New project examines family building beyond heterosexuality
Whether it's a blended family, heterosexual and lesbian couples, who have children with the help of a sperm donor or egg donor, or gay couples who want to conceive through surrogacy - the experienced realities of family and intimate relationships are diverse. But what a family is and how it is built up are the exciting questions that the scientists will face within the next three years of the project "Ambivalent Recognition Code" funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Doing reproduction and doing family beyond the heterosexual 'normal family' "(project number: 367423336). As Almut Peukert says: ”Family is mostly understood as the heterosexual nuclear family with biological children. But many other family constellations are disregarded.”
Since marriage for everyone was introduced in autumn 2017, same-sex couples can adopt a child together for the first time. Despite increasing legal equality, social, institutional and legal inequalities persist. This manifests itself in the area of medically assisted reproduction, issues of descent or the legal and social arrangements of parenting. The project focuses on this tension between recognition and continuing differences in treatment. What practical and legal hurdles must LGBT * IQ overcome to start a family with children? How do they establish the family in everyday life? What experiences of equality and inequality have the families? The researchers want to provide answers to these questions using qualitative interviews with couples and families.
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