Workshop –“Marginalised Parenthoods: Defending Family Rights at the European Level”

CONTEXT

Across Europe, the conservative, anti-feminist, and anti-gender backlash is hitting marginalized families hard — racialized, LGBTQIA+, single-parent, poor, and disabled families. Erasure of birth certificates, non-recognition of children born through IVF or surrogacy, attacks on inclusive sex education, administrative violence toward queer, migrant, and poor families… Behind the far right’s so-called “pro-family” rhetoric lies a normative, patriarchal, and racist vision of family that undermines people’s fundamental rights.

Throughout Europe, reactionary narratives target marginalized families for discrimination; because they do not conform to the dominant model of the white cis-heterosexual family, they are portrayed as inherently dysfunctional.

In France, despite the opening of IVF access, many families are still excluded from full legal and social recognition and face systemic invisibilization. This workshop, organized as part of the feminist and transnational festival Margins on Fire!, aims to amplify voices too often pushed to the margins — and to use them as a strategic lever for defending family rights at the European level.

Workshop Objectives

  • Shed light on the struggles of queer, racialized, migrant, disabled and working-class parenthoods in the face of reactionary attacks.

  • Analyze current discriminatory policies and forms of legal backlash across Europe.

  • Break down silos between gender, sexuality, race, and citizenship in family policy discussions.

  • Co-develop concrete recommendations for the recognition and protection of LGBTQIA+ families within the European Union.

Location: Les Arches Citoyennes, 3 Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, 75004 Paris

Date & Time: Saturday, June 7 | 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM

Language(s): English & French (simultaneous interpretation)

Participants: Johanna-Soraya Benamrouche, Camille Fidelin, Véronique Cerasoli, Ilaria Todde, Algaia Orfanidou, Hana Kulhankova

This workshop is NOT open to the public.