License Required: French Queer Parents Confront the Obligation to Marry in order to Establish Kinship

• In Event: 2464 - The Implications of Legal Marriage: LGBTQ Individuals and Same-Sex Couples

Abstract

Before 2013, it was impossible for children in France to have two parents of the same-sex. For example, in a lesbian couple having used artificial insemination, the non-biologically related mother was invisible in the eyes of the law and could not use second-parent adoption, a common practice in other countries. A 2013 bill legalizing same-sex marriage and adoption finally offered these families with that option. However, this legislation requires same-sex couples—but not heterosexual couples—to first marry to secure their parental rights. Given this situation, we ask: How do French gay and lesbian couples raising children think about marriage and second parent adoption now that these options are available? Do they decide to get married and start adoption procedures? If so, how often? To answer these questions, we draw on the first national cohort study of French same-sex couples raising children born between 2011-2013 (n=158) as well as on interview data with a subsample within this group. We find much higher marriage rates among same-sex couples than those of their heterosexual peers raising children of the same ages. This apparent attachment to marriage, however, is belied by discriminatory logics requiring them to go against their rejection of or ambivalence toward marriage as an outdated institution in order to safeguard their parental rights. We argue, therefore, that this “marriage license required” mode of establishing kinship is a form of symbolic violence that perpetuates heterosexism by specifically burdening same-sex couples even as the new legislation was enacted in the name of equality.

Authors

• Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer, Université Bordeaux Montaigne

• Virginie Descoutures, Université Picardie Jules Verne