This May saw the tenth anniversary of the Marriage Equality Act, and LGBTQ+ families still do not have equal rights in Ireland.
LGBTQ+ campaigner Ranae von Meding has launched another petition calling on the Irish government to take action to implement full marriage equality. She described how ‘‘not a whole lot’’ of progress has been made with ‘‘five different deadlines being missed’’ by the last government along with ‘‘many broken promises’’.
‘‘After the marriage equality referendum and before May 2020, there was no legislation for donor-conceived children or children of LGBTQ+ families.’ ‘This meant that a child born to either two women through donor reception or two men through surrogacy, only one of them could be the legal parent. In the case of two women having a baby, only the person who gave birth could be the legal parent whereas with two gay men conceiving a baby through surrogacy, only the biological father could be the parent.’’
Ranae von Meding has been campaigning for many years for this to change and in 2020 new legislation was passed, called the Children’s and Families Relationship Act. This changed ‘‘the rules slightly’’ allowing for more families to finally be legally recognised however it did not change enough.
Activists from different Irish LGBTQ+ advocacy groups such as Equality for Children, Irish Gay Dads and LGBT Ireland have been campaigning and meeting with the last three governments to keep fighting for children’s rights. Ranae explained how the problem mainly lies with the Department of Health but also the Department of Justice and the Department of Children. They met with former Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly multiple times who two days before the general election promised ‘‘to commence legislation on June 1st, 2025.
However, Ranae explained that ‘‘since the new government came in, they have refused to meet and are completely ignoring us’’. In May, Ranae said ‘‘there is absolutely no way it will be done’ by the tenth anniversary ‘‘or even the end of the year’’. She expressed ‘it’s ridiculous, we have been waiting ten years, and my marriage is still not an equal marriage’’.
The goal of the petition is for it to reach 20,000 signatures because once ‘‘the last petition reached 20,000, the government started engaging with us’’ said Ranae.
This May marked the tenth anniversary of the milestone Marriage Equality referendum. However, the children of same-sex parents are still confronted with unreliability in areas such as citizenship, childcare, birth registration and access to inheritance rights as well as social welfare due to current legislation.
CEO of Equality for Children, Ranae explained the reasoning behind the founding of Equality for Children in 2019. It was formed by ‘‘a group of LGBTQ+ parents…who came together to fight for equality for their children’’. It is a ‘‘not-for-profit organisation that is fully volunteer led.’’ Ranae went on to explain how ‘‘in Ireland, the majority of children within LGBTQ+ families are prevented from having a legal relationship with both of their parents’’. They aim to ‘‘make sure our children are treated equally’’.
Equality for Children estimates that ‘‘more than half of LGBTQ+ families in Ireland are still waiting for their children to be granted equality.’’
LGBTQ+ parents face the challenging situation of the lack of a functioning legal framework establishing parent-child relationships with both same-sex parents. The families must deal with the emotional impact of their family not being recognised by the state and having ‘‘a parent being a legal stranger to their child’’. Ranae described how her own family are in this position.
‘‘We had our first daughter in 2016 and our second daughter in 2018. I gave birth to them, so I was their legal parent but my wife who is their genetic parent and because we used her eggs was a legal stranger to them.’’
However, with the legislation change in 2020, now both Ranae and her wife Audrey are legally recognised as the parents of their daughters. However, their youngest son who is one and ‘‘not conceived in Ireland’’ only has Ranae on his birth certificate. This means that there are ‘‘three siblings with two of them having two parents and one of them only having one parent’’.
Ranae won the GALA’s Person of the Year award in October for her work in advocating for LGBTQ+ rights. She said ‘‘it was amazing and very unexpected’’. She went on to describe how it was nice to know ‘‘the community recognises’ her work ‘on such an important issue’ and how winning person of the year ‘was such a privilege’’.
‘‘Some people think this isn’t an issue that affects them, but I really think this affects everyone. Even if you aren’t gay or have children, you better believe there is someone in your life who is affected.’’ Ranae explained how if legislation does not change right now ‘‘there is going to be generations of people who are suffering because of it’’.
The current legislation creates a hierarchy within gay families, ‘‘where gay mothers are covered but gay dads aren’t as well as families who have or haven’t used a clinic to conceive’’.
Ranae highlighted how ‘‘it shouldn’t matter how they were conceived or where they were born, children born to same-sex couples should be given the same protection as any other child. It is really important that people understand that if it is an issue that affects children then it affects all of us.’’
A way for people to try to get involved in the campaign or to help raise awareness according to Ranae is ‘‘by signing the petition, sharing the petition and all our social media content. They should email their local TD and ask them what they are doing about the issue as well as send the petition to them.’’