Across China, more same-sex couples are changing diapers, swapping midnight feeds, and lining up for kindergarten interviews—only to discover that the paperwork of parenthood lags behind the reality of their families. A recent Beijing ruling that allowed a Shanghai mother known as “Didi” monthly visits with the daughter she carried was hailed as a first: a Chinese court implicitly acknowledged a child could have “two mothers.” But even that breakthrough was partial—she was denied contact with her son—capturing the hopeful and heartbreaking limbo in which China’s rainbow families live.
The law is the sticking point. China’s Civil Code still defines marriage as a union between “a man and a woman” (nan nü jiehun, 男女结婚), and there is no legal mechanism for step-parent or “second-parent” adoption for a same-sex partner. The adoption rules presume a married couple and list only step-mother/step-father pathways within heterosexual marriages, leaving no avenue for a second mother (di’er ge mama, 第二个妈妈) or second father to gain legal guardianship (fading jianhuguan, 法定监护权). In practice, this means only the birth mother or the genetic father—if recognized—shows up on the hukou (household registration, 户口), the document that controls schooling, health care and social services.
How do families get here? For many lesbian couples—often self-identified as “lala” (拉拉)—the route is assisted reproduction abroad or informal arrangements at home. But China’s regulatory framework restricts assisted reproductive technology (ART) to married heterosexual couples; clinics are barred from providing IVF (shiguan yinger, 试管婴儿) or even egg freezing (luanzi lengdong, 卵子冷冻) to single women. Women’s rights advocate Teresa Xu famously lost a years-long case seeking access to egg freezing as an unmarried woman, crystallizing how reproductive policy maps onto family recognition. The net effect is de facto technological discrimination: queer women must travel, improvise, or go without.
Gay men face a different wall. Surrogacy (daiyun, 代孕) is prohibited domestically and tightly policed; wealthier couples sometimes turn to overseas surrogacy and then navigate complex return and registration procedures, while others shelve parenthood entirely. Academic and media reporting alike underscore that there is no lawful local option, and that the policy climate has hardened since national crackdowns in the late 2010s. Children born via overseas arrangements can encounter documentation hurdles when families try to align citizenship, hukou, and school enrollment back home.
Despite these blocks, social attitudes are not frozen in time. A 2024 nationwide survey by the Williams Institute found that about half of respondents agreed that same-sex couples should be able to marry and can be capable parents—figures that climb further when “somewhat agree” is included. In other words, public sentiment is ahead of the statute book: many Chinese already accept that two mothers (liang ge mama, 两个妈妈) or two fathers (liang ge baba, 两个爸爸) can raise well-adjusted kids. That gap between attitudes and law helps explain why Didi’s partial court win felt so momentous, even as it exposed how far there is to go.
On the ground, everyday logistics can be as daunting as court fights. Without both parents listed on the child’s hukou, the “non-legal” mom or dad may be blocked from signing consent forms, picking up school records, or making medical decisions. Studies and reporting on LGBT-headed households describe the tightrope of using informal letters of authorization, relying on sympathetic administrators, or dodging questions at school gates. During the pandemic era, even pick-up QR passes and health-code checks sometimes exposed who counted as a “real” parent in bureaucratic eyes.
Culture cuts both ways. Filial piety (xiao, 孝) and the Confucian emphasis on continuity once fueled pressure to enter heterosexual marriages; today, some families of origin become fierce allies, forming parent support networks and WeChat groups to navigate enrollment offices and hospital counters. Meanwhile, policymakers fretting over a record-low birth rate are expanding benefits for children born “out of wedlock,” yet the system still presumes a heterosexual couple at its core. The result is a policy paradox: China wants more babies, but keeps families like Didi’s in a legal half-light.
For now, the path forward looks incremental: court decisions that prioritize a child’s best interests; municipal workarounds that let the “other” parent authorize pickups or appointments; and, ultimately, reforms that recognize guardianship beyond the man-woman marriage box. The Mandarin has a tidy phrase for common sense: shun qi ziran (顺其自然)—let things follow their nature. In living rooms from Chengdu to Shanghai, children already rush into the arms of two moms or two dads. The law’s job is to notice.
China. A country that can send rockets to the moon but still can’t quite figure out how to write two mothers on a birth certificate. Auntie is impressed by your technological advancement, darlings, but when it comes to love, family, and equality—you’re still stuck in a bureaucratic time warp. Every time I read about a brave couple like Didi and her partner fighting for their children, I want to shout: these families already exist! They eat breakfast, pack lunchboxes, read bedtime stories. They are not “future possibilities” to be debated by lawmakers—they are today’s reality.
What’s so frightening about recognizing two moms (liang ge mama, 两个妈妈) or two dads (liang ge baba, 两个爸爸)? The heavens won’t fall, the dragons won’t stop dancing, and the Great Wall won’t crumble. Love and care are the same, whether they come from a mother, a father, two mothers, or two fathers. Yet, the law still clings to a narrow definition of marriage as between a man and a woman—as if social harmony depends on excluding families that don’t fit the old script. Auntie rolls her eyes so hard they almost spin into orbit.
And the irony! The government is panicking over the “population crisis,” begging citizens to have more babies, offering subsidies, even hinting at loosening some social restrictions. But heaven forbid two capable, committed women raise a child together. No IVF (shiguan yinger, 试管婴儿) for them, no surrogacy (daiyun, 代孕) for gay men, no step-parent adoption for queer couples. It’s as if the message is: we want more children, but only from the right kind of love.
Still, Auntie knows something the officials don’t: love is stubborn. Chinese queer couples are quietly, determinedly forming families—traveling abroad for fertility treatment, signing private agreements, raising kids who will grow up to see a bigger world. And these children? They’re doing just fine. Studies show it again and again: kids raised by same-sex parents are as healthy, happy, and grounded as any others. Perhaps even more so, because they’re raised in homes where authenticity, not hypocrisy, is the first lesson.
So, to all my lala (拉拉) sisters, my gay brothers, my brave parents who sign school forms with trembling hands—Auntie salutes you. The paperwork may not see you, but history already does. And one day, when the Civil Code finally grows up, China will look back and realize: these rainbow families were its future all along.