The Civil Code and the Right to a Family: “Forget About It”
🤷♀️ Ukraine decided not to fall behind the wider trend of rolling back LGBTI rights. This time, the attempted attack on human rights took place in private law.
🤡 Following Russia’s example, lawmakers decided that European integration commitments were not a priority for Ukraine’s legal system. They excluded the rights of LGBTI people, and especially trans people, from the draft of the future Civil Code.
More detail below, as always 👉
Contents
What happened?
Have a loved one and a constitutional right to a family? LMAO, forget about it now.
Bill No. 14394, submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, provides for a new Civil Code that would also regulate family law. Ukraine’s Family Code would be repealed.
The draft of the new Civil Code includes provisions removing any recognition of same-sex families and marriages “registered with a person who has changed sex”.
Same-sex families: “forget about it”
Remember how Kyiv’s Desnianskyi District Court recognised a same-sex couple as a family last year? A Ukrainian court established the existence of marital relations between two men. Its decision established that they had lived together as one family, in a de facto marital relationship, since 2013.
Forget about it. Article 1474, “De facto family union”, proposes:
- A de facto family union is recognised as two persons of the opposite sex living together as one family without registering a marriage, provided they are not in another marriage.
Trans people’s marriages: “forget about it”
Remember how the requirement to dissolve a marriage because of transition was abolished in 2016? And how a marriage to a trans person remains valid today even if the sex marker in their passport changes?
Yes, after the passport’s sex marker changed, the marriage effectively became same-sex. Although civil registration offices did not issue marriage certificates in the new name, a “change of sex” is formally absent from the grounds on which a marriage can be declared invalid.
Well… forget about it. Article 1495, “Invalid marriage”, proposes:
- A marriage registered with a person who has changed sex is invalid.
Moreover, “registered with a person who has changed sex” is vague and open to broad interpretation. It does not clarify whether it means a “change of sex” during a marriage, which would make it same-sex and therefore something the state wishes to dissolve — for what purpose? Or is it a prohibition on entering any marriage with a trans person at all?
Ukraine copies Moscow’s practice
This practice has not only been proposed in Ukraine. It has already been implemented in another Eurasian state.
The Russian bill imposing a complete ban on transition and all gender-affirming medical interventions also annulled all marriages entered into with trans people. Putin signed the bill on 24 July 2023, and it effectively applies in territories of Ukraine and other countries occupied by Russia.
Is this compatible with European integration?
No. In May 2025, the Cabinet of Ministers approved roadmaps for EU accession containing requirements for same-sex partnerships diametrically opposed to this draft Civil Code:
LGBTIQ persons are guaranteed equal rights through the introduction of registered partnerships.
Develop and adopt a law determining the legal status of registered partnerships, partners’ personal non-property and property rights and obligations, and their protection.
The deadline was the third quarter of 2025. Responsible bodies were the Ministry of Justice, the Verkhovna Rada and the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights. By the way, we have already missed that deadline.
To join the European Union, Ukraine must also meet the Copenhagen criteria, including respect for human rights and protection of minorities.
The influence of Western conservative thought?
Besides these “innovations”, the draft Civil Code also allowed fourteen-year-old children to marry by court decision in the event of pregnancy or the birth of a child — to a child!
The initial version of Article 1478, “The right to marry”, stated:
- Persons of the opposite sex who have reached marriageable age have the right to marry.
- A person who has reached sixteen years of age, or fourteen in the event of pregnancy or giving birth, may, upon application, be granted the right to marry by a court decision if this is established to be in their interests.
After numerous negative comments on the proposed provision, however, Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk promised to remove the child-marriage provision. The subsequent version of Article 1478(2) shown in the post retained only the age of sixteen:
- A person who has reached sixteen years of age may, upon application, be granted the right to marry by a court decision if this is established to be in their interests.
What Ruslan Stefanchuk said
The post reproduces his statement:
Criticism is spreading online about a provision of one article of the bill supposedly lowering the marriageable age to fourteen.
Let me begin by saying this is not true. The bill provides that, if a person who has reached fourteen gives birth or is pregnant, marriage may be permitted EXCLUSIVELY BY COURT DECISION.
This provision certainly does not encourage marriage at fourteen. It is protective: intended to protect the interests of the newborn child. That is why several restrictions are included.
First, a person who has reached fourteen must have given birth or be pregnant. Second, a court decision is required.
In the authors’ view, this would ensure what the world calls consideration of the BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD: that a newborn, regardless of circumstances they did not create, has a chance to grow up in a complete, loving family rather than be left without a father or mother.
The legal arguments here are unambiguous.
At the same time, the working group sees that society’s response to this provision is mixed. Following discussions, we have therefore decided to remove it from the draft and retain the current provision.
To conclude: this provision will not be in the draft. We cannot make the other 1,949 articles of a large and fundamental bill depend on the acceptance or rejection of one article.
Thank you all for your engagement and discussion.
The moral
As long as Ukrainian lawmakers ignore objective public demands to expand human rights in Ukraine and instead turn to Russian legal practice and ideas close to those of certain American financiers, for example, we can forget about a European future.
We will follow developments and advocacy processes closely.