When Michela Leidi’s daughter Giulia was born a year ago, it was one of the happiest days of her life. When her name finally appeared on her daughter’s birth certificate a month later, the last bit of tension left Michela. Her wife Viola and she were now officially both Giulia’s mothers. Viola became pregnant via artificial insemination and gave birth to Giulia in June 2022. Shortly afterwards, in September, Giorgia Meloni became Italy’s new prime minister.
Six months later, in April 2023, Michela received a letter. A court order. Your name should disappear from the birth certificate again. And that’s just because she’s not a man. She cried for days.
The attack on gay parents in Italy began almost two months after Meloni took office. In a circular, the Interior Ministry urged mayors to no longer recognize birth certificates issued abroad with two fathers on them.
Officially, the government is taking action against surrogacy. The Interior Ministry is citing a 2022 ruling in which the Supreme Court prohibited the recognition of these birth certificates. The court said it was not about the sexual orientation of the parents, but about the human dignity of the surrogate mother. Surrogacy has been a criminal offense in Italy since 2004. It can be punished with a fine of up to one million euros.
The surrogacy ban applies equally to homosexual and heterosexual couples. Heterosexual couples who want to use surrogacy are also forced to go abroad. From a legal point of view, there is no discrimination based on sexuality. In practice, it looks different. “If a mother and father are stated on a foreign birth certificate, it will be recognized in Italy without being asked,” says Italian lawyer Alexander Schuster. “The procedure is different for birth certificates with two fathers,” Schuster continued. In the case of two fathers, surrogacy is obvious and the authorities reported the documents to the public prosecutor’s office.
But the government is not only taking action against two fathers. In the circular, the Interior Ministry also called on mayors to stop registering dual mothers, including children born in Italy. “This shows that the government is not concerned with curbing surrogacy,” says Schuster. If a child has two mothers, one of the two usually carries the child to term. “However, the average Italian does not know the difference between artificial insemination and surrogacy. The government takes advantage of this and confuses everything,” says Schuster.
In a second step, in April the government began retrospectively “correcting” birth certificates by court order and stripping parents of their rights. This affects Michela and her family, who live in Bergamo. In June, 33 birth certificates issued since 2017 in the Italian province of Padua were “corrected”. Some of the children involved are as young as six years old. A mother is now officially taken from them too. Having two parents appears to be a privilege for the government that only allows children with heterosexual parents.
“I can no longer take my daughter to the doctor by myself, visit her in the hospital if something happens to her, or travel with her,” says Michela. “In addition, I no longer get permission from my employer to take time off when Giulia is sick. Officially, she is no longer my daughter,” says Michela. “It’s like I don’t exist”.
Michela is now trying to adopt her daughter through stepchild adoption. To do this, she had to make appointments with psychologists and social workers who would evaluate whether Michela was a suitable parent and how she would act in the relationship with Viola. She also had to prove that she was not taking any drugs or psychotropic drugs and that she was physically healthy. This evidence extended over eight pages. “The adoption costs us between 3,000 and 5,000 euros. If you consider that the average income in Italy is around 1,400 euros, that’s a lot,” says Michela.
Adoption is currently the only way for lesbian couples to have both mothers recognized. In addition to the high costs, Schuster points out the duration of the adoption process: “The procedure usually takes a year. On top of that, you can’t usually apply for an adoption immediately after the birth. This means that there is no legal recognition of the adoption for up to three years second parent. Parental leave and everything that goes with it cannot be applied for”. In addition, the biological mother has complete decision-making power. In a working relationship like Michela and Viola, that’s not a problem. Viola signed all documents. But what if there is a crisis in the relationship?
“The biological mother can simply say ‘bye’ overnight,” says Schuster. The non-biological mother would then have no options. Of course, this danger also exists the other way around and the biological mother would suddenly be a single parent. Another problem: if the biological mother dies before the adoption application is completed, the other mother has no way of looking after the child.
“We are very concerned that the government will continue to take action against the rights of gay parents,” says Michela. She hopes to complete the adoption as soon as possible. Since Meloni came to power, a culture of hate has been legitimized in Italy, she says. “In the media you hear more and more that rainbow families are not right and that the children suffer from it”. People who do not yet have an opinion on such questions are pushed in one direction by false information. Others now felt they could express their hatred freely.
“The majority of Italians are not anti-LGBTQ,” says Schuster. The problem is the bad economic situation. “In this situation, people’s own existence is more important than the rights of rainbow families. They don’t understand that it’s ultimately about protecting human rights.” Bringing about political change takes time. Schuster hopes that the European Commission will initiate proceedings that could determine a violation of EU law. Then Italy would be forced to change something.
However, as things currently stand, the situation could continue to deteriorate. Meloni is planning a law that would also criminalize surrogacy that took place outside of Italy. Homosexual couples in a conjugal union, which has existed in Italy since 2016, are forbidden to adopt children from other families. With the new law, gay couples would no longer have any opportunity to start a family.
What will Michela do if the adoption is not approved? She laughs when she hears the question. Her laughter makes it clear how surreal this thought seems to her at first, how unbelievable the developments in her home country are for her. With Meloni’s actions, Italy joins Poland and Hungary, the European countries that pursue an anti-queer ideology. Poland and Hungary have banned queer content in schools, Hungary also banned same-sex marriage and Poland established “LGBT-free zones”.
Eventually, Michela’s laughter gives way to bitterness. If the adoption is not recognized, “then I will leave Italy with my family,” she says.
