Lesbian mothers in Italy set to be erased from birth records

Lesbian mothers raising families in Italy risk being erased from official records and ordered to change the surnames of their children as Giorgia Meloni’s government continues its crackdown on same-sex families.

A magistrate in the northern city of Padua has sent a court a list of 33 lesbian couples registered as parents at the town hall since 2017 and asked judges to strike from birth records the name of the partner who did not give birth. If that partner’s surname has been taken by her child or children, it must be dropped, Valeria Sanzari, the magistrate, said.

The request, which will be ruled on by a court in November, is Sanzari’s response to an Italian government circular in March that ordered town halls to stop