Compendium of Inclusive Family Law , Søren Laursen

The LGBT komiteen1 in August 2021 published an English translation of its Kompendium I inkluderende familieret (ISBN 978-87-971447-2-5), which was released in June of the same year.2 The author of the Compendium is Søren Laursen, founder of the LGBT komiteen and a long-time LGBT activist. The present review focuses on the English translation of the Kompendium (hereinafter ‘the Compendium’).3 The Compendium does three things: it provides an analysis of Danish family law and its shortcomings in relation to rainbow families; it provides a list of 30 recommendations on amendments to the law; and it includes a suggestion for a (draft) Children’s Act which would cater, also, for children with more than two legal parents as well as with trans parents. The Introduction to the English Edition of the Compendium summarises the Danish legal framework regarding rainbow families. Denmark is one of the most advanced European countries in terms of LGBT+ equality and is consistently among the top-ranking countries in ILGA Europe’s Rainbow Map index.4 It is the first country in the world to introduce same-sex registered partnerships (in 1989), though it opened marriage to same-sex couples only in 2012. In 1999, it permitted second-parent adoption within a (same-sex) registered partnership which meant that a child could now have two legal parents of the same sex – another first for Denmark. However, until 2006, second-parent adoption was the only way open to same-sex couples to become the joint parents of a child as, until then, there was a ban on assisted reproduction for same-sex female couples, while same-sex couples were given access to adoption only in 2010. Rainbow families were included for the first time within the scope of the Danish Children’s Act in 2013, which covers single parents, same-sex couples, men, and women who are not couples, as well as a constellation of a man and a female couple where the three of them can decide whether it is the man or the (birth) mother’s female partner that will be the other legal parent of the child (given that, currently, only two persons can be the legal parents of a child). As regards trans persons, the Compendium explains that unconditional gender recognition was introduced in 2014 which meant that there was no longer a requirement of sterilisation; hence, trans persons who are recognised in their psychological gender can, since then, give birth to children (trans men) or have children who will be biologically linked to them (trans women)

Compendium · Danish · General partnership · Political science · Relation (database · Sociology · Conflict of Laws and Jurisdiction · European and International Law Studies · Reproductive Health and Technologies · Gender Studies · History · Law