Man cannot be registered as ‘mother’, France’s highest court rules

A man who lives as if he is a woman cannot be listed as the mother of his child, France’s highest court has ruled.

The Cour de Cassation overturned a 2018 ruling which gave the 51-year-old man the new status of “biological parent” for his now six-year-old child.

The court rejected his attempt to be classed as a ‘mother’, stating that “two maternal filiations cannot be established with regard to the same child, outside of adoption”. The case will now return to a lower court for a new hearing.

Male

The man, now known as Claire, had two children with his wife before changing legal sex in 2011.

When his wife gave birth to their third child in 2014, he mounted a legal challenge to be registered as the child’s mother.

Ludovine de la Rochère, President of the pro-family group La Manif Pour Tous, commented that ‘Claire’ conceived the child with his wife as a man, and was therefore the father.

“We cannot rewrite the past”, she said.

England

In England earlier this year, the Court of Appeal ruled that a woman who lives as a man cannot be recorded as the father on her child’s birth certificate.

The three judges upheld the High Court’s ruling from 2019, saying that the law requires those who give birth to be listed as mothers.

The baby would have been the first in Britain not to have a registered mother if the legal challenge had been successful.