According to a Feb. 14 news release, the government is making public its Inclusive Yukon Families: What We Heard report, which “identifies key challenges in the Yukon’s current naming and parenting laws.”
Specifically, the report “highlights barriers faced by Indigenous communities seeking to reclaim traditional names, 2SLGBTQIA+ families striving for legal recognition and individuals using assisted reproduction or surrogacy to grow their families.”
The report found that 44 per cent of respondents agreed parents should be able to include in their child’s name letters and “characters” not part of the Roman alphabet — the system used for writing English and many European languages.
It also found that many Indigenous respondents emphasized the importance of “name reclamation,” which would be a step toward cultural preservation and reconciliation and thus allow Indigenous people to reclaim their traditional names for use in official documents.
Respondents also called for “more inclusive definitions that recognize diverse family compositions,” including those that include children through “surrogacy, egg and sperm donation and polyamorous relationships.”
They also want children’s rights to remain “central in determining legal parentage.”
And more than 60 per cent supported expanding the legal definition of “parent” to include those not biologically related to the child — those who used surrogacy or assisted reproduction, for example.
“This report will inform the Government of Yukon’s next steps in potential legislative changes to the Children’s Law Act, Vital Statistics Act and Change of Name Act,” states the release.
Yukon Minister of Health and Social Services Tracy-Anne McPhee said it was in 2023 that Yukon’s government made clear its commitment to modernize legislation “to better reflect the diversity” of families and “ensure inclusivity for all Yukoners.”
“This report reflects the voices of Yukoners who have shared their lived experiences and the challenges they face with our current naming and parentage laws,” said McPhee in a statement. “Their insights will help guide meaningful legislative changes that recognize and support families in the Yukon and promote inclusivity.”
The public engagement took place last year, between February and April and included an online survey and “targeted in-person discussions.”
There were 154 participants in the engagement — around 70 per cent of whom identified as having lived experience.
“The Government of Yukon will review the report’s findings and consider legislative amendments to ensure child naming and parentage laws reflect the Yukon’s diverse families,” states the release, which talks of “further analysis, collaboration with stakeholders and potential legal reforms in the coming months”.
In February 2024, when the public engagement was launched, Yukon’s government stated that current laws around parentage “often rely on biological connections and may be based on binary assumptions of gender and sex.”
“This outdated language does not reflect the reality of many Yukon families, particularly families with parents who are non-binary or not biological or who are members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community,” stated a news release from that time.
“Current laws addressing naming options may not be inclusive of cultural practices, the use of traditional languages or other people who do not use the Roman alphabet,” it states. “For example, based on current legislation, a name must include both a given name and a surname and cannot be a single name. Names must also be written in the Roman alphabet, and cannot include initials, numbers or other symbols.”
It notes that Yukon laws “establishing parentage currently require that a ‘mother’ be registered upon a child’s birth, with ‘mother’ defined as the woman from whom a child is delivered.”
This, it states, does not “consider situations of surrogacy, where the individual delivering the child may not intend to act as a parent.”
Results of the engagement would result in work to make laws that better reflect “the diverse cultural backgrounds and traditional languages of Yukon families”; that offer more inclusive naming options — particularly for Indigenous residents and residential school survivors; and that explore “parentage status for legal purposes and decision making.”
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