The Lesbian News Stack 2010 – What’s to remember and a lookout

By maxime68 on Sunday, January 2, 2011 - 20:13

Looking back on 2010 is quite a difficult affair, especially when focusing on politics and LGBT rights. When you are a news junkie like I am, you might remember that a lot of agonizing news made the headlines, often muting out those that will have a positive impact in the long run.

Which means that I will be among the first to admit that I’ve come to ignoring headlines like 'politician [xy] suggests [pro LGBT] legislation'. The appropriate term in my native language is 'producing warm air', compare it with promises of a lesBian lead in any TV show or rumors on the iPhone 5. Except that politics are even slower and not every politician who speaks to the press and is pro-LGBT rights has an impact on the process of legislation making.

Let’s focus on a selection of topics, good or bad (ok, drop the bad), that happened in 2010 and will continue to have an impact, and what changes have been made for 2011.

But we will start with a general explication of terms we have all grown accustomed to use:

Gay marriage / gender neutral marriage
The big difference between these terms is actually the legislation behind it. It is called 'gender neutral marriage' when the same laws apply to married same-sex couples as for straight couples. When we speak of 'gay marriage', this most often means that same-sex couples still don’t have the same rights as heterosexual couples, most often on the topic of child adoption. As we now count 11 countries that allow 'gay marriage', the number of countries with 'gender neutral marriages' is less, among them the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

Civil union, registered partnerships
There is no real difference between these terms, registered partnership can be found in the German speaking countries like Austria, Germany and Switzerland. The term 'civil union' has been formed by the English speaking countries and applies to the UK and from 2011 to Ireland too. While the UK civil union allows almost the same rights as traditional marriage, this does not apply to other countries.

PACS
France was the first country to introduce a 'PACS' which is similar rights to civil unions/registered partnerships, with the big exception that a PACS is open to straight couples too.

Gay adoption
Each time I write 'gay adoption' I have to think for myself of how confusing this is. What 'gay adoption' really stands for is the right for the same-sex couples to adopt children. Some countries have come to a halfhearted ruling which allows adoption if one of the couple is the biological parent (like the stepchild adoption in Germany) and some countries allow adoption for same-sex couples (like Belgium), while other countries plain out refuse adoption for any other than heterosexual, married couples (France).