“Why is it that here we can be a family, and there we cannot?” How Wider Socio-Institutional Frameworks Shape Experiences of LGB Parenting

The legal status and social acceptance of same-sex partners’ families vary to an astonishing degree, even within the European Union (EU). These differences are sharply reflected in the lives of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) migrants from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) residing in countries such as Belgium or the Netherlands, where same-sex partners can marry, access adoption and assisted reproductive technologies (ART) services, and acquire legal co-parenting rights. For this group, every visit to a CEE country of origin with a constitutional definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, with limited or no access to adoption services, nor to ART or co-parenting rights, highlights the societal and institutional vulnerability of their families. Based on biographical narrative interviews (BNIM) with six LGB migrants from selected CEE countries of origin, raising children with a same-sex partner in Belgium or the Netherlands, this study analyses how differences in wider socio-institutional frameworks shape experiences of LGB parents relating to the formation, display, recognition and acceptance of their families. The findings highlight how the restrictive legal and institutional frameworks not only exclude LGB individuals from full citizenship, but also provide support for the individual-level discrimination of non-heterosexual families. In contrast, inclusive frameworks allow LGB individuals to realize life and family trajectories already accessible to others in society, while also discouraging the expression of individual prejudice. Therefore, the study concludes that the only way to ensure full equality and to protect LGB individuals and their children from stigmatization is to create a fully inclusive socio-institutional framework for non-heterosexual families in which individual prejudice is no longer supported.