The city of Milan has stopped its practice of transcribing birth certificates created abroad for children with same-sex parents. The decision comes after the Italian far-right government sent a letter on the matter to all prefects in the country.

In January, the Minister of Interior Piantedosi sent a letter to all prefects in Italy, urging them to comply with what was established by the Court of Cassation last December. The court had decided that it wouldn’t be possible anymore for both parents in a same-sex couple to be indicated in their child’s birth certificate. Instead, only one parent could be included in the certificate, while the other would be forced to initiate adoption procedures.

The city of Milan was one of the few places in Italy where same-sex couples could be registered as parents of their children in a country where adoptions and marriages for same-sex couples are not legal. The letter from Italian Minister Piantedosi put pressure on Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala to interrupt the recognition practice.

Calling the suspension of the birth certificate transcriptions a “step backwards”, the Mayor explained that he had been given no alternative as he could not expose council employees to the possibility of facing criminal charges if they continued with the registrations. He went on to say that Italy needs a specific law allowing both members of a same-sex couple to be legally recognised as parents of their children.

Sala also added, “From today, even more than before, I take it upon myself to carry on this battle politically and to follow with the utmost attention every regulatory and judicial development of this complex affair”.

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LGBTQ+ activists in Italy have called out this decision as the latest attack on the rights of the queer community carried out by the Italian government, which has been deemed the country’s farthest-right government since Benito Mussolini and has repeatedly employed anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.

Famiglie Arcobaleno, an organisation that represents LGBTQ+ families in Italy, said that Mayor Sala was faced with a decision that was “painful and unjust”. The group’s president, Alessia Crocini, commented: “We learned the news with deep discouragement, aware of how much this government is working to remove any minimum right of citizenship from families of same-sex parents in Italy.”

Crocini continued saying that children “with two moms and two dads already exist in Italy, Minister Piantedosi and Prime Minister Meloni should get over it. Every day they go to school, enter pediatric clinics, play in parks and sports fields, attend music classes, like all their peers, without having the rights of all their peers.”