Licence required: French lesbian parents confront the obligation to marry in order to establish kinship

Abstract

AbstractBefore 2013, French children could not have two parents of the same sex. For example, non‐biologically related mothers in lesbian couples were legally invisible and prohibited to use second‐parent adoption. A 2013 bill legalising same‐sex marriage and adoption authorised that option. However, this reform requires same‐sex couples – but not heterosexual couples – to marry before establishing parental rights. Given this inequality, we ask: compared to their heterosexual peers, do French same‐sex couples with children marry more often? What do they think about same‐sex marriage in general and their own marriages in particular? To answer these questions, we draw on survey responses and interviews from the first national cohort study of French same‐sex couples, most of whom are lesbian, raising children born between 2011 and 2013 (n = 162). We find significantly higher marriage rates among same‐sex parents compared to different‐sex parents. What may appear at first glance to be an unvarnished attachment to marriage is belied by discriminatory logics requiring couples to go against their stated ambivalence towards the institution of marriage in order to safeguard their parental rights. We argue that this burden is a form of legal violence that enforces heterosexist norms through legislation that was ostensibly enacted in the name of equality.