificity of sexual orientation, relegated to the rank of secondary variable in the considerations of the parental couple. Summoning
the figure of the infertile couple thus serves to conceal sexual stigma (they are men) and homosexual stigma (they form a same-sex couple). As with a heterosexual couple unable to have a child, they have a legitimate right to use medically assisted reproduction.

In these two situations, the choice of a biological parent in the couple corresponds in reality to the desire to not choose. The aim is to place the partners on an equal footing relative to the child. Bernard and Charles each gave their sperm for the artificial insemination process and do not want to know who is the actual biological father. “For us, we are two fathers, strictly equal. Neither one of us is quote unquote ‘more father’ than the other.” For their part, Patrick and Michel tried to have “cross twins” (a single biological mother and two biological fathers) but only one of the ovocytes proved viable. They are keeping the matter of who is the biological father “to themselves”, as if expressing that information would delegitimize the father status of the one who is not the biological father of the child.

The two couples having chosen gestational surrogacy are obliged to go through the legal system to establish the filiation of their child. In the United States, the procedure consists in the handing down of a ruling permitting the issuance of a birth certificate and US passport for the child. But obtaining French nationality involves a number of difficulties. To obtain a French passport from the prefecture, the applicant must possess a French nationality certificate, delivered by the competent court. Patrick and Michel did not apply for this certificate, as the court on which they depend is known for its severity in the issuing of such documents to couples having chosen gestational surrogacy. Consequently, their daughter only has US nationality and is considered to be parentless in the eyes of French law. Patrick and Michel did a DNA test to demonstrate biological filiation in the event of any legal problem, but they refuse to initiate a procedure that could potentially expose their family. And so they continue to wait for a change in the law. Their daughter’s lack of French nationality is experienced as a problem in daily life. “I find it quite disturbing, quite difficult, and a source of anxiety, waiting day after day for an email, a response, information. You can’t be at peace as long as you haven’t received the paperwork. So it’s disturbing for the family environment” (Charles). The least administrative procedure may be a source of difficulties. While Charles and Bernard succeeded in obtaining a French nationality certificate and having the French nationality of their child recognized, only the biological parent is officially recognized as the child’s father. They have had problems with Charles’ supplementary healthcare insurance company, which carried out an investigation into their family situation, calling for a paternity test and bank statement details.

### 5.2.4 Adoption

While adoption is legal and appears to be better accepted socially than gestational surrogacy, it remains an extremely difficult process. Only one of our interviewees had adopted: Jacques (interview 8), 47, in a couple for 18 years with his male partner.
ner. They began their adoption project in 2006 and finally completed the process 7 years later, having faced a series of obstacles. Jacques initiated the procedure as a single man as adoption was yet to be legalized for homosexual men at the time. Jacques also had stronger assurances of stability in terms of finances and family support. Consequently, while Jacques was legally recognized as the father of Emile, the same was not true for his partner, who has the status of godfather. Adoption has since been legalized for married same-sex couples, but it remains illegal for same-sex couples with civil-partnership, consensual-union or common-law status. In addition, any mention of same-sex parents in a file makes it practically impossible to adopt a child outside France, the majority of the countries of birth of children up for adoption preferring heterosexual couples according to the French adoption agency. In France, the number of children up for adoption is low relative to demand. Our survey lacks information on the adoption procedures made since adoption became legal for same-sex couples and on the difficulties involved in that process, but Jacques' interview sheds light on some of the problems that may be encountered.

Jacques sees adoption as a less transgressive way of becoming a parent than coparenting (“Two parents is fine, four is a lot”) or gestational surrogacy, which for him involves ethical issues (“It’s the idea of putting a price on the child [that is a problem for him]. It isn’t about paying a woman but the fact that the approach is a commercial one. It’s like ordering something, as you would on Amazon, and I’m not very comfortable with that”). For Jacques, adoption is a “humanitarian” act that gives a family to a child lacking the latter, running counter to a repeated criticism of same-sex parenting whereby “the rights of a child” are opposed to “the right to have a child”. The reasons for choosing adoption also reveal a distancing of the biological connection, which places the two parents on a platform of equality relative to the child. “[The question of the biological aspect] is posed, but let’s say that [adoption] put us on an equal footing, neither of us having a stronger bond than the other.” Jacques also sees adoption as an arrangement that makes it easier to explain to the child his or her origins.

> When looking to the future, telling ourselves that when we explain the situation to our son, well, it will be clear. There is no... Two dads cannot have a boy, cannot have a child, clearly. Hence adoption, because I think it was easier to justify, easier than saying, 'Well, we asked a lady' and so on.

Adoption remains a long and difficult process. The first phase, which for Jacques lasted about a year, consists in obtaining an approval procedure from the social services, which carries out an investigation to verify that the applicant fulfils the requisite conditions for adoption in family, educational and affective terms. Jacques concealed his sexual orientation, as any mention of homosexuality often renders adoption unlikely. Some of the other interviewees ruled out adoption for this very reason, refusing to hide their homosexuality, which often required a lengthy process of acceptance. For Jacques, the possibility that his “abilities to be a good father” be recognized in an “objective” manner by the specialists issuing approval ultimately stood as a legitimization of his parenthood. The second phase consists of research and the ruling of the adoption judge. Jacques, who decided to adopt in Russia,
entered into contact with several NGOs, local organizations and law firms. But as none of these initiatives proved conclusive, he pursued his research with the French adoption agency. His status as a single male was a source of numerous difficulties as it failed to correspond with adoption practices in Russia. Jacques had to demonstrate considerable tenacity and leverage his “social capital” to overcome the administrative hurdles in his path. After a 6-year effort, he succeeded in adopting Emile, 5 years old. He was obliged to commit to providing follow-up reports to the French government for a 3-year period as part of a condition concerning Russia specifically.

Each same-sex parenting configuration thus involves a specific form of “tinking” on the basis of legal and social norms. The resulting arrangements – the number and sex of the parents, as well as the place and status granted to them – are also reflected in different ways of experiencing parenthood on a daily basis, be it in the organization of domestic life as part of different family configurations or in the relationship cultivated with institutions responsible for infant care.

## 5.3 Same-Sex Parenting in a Daily Basis

### 5.3.1 The Influence of Gender on the Organization of Family Life

The roles of parents have traditionally been based on a differential concept of the sexes, with mothers and fathers investing in their children in a distinct and unequal manner. While recent decades have seen the dissemination of egalitarian and emancipatory “guidelines” among families, gender relationships continue to have a powerful influence on parental roles (Cardi 2015). Extensive work has shown that gender equality in the family continues to exist in the realm of intentions and aspirations rather than in concrete achievements, women still being responsible for the greatest part of domestic and parental duties (Brugeilles and Sebille 2013). With the “new father” model conveyed by the media yet to become a true reality, we examined the way tasks are organized and divided in different coparenting family configurations and in same-sex couples raising a child together.

Coparenting arrangements appear to offer the best conditions for a more equal sharing of parental roles (Nix and Eckhoff Andersen 2019). The gendered hierarchical role influencing the division of domestic tasks is adapted according to the number and sex of the parents, but also according to differences in occupational or age terms. In the case of Alexandre (interview 4), coparenting with a couple of lesbian friends, the parents implemented a shared custody arrangement. Alexandre has the child one weekend in two and for half of the holidays. For Alexandre, this unequal custody arrangement is due to considerable occupational constraints. Though less involved than the mothers in the child’s daily life, he does not demand a more substantial engagement with the child. The configuration here corresponds to the gen-
dered hierarchical model in which the mothers take care of the large majority of domestic and parental tasks. The gendered differentiation of the parental roles appears to be based on differences in terms of conjugal status (Alexandre is single, his female friends in a couple) as well as occupational constraints. For Laurent and his male partner (interview 5), coparenting with a couple of lesbian friends, the shared custody arrangement is equal, with each couple having custody of the child on an alternating weekly basis. While the couples have agreed on a certain number of child-raising points, each couple retains its own approach when the child is in their custody. As demonstrated in the child's diet: "We talked about it. The girls are into organic food and we aren't, so we said we'd do our best but that each couple should feed he child as it sees fit [when the child is in our custody]." Philippe's coparenting arrangement with his friend Caroline (interview 10) presents other issues, as they are both single and decided to move in together with their two daugh- ters. Philippe expresses a certain amount of bitterness with what he sees as a differ- ence in investment between the mother and himself. Because he is able to work from home, most of the parental tasks fall on his shoulders. He talks about the "father-like role" of Caroline, who comes home late from work and is less invested in daily tasks with the children.

> The mother arranges things so she comes home late, playing at... [smiles] Often in hetero-sexual couples, it is the father who makes sure he comes home once the children have been bathed, fed, in their pajamas and in bed, so that they can give them a little kiss and read them a story. That's what the mother does.

He also stresses the career advantages that this arrangement provides. "It's true that the fact that we're together gives her the chance to enjoy time with the girls, despite her work [...] The way I see it, as a heterosexual woman, the situation enables her to have a career and children." The difference in the parents' responsibilities and professional availability stands as a marker of the sharing of parental activities. By emphasizing that Caroline is a "heterosexual woman", Philippe is stressing the reconfiguration of gendered parental roles in their family arrangement.

In family configurations in which the child is raised by a same-sex couple, parental roles are not distinguished according to a naturalized gender norm and may be renegotiated. Most of the interviewees said that they were on an equal footing in terms of parental roles, distancing themselves from the heterosexual model through egalitarian guidelines for the two parents. Michel: "We work in a fairly equal manner, with both of us involved. We don't divide tasks between the mother and father saying that this or that is the mother's role"; Patrick: "There's more sharing than in a straight couple" (interview 7). The lack of sexual difference in a couple appears to lead to a fairer division of tasks between partners. But comments about the physical organization of families reveal the existence of a division of labour that, without repeating the social roles of father and mother, gives rise to differentiated domestic investments. Bernard and Charles (interview 9) are raising Axel,
aged 8 months and conceived through gestational surrogacy, and Bernard's daugh-
ters, aged 16 and 18, from a previous heterosexual union and of whom he has
shared custody. Bernard takes care of most of the domestic and parental tasks in the
couple. His work makes it easier for him to manage his time than Charles, who
often comes home late in the evening, so he handles "domestic logistics in the
broad sense". The difference in investment in terms of time appears to be accompa-
nied by a form of gender bipolarization in the couple, as Charles says: "And as a
gay couple, all the same there's a... Tell me if I'm off the mark, Bernard, but there's
a complementarity in the tasks, a little like in a heterosexual couple in the end.
There's one who is more maternal than the other, and one who is..." Charles said
that he was sorry he could not be more present with their son. "It's my regret,
because I'm 55, and I thought I'd have more time for me and to take care of Axel
more [...] But I realize that the time Bernard spends with Axel makes his relation-
ship with Axel more special than mine." This arrangement appears to bear out the
assumptions of a certain amount of work on same-sex conjugality showing that the
latter leads to a reformulation rather than the disappearance of the traditional gen-
dered model (Carrington 1999; Descoutures 2010).

The ways in which same-sex parenting is organized on a daily basis among the
various family configurations thus demonstrate the power of gender (Lowy 2006)
over parental roles, from which is it hard from parents to escape. Yet the social
relationships of gender are sometimes replaced by other differences in status – nota-
bly in terms of age or occupational responsibilities – that affect the division of tasks
between parents.

**5.3.2 Relationships with Infant Care Institutions**

Parents are obliged to deal with the institutions and individuals to which they dele-
gate part of the care of their children. Few interviewees talked about problems with
their relationships with these institutions or individuals. However, Magalie (inter-
view 11) said that a headmistress had asked her for a document authorizing her
partner to pick her daughter up from school, "as if she were my neighbour".
Meanwhile, a doctor of Laure and Murielle (interview 12) has problems accepting
the presence of the latter when they both attend appointments with their daughter. "I
was completely clear. And I had a hard time accepting it in front of my general
practitioner [...] Things are much better now." The words of the interviewees sug-
gest that homophobia is not absent but takes on diverted forms through phenomena
of avoidance and distancing. Bernard and Charles (interview 9), who are on a
municipal list to find a nanny, said: "Some people have clearly accepted while oth-
ers have refused because we are a gay couple. We'll never know."
The information collected on experiences with infant care institutions also highlights two distinct strategies<fnref n="10" /> used to present same-sex parenting. Some of the interviewees talk about the specific nature of the family configuration but without lingering on it. Speaking about his first interview with a crèche director, Alexandre (interview 4) said “it came up in the conversation just like that.” In the same situation, Patrick and Michel (interview 7) started by telling the director about their family configuration. Same-sex parenting is talked about simply but without being highlighted in particular. “We don’t hide it but we don’t shout about it either.” This initial strategy is used to trivialize the issue, the interviewees employing it to show that they are “regular” parents seeking the right to indifference. A further strategy, based on concealment (Artigas Burr 2017), may be identified with other interviewees who do not talk about their same-sex parenting to the institutions with which they are obliged to come into contact. Philippe and Caroline (interview 10) look in every respect like an “ordinary” heterosexual couple and play on the heterosexual identity attributed to them spontaneously.

> From the outside, no-one can see the difference with the couple of neighbours [...] With the teachers, it doesn't... Because I'm not going to say that [Caroline] is not my wife, we are in a civil partnership after all, and we have children together, so what... Short of going into details that are none of their business, what do you want me to say to them? Or I say nothing... When I'm talking, I never say 'my wife', obviously, I say the 'mother of my daughters' or something like that, which could be the vocabulary of a divorced father, but I never position myself as a homosexual, just as a father. For me, this has no impact. I'm no different as a father because I'm gay.

For Philippe, homosexuality is disconnected from his role as a father and instead is an intimate issue. Similarly, the same-sex parenting arrangement of Jacques (interview 8) also has an invisible aspect, as he alone is recognized as the adoptive father. While his partner has authorized status with the school, and is notably able to pick him up at the end of the day, only Jacques is considered as the father in the eyes of the institution. “The only thing I sketched out, because in the end you have to, is that there wasn’t a mum at home. That’s it. No explanation. I adopted him as a single man, I was a single father.” Unlike the first strategy, the second does not seek to trivialize same-sex parenting. While the principle of differentiating between same-sex parenting and heterosexual parenting is also rejected, it is accomplished in this case through an alignment with dominant family norms, Philippe and Caroline giving the appearance of a heterosexual couple and Jacques that of a single father. The first strategy is about working on norms “from the inside” by trying to change perceptions of same-sex parenting; the second is about circumventing them through tactical compliance with infant care institutions.

<footnote n="10">¹⁰The term “strategy” should not be reduced to that of “strategism”. It does not correspond to a pure calculation or a pure intentionality on the part of the interviewees, but instead encourages thinking on their room for manoeuvre in the way they manage the visibility of same-sex parenting in their contacts with infant care institutions.</footnote>
## 5.4 A Troubled Family Order?

While the survey work focuses on same-sex-parent families, it nevertheless sheds light on the social regulations that govern families and parenting in a broader sense. Same-sex parenting stands as constitutes a true anthropological laboratory for gaining greater insight into non-thoughts relative to these categories, covered by a form of “natural” evidence, as it is socially naturalized. In the words of Pierre Bourdieu (1996), it is one of those “extraordinary and almost experimental variations” offered by the social world, “which, even though they are not as fully controlled and controllable as experiments designed expressly as such, may encourage and facilitate the analytical dismantling of certain elements of social reality that were previously confused and, hence, unperceived.” By separating what appeared to be inseparable – reproduction, filiation, conjugality and parenting – same-sex-parent families challenge the “given” status of the two-parent heterosexual family held up as the dominant norm. The various same-sex parenting configurations all represent forms of “normative tinkering” based on these disconnects. In a space governed by heteronormative legal and social constraints, this tinkering comprises different relational arrangements involving one or several parents, in a couple or not, of the same sex or otherwise, and calling on various reproduction methods. The day-to-day organizational systems of these families also highlight forms of negotiation relative to gender approaches that structure the gendered division of parenting roles. Same-sex-parent families thus invite us to call the dominant family model into question by deconstructing its “naturalness” and by shedding light on its constituent power relationships, which are subject to political negotiation.

### Profiles of the Interviewees

For reasons of anonymity, the first names have been changed.

**Interview 1: ISABELLE, 40, and LOUISE, 43,** psychotherapists, have been in a couple for 4 years and live in the suburbs of Rennes. They are raising the children from Isabelle's first marriage. They were in contact with a Christian LGBTQI+ organization for a while but did not become particularly involved. They plan to form a civil partnership in the near future, mainly in order to simplify administrative procedures. They disagree on marriage, with Isabelle mostly for and Louise against.

**Interview 2: LUCIE, 33,** a school teacher, and Claire, 23, have been together for 7 years and live in a rural area in the Ile-et-Vilaine department. They are raising the children from Lucie's first marriage as well as their daughter, to whom they gave birth through AID. They formed a civil partnership after being together for 2 years, mostly for the economic benefits, and were married in 2013, which notably enabled them to share the parentage of their daughter through adoption. They are members of an LGBTQI+ parents organization.
**Interview 3: LILIANE**, 52, a high-school Italian teacher, and **ODILE**, 56, a market transaction execution officer, have been in a couple for 20 years. They have raised the children from Odile's first marriage and their own daughter, to whom they gave birth through AID in 2002. They were married in 2014, primarily to share the parentage of their daughter through adoption.

**Interview 4: ALEXANDRE**, 26, single, is the father of Arthur, 3, as part of a coparenting arrangement with a couple of lesbian friends, Patricia and Régine, 33 and 50. Alexandre is a sign language interpreter. He works in Paris but lives in Tours.

**Interview 5: LAURENT**, 36, a university professor, is married with Vincent, 40. They have lived together for 5 years. They have a 1-year-old son, Simon, as part of a coparenting arrangement with a couple of lesbian friends, Marine and Sophie. The two couples live close to each other in Paris. Laurent and Marine are the biological and legally recognized parents of Simon.

**Interview 6: DANIELE**, 42, and **CATHERINE**, 57, have been in a couple for 12 years and live in a rural area of the Vendée department. They gave birth to Alix, 3, through artificial insemination in the Netherlands with the possibility of knowing the donor's identity. Danièle is the biological and legally recognized mother of Alix. Catherine has a 27-year-old daughter, Charlotte, from a previous same-sex union, conceived through IVF with an anonymous donor.

**Interview 7: MICHEL**, 41, and **PATRICK**, 46, are married and have lived together for 14 years. They became the fathers of Daphné, 2, through gestational surrogacy in the United States. Patrick is the director of a dependent senior home and Michel is a manager at the French postal operator, La Poste. They live in Nantes. MAGALIE, a friend, is Daphné's godmother.

**Interview 8: JACQUES**, 47, an actor and singer, is the father of Emile, 7, who he adopted in Russia 2 years ago. He became a parent with the support of his partner, with whom he has lived for 18 years, and who is the godfather of the child. They live in Paris.

**Interview 9: BERNARD**, 47, and **CHARLES**, 55, are married and have lived together since 2005 in the suburbs of Paris. They became the fathers of Axel, 8 months, through gestational surrogacy in the United States. Charles also has a 21-year-old son from a previous same-sex relationship through gestational surrogacy in the United Kingdom. Bernard has two daughters, aged 16 and 18, from his previous marriage. He lived with his ex-wife for 15 years before their separation in 2001. Charles is a financial executive and Bernard a sixth-form teacher.

**Interview 10: PHILIPPE**, 43, single, has two daughters, aged 6 and 8, as part of a coparenting arrangement with Caroline, 43, heterosexual and single. The four of them live together in Paris. Philippe and Caroline are both teachers.

**Interview 11: MAGALIE**, 34, a school supervisor, recently moved in with Sylvie, her new partner. They live in a rural area near Rennes. Magalie lived for nearly 10 years with Rosalie, her ex-partner, with whom she had two daughters, today aged 6 and 11, through home insemination with sperm donated by a friend, Dorian. Magalie and Rosalie separated 3 years ago and now have shared custody of the children. However, Rosalie has no legal status relative to the girls.
**Interview 12: LAURE**, 41, an infant teacher, and **MURIELLE**, a specialized teacher, have been in a couple for 8 years and live in Caen. They have a daughter, Léa, 3, through home insemination with the sperm of an anonymous donor whom they met on the website of an LGBTQI+ parents organization. They were married last year and have completed the administrative procedures for Murielle to adopt Léa.

**Interview 13: YVES**, 44, a university lecturer, has two sons, aged 13 and 16, from his relationship with his ex-partner, with whom he lived for 10 years. He has had a stable relationship with Richard, 45, for 2 years, but the two do not live together. They both reside in Paris.

**Interview 14: EMMANUEL**, 37, and **FRANCOIS**, 27, have been in a relationship for one and a half years. Emmanuel has two children, aged 7 and 9, from a previous heterosexual marriage. He has shared custody of the children every other week. He lived with his ex-wife for 13 years, before their separation in 2012. Emmanuel is a graphic designer and François is a salesperson for a large group. They live at each other's homes on an alternating weekly basis, Emmanuel living in the suburbs of Paris and François in Paris itself.

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**Chapter 6**

**LGBT Desires in Family Land:
Parenting in Iceland, from Social
Acceptance to Social Pressure**

Marie Digoix

**Abstract** More than 20 years ago, Iceland opened civil union to same-sex couples with its confirmed partnership law (staðfest samvist, 1996). Since then, the country has attained a high level of equality between same-sex and different-sex couples in the domain of family law, and the law has strong provisions against discrimination toward LGBT people. The increasing visibility and acceptance of LGBT people is raising questions about the social process of integration. LGBT people are confronted with heterosexual norms, a confrontation that is difficult to bypass. In this context, some may find that they are losing their identity. Iceland is a familialist society, and a key entry into the social acceptance of homosexuality has been through marriage and parenting. There is a clear gender gap in family-making. Lesbians have access to ART whereas adoption is scarcely available and surrogacy still illegal, reducing access to parenthood for gay men. However, in Iceland's small LGBT community, parenting desire has increasingly become a reality for both females and males. Based on a survey consisting of 30 interviews, the paper studies how parenthood meets a wide range of personal desires, but also how it has become a normative pressure.

**Keywords** Same-sex parenthood · Iceland · Family policies · Heteronormativity · Assisted reproduction techniques · LGBT rights

**6.1 Introduction**

In 1994, a committee convened by the Icelandic parliament to report on the situation of homosexuals in society submitted its findings to the government (Forsætisráðuneytið 1994). This report put a spotlight on the legal inequalities

<footnote>M. Digoix (✉)
French Institute for Demographic Studies (INED), Paris, France
e-mail: mad@ined.fr</footnote>
facing homosexuals. Thus began the march toward equality, with particular attention given to family law. Over the following 16 years, the law was progressively adjusted to grant homosexual couples the same rights as heterosexual couples. From a strictly legal perspective, this equality was achieved in 2010 with the adoption of a single marriage law for same- and different-sex couples (Ein hjúskaparlög 2010).

The present study extends a previous socio-historical study on the relationship of LGBT individuals in Iceland to this new legislation, from the first law authorizing same-sex unions in 1996 onward (Digoix 2013b). This research explores how LGBT populations have perceived and experienced recent changes in laws and society, through a series of interviews in 2005, 2009, and 2015 exploring the private lives of LGBT individuals at different stages of life – youth, coming out to self and to others, first sexual relations, unions, parenthood, separations – after three key legal transitions.

This chapter draws on the interview-based survey of 30 LGBT individuals in Iceland conducted within the comparative project *FamiliesAndSocieties*<fnref n="1" /> in 2015, almost a decade after the country's principal laws on homosexual parenthood, and nearly two decades after the first law on same-sex unions.

The present analysis is built on their responses in these interviews. Iceland is often described as a social laboratory, made possible by the country's small size, its centralization around the capital city, and its social regime strongly focused on family and children. This aspect is highlighted by its insularity.

The survey sought, first of all, to determine whether the law had an influence, in either direction, on questions of parenthood, or family-making: in the desire for children or its absence, but also in the difficulty or impossibility of having children, from their conception to their reception in society. The aim is thus to describe the world in which individuals make their choices, and how they experience them.

In a system of legal filiation which, in the name of equality, extended the existing heterosexual model, how have homosexuals approached this confrontation with an established social norm? Given the particularity of homosexual couples, the principal targets of these laws – the impossibility of autonomous biological conception – are they able to conform to this norm? Or should they instead invent new models, do they wish to, and are they able to? What place can the homosexual family take in the world of the family in a context of widespread family recomposition, with “plural” heterosexual families? What are the points of convergence between these “new” families? Gender difference and societal microcosms will be examined.

In light of the previous research, one can expect that the youngest cohorts would have an easier time approaching the issues of coming out, daily life, and the desire for children. The study explores their relationship with legislative change over time toward the recognition of homosexuality. Previous cohorts had come to parenthood in a different context, either through other forms of relationships (heterosexual) or

<footnote n="1">¹Funding under grant agreement no. 320116: the FamiliesAndSocieties Project, within the European Union's 7th Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013).</footnote>
by circumventing the law (e.g., use of Assisted Reproduction Technology (ART) abroad). In 2015, it was also possible to look for any differences between generations in the logic of conception and the fulfilment of desires for children.

The principal question in the analysis of the respondents’ discourse on desires for children and becoming parents is whether and how these major legal changes were integrated into their personal approach to this area of life and on the impact that this may have had on the homosexual collectivity, which, within Iceland’s small population, has historically been fairly tight-knit. Beginning in 2010, the homosexual community entered a pivotal period, facing questions around the transition from activist struggle to heteronormative life, where parenthood may represent the final step of integration. Again looking at differences between cohorts, the hypothesis that the advances, not only in family law, but also in the increased visibility of homosexuals, may have had an influence on societal integration in the form of assimilation, is studied. This raises questions on the future of a model of life that had previously been constituted on the basis of circumventing norms, following the various changes toward legal equality (Pollak 1985; Schiltz 1998). The little Icelandic community offers multiple answers.

## Methodology and Sample Characteristics

Since the 1996 law allowing the civil registration of same-sex couples, INED has carried out three interview-based surveys in Iceland around the reception of such laws, how individuals from these groups perceive them, and how they make use of them. This research topic has been adapted over the years, and the resulting data offer resources for understanding the effects of legal changes over time in the country. The first survey took place in 2005, 9 years after the adoption of the first law; the second in 2009, 3 years after major changes toward equal rights between same-sex and different-sex couples, notably in access to parenthood and registration of cohabitation in the national register.

The corpus on which the present study is based was gathered during a survey in 2015, after the adoption in 2010 of a gender-neutral marriage law. The study was designed as part of a European project, *FamiliesAndSocieties*, aimed at comparing perceptions and behaviours in different legal contexts. The other countries in the survey were Spain, France, and Italy (Digoix et al. 2018). The semi-structured interviews were performed using a common interview grid to ensure comparability across the four countries. They centred mainly on quality of life within the legal framework available to the respondents (family life, marriage, parenthood, homophobia in society and at work).

The sample was constituted in such a way as to obtain the greatest possible diversity within the relevant population. The respondents’ sociodemographic and geographical characteristics were chosen in collaboration with the Spanish, French, and Italian teams for comparative purposes.

The interviews were conducted by Íris Ellenberger and Svandís Sigurðardóttir in Icelandic, with the exception of two respondents who were not native speakers (in these cases English was used). The respondents were recruited through personal acquaintances and the snowball method. Iceland is a country with a small popula-
tion, where homosexual circles are relatively small and well-organized in the capital. While the interviewers are known within this circle, they did not interview people with whom they had close relations.

Thirty LGBT persons were interviewed. They ranged in age from 23 to 53 years at the time of the survey. The youngest had always lived in a society where same-sex couples had the right to form a legal union, while the oldest had experienced the full course of changes in attitudes toward homosexuality.

The respondents were single, married or remarried, divorced from same- or different-sex partners, widowed, living with a partner or separately. Most lived in or around the capital (like two thirds of the country's population), but many originally came from other parts of the country. Six still live in the countryside.

Nineteen of the respondents had, were trying to have, or were considering having children. Configurations differed between cases where respondents already had children, were in the process of becoming parents, or were planning to do so. Five of the respondents had children born in a previous heterosexual relationship.

Five female respondents had had medically assisted procreation within the Icelandic healthcare system.

Three had had children as part of a shared plan for parenthood with friends, through artisanal home insemination. A pair of coparents were interviewed separately.

Finally, one of the respondents lived in a household with his partner's child, whose godfather he was.

The respondents' names, occupations, and places of residence have been changed for purposes of anonymity.

## 6.2 Homosexuality and Society

* 'I think that society needs to practice acknowledging people.' IS14 Stefan

* 'Sometimes legal changes have been made but the society is a little longer to change you know' IS21 Elín

### 6.2.1 Laws in Theoretical Context: From Differentialism to Universalism

In Iceland, the history of societal and legal questions around homosexuality is relatively recent and compressed into a short period (Kristinsson 2003). In the twentieth century Iceland was a "new" country, which had obtained its full independence from the Kingdom of Denmark only in 1944. A small island country, its social democracy follows more or less the model of its Nordic neighbours (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) but is culturally and economically connected to these countries through an intergovernmental organization, the Nordic Council. Its own
adaptation of the aforementioned model is quite flexible, but remains within the
limits set by the condition of equality of persons within this shared political space.

While homosexuality was decriminalized in 1940 with the adoption of a new
criminal code (Hegningarlög nr. 19/1940) in a time when the country was still under
Danish influence, it was not until 1992 that the age of consent (14 years) was made
equal for same-sex and different-sex partners (Lög nr. 40/1992). Moreover, the
Criminal Code has prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation since
an amendment passed in December 1996 (Lög um breyting á almennum hegningar-
lögum nr. 19/1940). But it is with its law on civil union that Iceland made a major
advance, shifting the legal approach to homosexuality in the key domain of the fam-
ily. This law, inspired by the Danish law on registered partnerships (Lov om regis-
teret partnerskab af 7. juni 1989) was adopted/adapted by the other Nordic Council
countries following a recommendation of the Council in 1984 suggesting a process
of reflection on the social conditions facing homosexuals (Nordiska rådets rekom-
mendation 1984). A particularity of this federation of historically linked states is
that they mutually honour many social and family rights and entitlements, enabling
citizens to circulate freely among them (Eydal 2005). Parenthood was slightly pres-
ent in Icelandic law beginning with the initial law of 1996 on confirmed partnership
(the latest law among the four countries: Lög um staðfesta samvist nr. 87/1996 –
abrogated in 2010 with the opening of marriage to same-sex couples as a gender
neutral law), which grants individuals in such partnerships parental authority over
their partner's children. This Icelandic specificity reflects a particular focus on chil-
dren, which is also present to some extent in other Scandinavian countries, but
which is more marked in Iceland.

The partnership law was amended first in 2000 in order to allow the “second par-
ent adoption” by individuals in a confirmed partnership of their partner’s child (Art.
6, Lög um staðfesta samvist nr. 87/1996 (abrogated in 2010), amendment nr.
52/2000, in force since 26 May 2000), and then again in 2006. An even greater step
was taken with the law of 2 June 2006 modifying the legal status of homosexuals
(Lög nr. 65/2006 um breytingu á lagaákvæðum er varða réttarstöðu samkynhneigðra
(sambúð, ættleiðingar, tæknifrjóvgun)), aimed at establishing equality for same-sex
and different-sex couples. It contained amendments to 18 laws regarding the status
of couples in a confirmed partnership or registered cohabitation. In the latter case,
under the law on shared residence, the couple takes on a set of rights and obligations
upon registration in the national register (Lög nr. 21/1990 um Lögheimili) (the dec-
laration of residence is obligatory). The Adoption Act (Lög um ættleiðingar
nr.130/1999, as amended by law nr. 65/2006) authorizes joint adoption after 3 years
of living together in a confirmed partnership, or 5 years of life as a couple declared
on the national register. For cohabiting same-sex couples, this disposition is con-
comitant with the authorization to register. This condition of registration, either in
registered cohabitation (óvígð sambúð) or in a confirmed partnership (staðfest sam-
vist), applies only in laws involving parenthood or filiation through joint adoption,
and in the laws on access to Assisted Reproduction Techniques (ART) for female
same-sex couples, on children, and on parental leave. (See Table 6.1 for detailed
legal dispositions).
<table><caption>**Table 6.1** Adoption of laws concerning parenthood for same-sex couples, by conjugal status</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Marriage (2010)</th><th>Registered partnership (1996)</th><th>Cohabitation (2006)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>Assisted insemination</strong><br>Is it legally possible in this type of relationship to become pregnant through medically assisted insemination using sperm from a donor?</td><td>2010</td><td>2006</td><td>2006</td></tr><tr><td><strong>IVF</strong><br>Is it legally possible in this type of relationship to become pregnant through in vitro fertilisation (IVF) using donated egg or sperm?</td><td>2010</td><td>2006</td><td>2006</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Surrogacy</strong><br>Is it legally possible for both partners in this type of relationship to become the legal parents of a child through the help of a surrogate mother in the country?</td><td>—</td><td>—</td><td>—</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Legal parenthood</strong><br>When one partner gives birth, will (or can) the other partner then also become legal parent of the child, without having to go through adoption? (for example automatically, or by way of recognition/acknowledgement.)</td><td>2010<br>(only in case of ART)</td><td>2006<br>(only in case of ART)</td><td>2006<br>(only in case of ART)</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Parental authority</strong><br>Is joint parental authority/responsibility possible for the couple, while only one of the partners is the legal parent of the child?</td><td>2010</td><td>1996</td><td>2006?</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Parental leave for both parents</strong><br>When both partners are the legal parents of a child, does each partner then have a statutory right to paid or unpaid parental leave?</td><td>2010</td><td>2000</td><td>2006</td></tr></tbody></table>

(continued)
<table><caption>**Table 6.1** (continued)</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Marriage (2010)</th><th>Registered partnership (1996)</th><th>Cohabitation (2006)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>Second-parent adoption</strong><br>When only one partner is the legal parent of a child, does the other partner then have the possibility of becoming the child's second parent by way of adoption?</td><td>2010</td><td>2000<br>(not if children had been adopted from another country)</td><td>2006</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Joint adoption</strong><br>Can partners jointly adopt a child?</td><td>2010</td><td>2006<br>(Conditional on 3 years of living together)</td><td>2006<br>(Conditional on 5 years of living together, but cohabitation was only allowed in 2006)</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Individual adoption</strong><br>Can one partner in this type of relationship individually adopt a child?</td><td>As a general rule married partners can only engage in adoption together</td><td>Before 2006 registered partners were not eligible for joint adoption so they were technically not bound by art. 2 of the Adoption Act. One partner could apply for adoption as an individual but a single person can only be granted permission to adopt under special circumstances, if the person is considered particularly fit to care for a child.</td><td>Before same-sex cohabitation was recognized in 2006 a partner in such a relationship could apply for adoption as an individual but a single person can only be granted permission to adopt under special circumstances, if the person is considered particularly fit to care for a child.</td></tr></tbody></table>

Source: H. Friðriksdóttir, “Parenting and legal family formats in Iceland”. In: K. Waaldijk et al. (eds.), The LawsAndFamilies Database – Aspects of legal family formats for same-sex and different-sex couples. Paris: INED, 2017, www.LawsAndFamilies.eu

These laws on the possibility of becoming a parent in Iceland, as in the other Scandinavian countries, owe much to Sweden, which convened a parliamentary committee to report on the situation of children in homosexual families with a view to reforming its legal system (SOU 2001:10). This report, like much jurisprudence in the Scandinavian countries, concluded that it was in the child's interest to have two parents, regardless of their sex.

In 2010, Iceland adopted a gender-neutral marriage law (Lög um breytingar á hjúskaparlögum og fleiri lögum og um brottfall laga um staðfesta samvist (ein hjús-kaparlög) nr. 65/2010) which abrogated the partnership law (existing partnerships could retain their status, or be converted into marriage simply by filling out a form). Ein hjúskaparlög, the 'one marriage law', placed same-sex and different-sex couples on equal footing. Both could now marry in Iceland's state church, which is mainly traditionally responsible for legally registering marriages.

However, in 2015, at the time of the survey, the law left aside questions essentially bearing on the individual, such as transsexualism (monitored by a national
committee), sex reassignment for children born intersex, and surrogate pregnancy (which is particularly central to problematics of parenthood, notably for men). These still-open questions implicitly highlight the difficulty of addressing situations exclusively linked to the individual, to ethics, and to families that do not adopt existing heterosexual arrangements. Icelandic law does not innovate, and, by granting homosexuals rights equal to those of heterosexuals, has limited itself to shifting from a differentialist model to a universalist one (Digoix 2008).

## 6.2.2 An Insular, Egalitarian, Feminist Society

Iceland's history, its geographical situation, and its political regime are influential characteristics that have shaped its society, and that shed light on the interacting evolution of the society and its laws. First of all, Iceland is an island with a small population – 330,000 inhabitants in 2015 – whose demographic growth has been fairly rapid, from 78,000 inhabitants in 1900 to 279,000 in 2000, notably thanks to a flourishing economy. In 2008 the subprime crisis put the country in financial difficulty, slowing both economic and demographic growth. It also curbed the Icelandic welfare state, creating a small social crisis, with negative net migration over the following years (Hagstofa Íslands).

Family legislation has accompanied the societal changes of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and in this context Iceland is often at the leading edge of the movement toward an increasing well-being society. It was only in the late twentieth century that Iceland began to confront the situation of homosexuals in society, but since the state began to pass legislation in this area, the rights of homosexual们 have steadily progressed. This progress follows on a long tradition of seeking equality for individuals in society, which emerged very early in Iceland, with actions for women's emancipation.

A feminist politics that began very early in the twentieth century has marked the transformations of the family ever since. Reforms had been implemented to respond to particular demographic configurations of the end of the previous century, notably economic migration to Canada (Karlsson 2000), but also challenges to the traditional roles of women in the family and in society, under the leadership of Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir (Styrkársdóttir 2006). Iceland was not yet independent at the time, and family policies followed the Danish model. Women obtained the right to vote in municipal elections in 1908, in national elections with age restrictions in 1915, and finally without restriction in 1920. Finally, a 1923 legal reform granted women equal property rights within marriage as well as divorce by mutual consent (women are more likely to apply for divorce (Fine 2002)).

In practice, the most significant changes in terms of gender equality, marking the transition from legal to societal equality, surely occurred in practice after the 1960s, with the control of fertility; economic independence for women through access to the labour market; progressive clarification of the rights of children (independently of parental rights) through a specific law (the Children's Act, or *Barnalög*); and
family policies and parental leave supporting fathers' participation in day-to-day child-rearing (Garðarsdóttir 2008). Gíslason (2008) emphasizes that equality in the allocation of parental leave leads to a more egalitarian perception of parenthood: taking care of young children is no longer considered a feminine occupation. "De-feminizing" parenthood is a means to achieve equality.

The integration of feminist policies in Icelandic society can be illustrated by a few significant, even pioneering steps. In 1980, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir was the first woman elected president in a western democracy. She completed four terms, remaining head of state for 16 years. Another emblematic illustration is the naming of Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir as Prime Minister of the coalition government in 2009, after the 2008 subprime crisis, which brought the Icelandic state to the brink of bankruptcy. Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir was the first openly homosexual head of government. When elected she was in a confirmed partnership; she symbolically converted her partnership with Jónína Leósdóttir into marriage in 2010 with the change in the law (Leósdóttir 2013). A little less centrally, but no less significantly, in the same period Agnes M. Sigurðardóttir became the first female Bishop of Iceland, leader of the state church, the Church of Iceland, in 2012.

### 6.2.3 A Familialist Society

From the very first reflections on the partnership law, activists (who were sometimes involved in or linked to academic research) highlighted the question of parenthood and the lack of legal provisions concerning children. As mentioned above, Iceland was the only Scandinavian country to include parental authority in its initial partnership law (followed by the adoption of the partner's child in 2000). However, this aspect of the law was already singled out as insufficient in 1996; indeed, more than the fundamental advances in this pioneering law, it was its lacunae around parenthood that were emphasized when it was adopted by the parliament (Friðriksdóttir 1996). This particularly pronounced interest in children and parenthood reflects the tight-knit, family-centred nature of Icelandic society (Rich 1978). Iceland, even more than other Scandinavian countries, has always had a high rate of births outside marriage, which is explained in particular by the tradition of socially recognizing births during the engagement period in the modern era (Björnsson 1971). Indeed, the opening of a family whose legal boundaries are already distended, even vague, may explain why adaptive compromises with existing norms tend to be well accepted by society.

Additionally, in Iceland children are granted particular protection through two laws: the Children's Act (Barnalög nr.76/2003) which defines children's rights (and the obligations of their parents), and the Child Protection Act (Barnaverndarlög nr. 80/2002) which sets out the obligations of the state and its child protection services toward children. There is also a Youth Act (Æskulýðslög nr. 70/2007), which regulates and promotes activities for young people aged 6–25 years.
<figure><img src="image_25.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 6.1** Nuclear families by type of family (by unit), 2015
Population 1 January. A nuclear family refers to couples (married and in a consensual union) and children below the age of 18, single men and women with children below the age of 18. (Persons above the age of 18 who live with their parents are not included in nuclear families)</figcaption></figure>

Source: Hagstofa Íslands: https://hagstofa.is/

Anna Einarsdóttir (2016) shows that same-sex marriage or union facilitates the acceptance of homosexuality within the family unit. She emphasizes the particularity of Iceland as an island country, more familialy oriented than other countries of the north, which tend more toward individualism and the decline of tradition. This does not mean, however, that Iceland has remained in a stagnant tradition, firmly anchored in an unchanging past. Much to the contrary: the country is continually pursuing its drive toward equal rights (among citizens, between women and men) and demonstrates a plurality of family types (Fig. 6.1), which could also indicate an acceptance of greater diversity.

In a society oriented toward gender equality, where one of the marked obstacles to this equality (notably on the labour market) is motherhood, public policymaking around parenthood has focused notably on parental leave and access to childcare. Iceland is one of the countries which have most emphasized the extension of parental leave to men (Eydal and Gíslason 2015). In his study on family policies, Ingólfur Gíslason (2008) noted that, in the case of men in heterosexual relationships, *'you are regarded as weird if you don't use the paternity leave.'* There is thus a pressure toward motherhood, but also a pressure toward active parenthood for men. The relationship to the child is emphasized. The "new" man is a father exercising his parenthood. This state of mind is reflected in the desire for children expressed by male interviewees – desires that may have been revealed here by the nearness of the possibility of realization. In this connection, Hrefna Friðriksdóttir (2015) argues that
laws on homosexual union have contributed to improving understanding of fatherhood, insofar as they have disrupted the traditionally gendered order of heterosexual parenthood. Legislation has thus challenged traditional family forms by emphasizing fathers' relationship to their children, and their rights and responsibilities with respect to them.

## 6.3 The Heteronormative Family

Having a child in daily life and in interactions with society has a normalizing effect, independently of the parents' intentions and situation, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. Even in a highly atypical coparenting scenario, Sóley noted a paradoxical aspect of her trajectory: the arrival of a child had given her access to a 'normality' that she simply observed, although she had no intention to seek it. *'There is now a straight element in my life that people recognize'* (IS18 Sóley). Her son has two homosexual parents who live apart but are raising him together – a model of separate parenthood whose particularity is only brought out when Sóley mentions her female partner.

More generally, the way parents and families view homosexual children has changed. Whereas in the past they raised doubts concerning the future, their social integration and personal happiness, the ability to plan for a future family put this type of difference in a new, less concerning perspective. What would have been worry about non-reproduction transforms into the expectation of becoming a grandparent.

Kolbrún, 41, described this expectation more generally as a form of social pressure.

> 'People have all sorts of dreams and I am not saying that this is not my dream, but I find it wrong to force it upon you and assume that this is what you want. There is a lot of straight people who do not have kids and are not in a relationship and are happy about it. Why this emphasis? I will not go deep into it, I could talk about it for two hours.' IS27 Kolbrún

Hlynur also perceives motherhood as a social pressure. He himself has two children from heterosexual relationships. He thinks that women face strong pressure to have children, as if it were not an individual freedom, and that not having children is treated as 'abnormal'.

> 'There was like an interview [in media] with one woman, 37 years old and she often gets, what don't you have a child, really shocked, eh, some people don't want children and there's nothing wrong with that, some don't want a boyfriend and there's nothing wrong with that they just want to be free, and you should respect that.' IS30 Hlynur

In their discourse, the persons interviewed for the survey recognized this attachment to family, which, in the struggle for equal rights for homosexuals, has ultimately taken a predominant place. Þórdís, age 51, saw this shift take place. She expressed some regret that it came at the cost of a 'homosexual culture' that arose during a period when homosexuality was stigmatized and that created and depended on
friendship relations in place of distended family relations – albeit somewhat less in Iceland than elsewhere – as very well described in the research of Jeffrey Weeks and Kate Weston (Weeks 2001; Weston 1997). Among members of older generations who previously struggled to affirm their difference, a non-negligible amount of fear around normalization has developed in the aftermath of laws authorizing same-sex unions and recognizing same-sex parenthood. This is what the Danish sociologist Henning Bech, in his key work of the late 1990s, *When Men Meet*, described as the disappearance of a way of life and the birth of a new homosexual (Bech 1997).

‘Yes, I think these are family rights sort of, the right to form a family, to get married and such. These are very important rights but you would of course like to see more emphasis on diversity, rights as individuals, for instance individuals who live alone. There is a very strong focus on the family here in Iceland. Everyone has to participate in this family package, this heterosexual family package, lesbians and gay men as well. And we have participated and it marks our culture. It is disappearing. There is no culture. There is no visible culture like before when we didn’t have these rights.’ IS04 Þórdís

As these rights were obtained in the name of equality for all citizens, they were constituted based on the dominant heteronormative model. While Iceland’s family life is pluralistic, with notably a high value placed on cohabitation, high rates of births outside marriage, low marriage rates, and reconstituted families, homosexual culture was nonetheless constituted in opposition to it. The oldest respondents in the sample expressed many thoughts about life ‘before’:

‘I think that now all these lesbians who are having children and such, I think they are just entering into an established mould. Have kids and get married and stuff. And you wonder, if they enter this mould, are they still lesbians? Sure, they are still lesbians but they are mothers, and then kind of heterosexual mothers. Are they taking on such roles? Is their family life the same as with heterosexuals? You know, is there something called queer family life... “how do we use these rights? Are we just conforming to this mould? And then we aren’t visible.’ IS04 Þórdís

Such considerations on changes in life projects since the adoption of the recent laws were often expressed by those who, although they had struggled to obtain equal rights, also had memories of a different socialization – as though the law, in assimilating homosexuals, had changed them.

It is as if the law had had the effect not simply of normalizing private, albeit familial events, but of causing the disappearance of other arrangements or structures that had come into being when homosexual practices were illegal and stigmatized. The power of the law may not be as great in a society as dynamic as Iceland’s, but the situation remains far from the reinvention of ways of life recommended by the twentieth-century theorists such as Foucault (1981) and Bourdieu (1997), and the friendship network has not come to take precedence over the family network.

When speaking of desires for children and realization of plans for parenthood, the respondents continued to strongly emphasize biological family. They described decreasing levels of conflict with family around coming out, and no case of a break with family was observed, although certain reservations and behavioural anomalies persisted, particularly with extended family.
### 6.3.1 The Normalization of Coming Out: Heteronormative Coming Out?

Marriage – or cohabitation, a particularly valued model in Icelandic society, to such an extent that a specific law grants cohabiting couples virtually the same rights as married ones (*Lög nr. 21/1990 um Lögheimili*) – and above all parenthood can create social bonds and family emulation. In practice, marriage and parenthood facilitate coming out by inflecting how the “outside world” perceives homosexuality. When homosexuality is revealed through a long-term partner or shared parenthood of a child, sexuality as such no longer needs to be emphasized. It is easier for a man to come out by referring to a ‘husband’ or a woman to a ‘wife’ in an ordinary conversation, revealing their homosexuality without explicitly stating it. The same applies to the exercise of parenthood where, once the first situational revelation of the clear homosexuality of the parents has passed, attention is focused on the child and their well-being. The society’s familialism produces a major tension in the parent-child relationship that is exacerbated at the moment of coming out. A previous study (Digoix 2013a) showed that coming out is facilitated for individuals who have a long-term partner and who are able to have children, as parents expect grandchildren, and before 2006, homosexuals were not in a position to satisfy this expectation with legal support. This characteristic appeared again in the 2015 survey, particularly among the oldest respondents, despite the fact that in much of their experience homosexual issues were not visible, and same-sex couples could not have children together.

Sunna, 41, described her parents’ reaction to her first child as follows: ‘I just think mum was relieved... she has four children so she will get enough grandchildren you know it was just like, I think it just something there that you know I get to have a child, think that was the idea, I am the only girl, maybe that mattered...’ IS26 Sunna.

In some way, then, the birth of a child creates a connection to normality.

Ingibjörg is younger than Sunna (27 at the time of the survey), and has thus been able to eliminate the extreme tension around family and children. When she came out to her mother, the latter emphasized the self-evidence of the desire for children. At the time, although the law on ART was not yet in force, lesbians were able to go to Denmark, where they were legally allowed to use ART.

‘The only thing she basically was worried about was that I couldn’t have kids at that time, because it wasn’t allowed here. But she was just, “I will send you to Denmark, no worries”...

It would probably be more of a shock for her if I would tell her I, I wouldn’t want to have kids...’ IS20 Ingibjörg

According to this discourse, then, family response is focused not so much on the fact of homosexuality, as in the previous generation, but on the ability to conform to the dominant norm, structured around the reproductive cycle – all the more so in a familialist society like that of Iceland.
### 6.3.2 The Desire for Children and Its Fulfilment: Contrasting Realities

Whether it reflects a spontaneous desire or social pressure, access to parenthood emerged as a more important issue in the 2015 survey than in the previous ones, notably because access to legal rights had lifted certain barriers.

Although the interviews were not centred on parenthood, the responses clearly reflected the topic's importance for the respondents, including among those who did not have children, and even those who did not wish to. When the sample was constructed, priority was given to obtaining a diversity of situations, but during the interviews, the respondents' perspective on parenthood almost always converged toward desires for children (or grandchildren), whether or not they had been realized.

Recent legislative advances toward societal recognition of homosexuality mean that new research is needed on how behaviour has been changing, in comparative perspective with work in the 1990s on the desire for children in a homophobic society (Mezey 2013). The internalization of homophobia and the fear of coming out no longer seem to be obstacles to the desire for children. In this respect, Iceland and the Nordic countries are doubtless precursors of new behaviours.

The desire for children is so societally charged that it is perceived and understood as a norm. Ingibjörg, who was 27 at the time of the survey, had already evoked it as essential when she came out to herself. She did so shortly before the right to ART was legally opened to lesbian women. At the time she still associated homosexuality to the inability to procreate.

> 'I mean also the first time that I realised I was a lesbian then um, the first thing I thought was like "Oh my god you can't have kids", because I then I didn't know, didn't know any better, so that, it has always been, I would always have found out how to do it.' IS20 Ingibjörg

Elín, 27, realized very early on that she wanted to have a child. Then she met her partner. They had intended to have children first and marry after. Having a child was a priority, although they were still young. But as they had difficulty conceiving a child, they decided to prepare for their marriage in order to relieve some of the pressure on themselves. Their initial choice to have a child before marriage is not an anomaly in the context of Icelandic family norms: as mentioned above, the country has a high rate of births outside marriage, and couples often marry at the time of the baptism of their first child (Björnsson 1971; Eydal and Ólafsson 2002).

> 'I am um one of those women who feels just that my calling in life is to be a mother I just somehow I just woke up one day, I was like 22 years old and I just I have to be a mother it just somehow I don't really know what it is so you know I have look into all options... So um we have been trying now for more than a year but um it isn't going very well so um it is a total it is a total priority and we prioritized it a few years ago we decided we were going to have a child and get married and decided to have the child first because we somehow felt it was just more pressing not that we are running out of time it's just something that is more important to us...' IS21 Élin
A very strong desire to be a father was found even among those who, like Haukur, have a very traditional vision of parenthood which virtually rules out the possibility of a child being raised without a mother. Haukur, 28, did not describe a particularly defined form of parenthood; his desire is a conceptual one, connected to the tradition of descendants and lineages. He explained that he would like to raise a child, not necessarily from birth, and not necessarily continuously; he spoke of the impossibility of adoption, but also of his wish to be a 'godfather', sharing through coparenting...

> 'I think having children is an important part of adulthood, but it does not need to grow up in your home. For me, it is important for the future to have a family, grandchildren and such.' IS17 Haukur

Although she emphatically highlighted the importance of the law in organizing the material aspects of parenthood, out of concern for the child and the parent without legal status, Kolbrún thought that her desire for a child would have driven her to flout the law.

> '...The laws are bonus, but not... It is not a demand that if they do not exist then I would just zzzzzip and not do it. I mean, women did this. Women have done this for decades.' IS27 Kolbrún

She thus recalled the existence of homosexual parenthood before the establishment of laws allowing it, resulting not only from married or cohabiting heterosexual relationships, but also from the use of ART abroad. In a seminal book based on fieldwork conducted when these laws were under discussion, Traustadóttir and Kristinsson (2003) collected the views of actors in such parental situations.

Both the law and having a partner allow this desire to be fulfilled in a more ratio nal fashion. Although at the time of the survey Erla and her wife were seeking to have a child together, each had been planning to have children before they became partners. Having a partner facilitated the realization of these desires, with access to ART, whereas they had previously thought of resorting to a friend.

> 'Yes, at some point, when we were both single, we had talked to our friends about having children with them. I with a single friend of mine and she with a single friend of hers. Before we got together. Somehow relationships didn't seem to be working out for us so we found other ways to have a family. But when we became a couple then we became a family and the other options just dropped out of the picture.' IS12 Erla

## 6.4 Reinventing the Family

### 6.4.1 Legal Support

The official recognition of homosexual parenthood through legal dispositions revealed diversified modes of procreation: these reflect, first, situations created by the temporal unfolding of the law, and then the opening of an increasingly complete range of choices, allowing for many more parental configurations. Simplifying
somewhat, it began before the law was passed, in the context of heterosexual relationships or artisanal insemination for lesbians; and continued after 1996 with new legal mechanisms permitting legal authority over the partner's child, the adoption of the partner's child in 2000, and finally in 2016, ART and full adoption.

Regardless of how homosexuals become parents, their parenthood is always the result of a plan, which may be elaborate, or more minimal. Anton emphasized that things are not 'so simple', and that the law offers only support.

> 'If you want to have a child together and particularly, I mean, gay and lesbian couples have to go the extra mile. I mean, straight couples, it's boy meets girl on a Friday night and nine months later they are parents whether they want to be or not. I mean, and gay and lesbian couples, that's an effort. You have to find a route to basically have child through either surrogacy or through adoption or, I don't know, any programs that are available out there. You have to go through a long process. It's not organic. I'm almost saying it's not natural, but it's not organic in a sense of the ability to reproduce.' IS13 Anton

There is a fairly pronounced difference between generations. The perspectives on parenthood of interviewees from the older age group are clearly connected to the legal situation in the country when they entered their twenties. This split could be observed among those with children from a heterosexual relationship as well as those who had not had children, either because they did not foresee being in a heterosexual relationship (ephemeral or long-term), or because the absence of a law meant familial insecurity to them, in terms of the child's rights or the adult's personal rights with respect to the child.

Many pointed out that in case of conflict during separation or simply problems in daily life, the biological relationship is favoured over the social. This puts the legally unrecognized parent in a position of inferiority, a vulnerability that weighs particularly heavily in case of separation. Þórdís, 51, described the feelings of insecurity around the desires for children that she did not realize in a time when the law was hostile to homosexual parenthood.

> '...I also thought about having a child with one of our gay friends. But it was just like, we never went through with it because everything was so insecure... it also shows that these rights, when we obtain them, like here in Iceland, first in '96 and then in 2005, or whenever it was [in fact 2006], it has a different meaning for different generations in this society. For those of us who are of a different generation than those who are younger, our quality of life has been impaired when it comes to issues like children. There is a certain regret there. You could have had children but you weren't given the opportunity and you see that some of the women who belong to the older generation are marked by this lack of rights as well.' IS04 Þórdís

Kolbrún also emphasized the importance of the law and its ability to provide security with regard to the child, who legally has two parents – again, in the context of a normative vision of parenthood.

> '...I think the idea of two parents of the same sex is directly connected to the laws. Because before that time, say that I would have been in a relationship with a woman who had had a child, the old-fashioned way still without a dad. And when we break up, I would have no insurance that... And therefore I think that women were having children on their own and being like "This is my child and you are welcome in our lives as long as we stay a couple..."
> 
> ...Yes I think those laws really mattered. I think the person that benefited the most was the
child. The child now has two parents. Not one mom and occasional stepmoms... I find it comforting that the legislation is there so everything is clear from day one. Instead of saying "Oh, we will fix this somehow afterwards, I will adopt the child." But what if you break up a month later? It is extremely important to know exactly where you stand. From the very start. I think most people would want that. This is such a huge event. It is like buying a property and there exists no laws regarding real estate business.' IS27 Kolbrún

Elín sees these laws mainly as a simplification. Because the laws exist, her plans for parenthood do not extend beyond the conception of the child. Just as marriage offers legal security to the spouses, the law guarantees it for the parents.

'It of course wouldn't be possible if this law wasn't in place so you know I would think it was really bad if um we couldn't both be mothers from the start or you know had to adopt you know the other mother would have to adopt or something like that so of course the simpler the system the more someone can be bothered doing this.' IS21 Elín

## Access to ART

The legalization of homosexual parenting has disrupted social norms historically anchored in the law. This change made it possible to clearly distinguish filiation and parenthood (Fine 2013). While lesbian motherhood predates the law, the legalization of access to medically assisted procreation for female same-sex couples – first in closely linked Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Sweden) and then in Iceland – had a major impact on the lives of lesbians. With it they could plan to be parents without needing to provide for the presence of a man/father. For some, this had the effect of loosening ties to the homosexual community, and even of bringing them closer to heterosexual couples having technical difficulties procreating, as early as the planning phase. Information on infertility (technical or physical) is transmitted through websites and Facebook groups (and, previously, forums), which are not linked to the participants' sexuality.

Medical acts for this purpose are legal only if they are performed in a clinic accredited by the Ministry of Health. At the time of the survey there was only one such clinic, then operating under the name Art Medica. It has since been bought by a Swedish company and now operates under the name Livio.

The service offers users the possibility of a known or an unknown donor. Under Icelandic law, children have the right to learn the name of a known donor on reaching the age of majority. Conversations around these questions are the first to arise in lesbians' construction of their plans for parenthood.

In this context, one complex topic is the choice of a donor. Contrary to Sweden, which does not allow unknown donors, on grounds of children's right to know their origins, Iceland has offered this option since 2006. In Sweden, the requirement that the donor's identity be known allows the authorities to verify the child's genetic origin. Double gametes donation, of sperm and egg (to allow a woman's female partner to bear her embryo) has only been permitted since 2019 in Sweden (Leibetseder 2018).

Icelandic women make full use of Cryos, the Danish sperm bank, the main European provider in this sector (https://dk.cryosinternational.com/).
Little by little, most lesbian couples have come to choose the services of Art Medica/Livio as the simplest way to have children. It allows them to plan to become parents together, situating themselves together in the realm of the biological couple, choosing who will bear what child and whether the sperm donor will be known or anonymous.

## 6.4.2 Not One, But Many Lesbian-Parented Families

Before access to ART was legally extended to lesbian couples, it reproduced the heterosexual system of filiation through a legal fiction. In the case of a heterosexual couple using ART, sperm can be drawn from the male in the couple, or, in case of infertility, from a donor. In the latter case, while a third person was in fact involved in the birth, as the sperm donor was typically anonymous, it was as though he did not exist. Couples could even hide the fact that they had used ART, with filiation attributed to the two members of the couple. In contrast, the origin of the child of a lesbian couple is always biologically questioned. In lesbian medically assisted pro-creation, everyone knows that a sperm donor is involved. Questions around the ori-gin of this sperm are thus often core concerns for lesbian couples. This may also happen for heterosexual couples, with the biological dimension re-emerging after having been legally suppressed: if the possibility of anonymity for donors were to be removed for lesbian couples in the name of children's right to know their origins, this would have to be done for heterosexual couples as well. Children of lesbian couples challenge the legal presumption of 'paternity'. In the context of ART, if the process takes place within the Icelandic healthcare system, the law stipulates that the member of the couple who is not bearing the child must give consent (Art. 3a, Lög um tæknifrjóvgun og notkun kynfrumna og fósturvísa manna til stofnfrumu-rannsókna, nr. 55/1996), regardless of gender. This person is then automatically considered the child's parent. Lesbian access to ART thus challenges the absolute naturalism of heterosexual ART, while establishing or affirming a legal version of lesbian parenthood. As emphasized by Daniel Borrillo, 'procreation could now be conceived as a freedom that merits specific legal protection as a manifestation of private life.' (Borrillo 2018).

### 6.4.2.1 A Challenge for Lesbians: A New Model

The legalization of homosexual filiation brought a new visibility to family configu-rations that would come to be models. Affirming the equality of homosexuality with heterosexuality, in daily life and in the family context, is fundamental for future generations of homosexuals, notably in facilitating the process of coming out. Equality before the law does not necessarily imply sameness. In the years following the legalization of parenthood, the tension between normalization and assimilation came to the fore. Some saw this period of transition as an occasion to open up