What’s in a Name? Children’s Rights and Legal Voice within Administrative and Juridical Procedures of Recognition of Same-Sex Filiation

Abstract

This performative text, consisting of writing and visualizations, explores children’s voices within court proceedings connected to the legal recognition of intended mothers within lesbian-parented families. The research used long-term ethnographic observations and biographical interviews focused on French and Italian families from the “activist generation” who devoted their efforts to obtaining reproductive and family rights. The article provides a critical account of the implementation of Article 12.2 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (UNCRC)—that is the right to be listened to in judicial and administrative proceedings affecting children. Our main argument is that, in contrast to the intention of Article 12.2 of the UNCRC, children are given a more symbolic than substantial voice in court proceedings and administrative procedures. The text situates children’s voices both in the wider context and in everyday life. Drawing on ethnographic research data, we show where and to what extent children’s voices emerge or, on the contrary, are silenced. Keywords: same-sex parenting; filiation; children’s rights; ethnography; creative writing; visual methods; performative text; Euro-American kinship; Italy; France.