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Mother of the (Heteronormative) Nation: Meloni’s War Against Rainbow Families



Smashing Italy’s Glass Ceiling: Room for One 

 

When Fratelli d'Italia (FDL) - aka Brothers of Italy - came into power in 2022, Georgia Meloni became the first-ever woman to lead a Mediterranean nation. On the face of things, this could have been cause for celebration: a sign of social progress on a continent unsure of where it’s headed. Sadly, however, this is where any hint of liberal politics begins and ends with Meloni and her party. FDL has deep ties to the fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI), which was set up in the post-war era by Mussolini’s henchmen, as well as MSI’s various later political incarnations.  

 

Without delving into the messy machinations of Italian political parties and their coalitions, it stands that once Meloni became leader of the newly formed FDL in 2014, she set about implementing the far-right’s neat little trick of cleaning up her party’s image, making it more palatable to voters - the party’s unnerving Nazi-esque salute was out, for one thing.  


As the University of Brighton’s Dr Federica Formato explained to me, Meloni has been adept at using her personal image to change the perception of her extreme politics:  

 

“She says, ‘I am Georgia, I am a mother, I am a woman, I am the first female prime minister’ - but then she doesn’t do anything for women and in reality, her party is sexist and homophobic.” 

 

Not that Meloni has ever truly sought to hide her position on LGBTQ+ issues. At one rally for her far-right Spanish counterparts, Vox, she thundered: “Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby [...] no to gender ideology!” (BBC, 2022). It seems some notions of extremism are more palatable than others in predominantly conservative Italy.  


Surrogacy: A Maculate Conception? 

 

Meloni’s electoral strategy paid off, leading to FDL’s victory in September 2022. Within months the party followed through on its promise to defend supposed ‘traditional family values’. The Ministry of the Interior issued a circular ordering municipal governments to stop registering the new births of children born to same-sex couples via surrogacy outside of the country and to instead only record the name of the child’s biological parent on the birth certificate. 

 

It’s worth noting here that surrogacy in Italy is illegal in its entirety, in that it’s not available for either mixed-sex or same-sex couples, thanks largely to the ever-present influence of the Holy See, as Dr Formato noted: “The Church is a very powerful institution in Italy, both in terms of political power, but also the social power of Catholicism.”  

 

So it could well be argued that the circular was simply the new governing party doubling down on an existing law and closing the loopholes surrounding it (namely, travelling to another EU jurisdiction for the service). Yet the ministry’s circular explicitly targeted rainbow families, and not their hetero counterparts.  

 

Necessity is the Mother of In Vitro Fertilisation  

 

Unlike their mixed-sex counterparts, same-sex couples in Italy are also prohibited from both adopting and accessing other forms of assisted reproductive technologies, such as IVF treatment and artificial insemination by donor (interdictions which disproportionately affect female couples). As such, the only route available to starting a family in a same-sex relationship has been to source such services abroad.  

 

Some lesbian couples who have decided on this course of action have opted for heterologous fertilisation (HF), whereby the eggs of one partner are impregnated with the sperm of a donor, before being transferred to the other partner's uterus for gestation. Complicated as it sounds, the process enables both mothers to share in the prenatal phase of their child’s life. 

 

Mission Creep: The Cases of Milan, Bergamo, and Padua 

 

Such couples were no doubt alarmed when in March 2023, Milan’s Prefecture (regional officials who represent central government at the local level) extended the ministry’s circular on surrogacy to also include lesbian couples who had become pregnant via HF. From then on, non-biological mothers would no longer be added to children’s birth certificates. This created the somewhat bizarre situation in which mothers who were carrying and birthing their babies now found that they would have no legal rights over their children once born. 

 

A month later, a court in the city of Bergamo not only followed suit but went one step further; as well as refusing to recognise non-biological parents when issuing future birth certificates, the court also retroactively stripped the name of one such mother from the birth certificate of a child already born - that of a nine-month-old baby girl. 

 

Then in June last year came the case which caught the attention of the international media. The Public Prosecutor’s Office in the city of Padua annulled the birth certificates of 33 children born to lesbian couples via HF. Not only was this shocking for the sheer number of families affected but also due to its reach, with births registered as far back as 2017 being included. Overnight, non-biological mothers were stripped of all legal parental rights over their children, some as old as five and six.  

 

Enter Stage Left: The Rebel Mayors 

 

Padua’s left-leaning mayor, Sergio Giordani, had been instructed by the Prosecutors Office to cease certifying new births of babies born to lesbian couples as early as March of last year, but Giordani ignored the demand, and instead personally registered the birth of a baby boy born to lesbian parents in a show of public defiance. Ultimately, however, the mayor was unable to prevent the directive and was legally bound to annul all 33 birth certificates three months later or face prosecution. Though he fiercely criticised the move as he did so. 

 

This was not the first time a left-leaning mayor had pushed back against FDL’s actions. Back in March, the mayors of Turin, Milan, Rome, and Naples signed a joint statement denouncing the government’s position. Soon after, the mayor of Milan, Giuseppe Sala, travelled to Brussels to raise his concerns with the European Union.  

 

The Push for Equality in an Unequal World 

 

Sala’s efforts resulted in the issue being debated in the European Parliament, thanks to the support of the European Greens, who subsequently pushed through an amendment to the resolution for the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality, in which Italy, Hungary, and Poland were explicitly called out and condemned for their hostile actions towards LGBTQ+ communities.  

 

The amendment had initially been planned in response to Uganda’s recent Anti-Homosexuality Bill, and Italy took great offence at being singled out alongside an autocratic regime imposing the death penalty for LGBTQ+ citizens. Yet for most on the left, the greater concern was how easily Italian politics now aligned with the populist radical right of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party and the then-ruling PiS in Poland. 

 

“A founding state of the European Union cannot afford this drift, which we will continue to oppose with all our strength” European Senator Cecilia D’Elia told the media at the time.  

 

Strong words indeed, but can they be matched with action? Unlike with Hungary, there was never any discussion of sanctions against Italy for its treatment of LGBTQ+ people. This is despite the country breaching a newly adopted directive from the European Commission aimed at protecting the rights of rainbow families. The proposal stated that children of same-sex parents born in one EU jurisdiction should be recognised across all others.  

 

Sala went as far as to suggest that the timing of Italy’s actions was “not a coincidence”, intimating that Meloni’s Eurosceptic FDL could well have been goading the EU - testing to see what would happen when one of the bloc’s most influential members flouted the rules. If this were the case, it appears Meloni has her answer - not very much. The Greens’ amendment, while punchy, did little to change the situation in Italy itself. 

 

Victory for Same-Sex Parents: Victory for the Rule of Law 

 

Though the European Union may have done little more than bare its teeth, Italy’s domestic judicial system proved it still had bite when in March of this year, one of the country’s highest administrative courts dismissed the government’s directive and reinstated the original birth certificates of all the children and mothers who had been affected by the move. 

 

All the World’s a Stage 

 

The government had ten days to appeal but declined to do so, which in itself may be telling. As Dr Formato explained: 

 

“Rather than continue with her attacks, it's more about telling the people that she has done something, even though eventually she doesn’t follow through with her plans. For her, it’s enough to look strong.” 

 

A piece of political theatre, perhaps, in which the queer community is cast as the archetypal villain. What is not clear, however, is whether the final curtain has fallen on this existential drama or if Meloni is warming up for a second act. 


Bibliography 

 

BBC (2022) ‘Who is Giorgia Meloni? The rise to power of Italy's new far-right PM’. 

Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63351655. Accessed: 05/03/24 

 

Corriere Della Sera (2023a) ‘The Milan court cancels the birth certificate of the son of 2 fathers. Valid (for now) 3 cases of mothers’. Available at: 

 

Corriere Della Sera (2023b) ‘The mothers who the Court of Milan ruled in favor of: “Anguishing months, the Prosecutor's Office wanted to cancel our family”’. Available at: 

 

Corriere Della Sera (2023c) ‘Padua, 33 birth certificates with two mothers are illegitimate. The prosecutor's office requests that the children's surnames be corrected’. Available at: https://corrieredelveneto.corriere.it/notizie/padova/cronaca/23_giugno_19/padova-illegittimo-l-atto-di-nascita-con-due-mamme-la-procura-chiede-di-rettificare-il-cognome-di-una-bambina-7c35ad7b-0579-47ee-a467-35a977cefxlk.shtml Accessed: 05/03/24 

 

Euractiv (2023) ‘Italian government, opposition clash over Brussels’ LGBTIQ comments’. Available at: 

 

European Commission (2022) ‘Equality package: Commission proposes new rules for the recognition of parenthood between Member States’ Available at: 

 

European Movement International (2023) ‘Attacks Against The Rights Of Rainbow Families In Italy Are A Violation Of European Values And Freedoms’. Available at: 

 

Il Manifesto (2023) ‘For EU Parliament, Italy is like Hungary on civil rights’. Available at: 

 

Il Post (2023a) ‘The prosecutors who want to cancel the recognition of same-parent families’. Available at: 

 

Il Post (2023b) ‘The Padua prosecutor's office has challenged the birth certificates of 33 children of same-sex couples’. Available at: 

 

Politico (2023) ‘Milan mayor wins EU support for anti-Meloni campaign’. Available at: 

 

Progressive International (2022) Neo-fascism in Italy: Europe's involution. Available at: 

 

Stop Homophobie (2024) ‘Homoparenthood: Italian justice authorizes the mention of both parents in civil status’. Available at: 

 

The Spectator (2022) ‘Is Giorgia Meloni the most dangerous woman in Europe?’. Available at: 

 

The Conversation (2023) ‘LGBTQ+ parents are being removed from their children’s birth certificates in Italy – here’s what’s behind this disturbing trend’. Available at: 

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