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21 Feminist L. Stud. 1 (2013)

handle is hein.journals/femlst21 and id is 1 raw text is: Fem Leg Stud (2013) 21:1-19 DOI 10.1007/s10691-012-9206-9 Two Mothers in Law and Fact Robert Leckey Published online: 25 July 2012 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 Abstract What is the proper balance between legislative and judicial innovation and between formal and functional family recognition once legislatures have addressed gay men's and lesbians' families? In the civil-law jurisdiction of Quebec, legislative reforms allow two women to register as a child's mothers. But judges have recognized a second mother 'in fact' by orders sharing custody where the parties had not used the new legislative channels. Such judicial creativity is rec- oncilable with the civil law and comparative scholars should flag it as a valuable resource. But it risks undermining legislative choices about family recognition. Perhaps the option to give a child a second mother includes the choice for a lesbian birth mother not to do so. Once two women become thinkable as spouses and mothers, judges risk inappropriately pressing a rich range of queer kinship possi- bilities into standard models. Keywords Lesbian mothers - Child custody - Civil law - Comparative law Functional family - Feminist comparative law Introduction This paper explores questions important to people who, in pursuit of feminist, anti- homophobic, or other justice-seeking agendas, are concerned by restrictive legal notions of family. To do so, it studies the example of the Canadian province of Quebec, where lesbian parents have obtained recognition through legislative reforms. In addition, courts have also recognized lesbian parenting where the parties had not used the legislated means for establishing legal bonds of family. With the R. Leckey (E) Faculty of Law and Paul-Andr6 Cr6peau Centre for Private and Comparative Law, McGill University, 3644 Peel Street, Montreal, QC H3A 1W9, Canada e-mail: robert.leckey@mcgill.ca I_ Springer

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