The before time : LGBT families prior to 2004

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Norrie, Kenneth McK. (2025) The before time : LGBT families prior to 2004. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 47 (1). pp. 12-27. ISSN 1469-9621 (https://doi.org/10.1080/09649069.2025.2499384)

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Abstract

The Civil Partnership Act 2004 changed everything for LGBT families in the United Kingdom. Before its passing there was little in the way of legal recognition or protection for same-sex couples and their children, and legislation explicitly described their families as ‘pretended family relationships’. Yet families based around same-sex couples existed, and they brought up children, in the face of official hostility. Courts regarded homosexuality as a negative factor in disputes over children, showing a notably clear preference for heteronormativity irrespective of the circumstances of the individual child. Not only was the formal institution of marriage closed to same-sex couples but the factual circumstance of cohabitation did not bring to same-sex couples even the limited legal consequences that it brought to opposite-sex unmarried couples. Exploring the legal position of same-sex couples in the time before the Civil Partnership Act 2004 is not just an exercise in historical indulgence: it serves as a warning of the human consequences of any backtracking from the advances in LGBT rights that were so significantly boosted by that Act.

ORCID iDs

Norrie, Kenneth McK. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1397-2576;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)