To be a mother or to be lesbian?

Considerations about the case Atala Riffo and children vs. Chile in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.1590/2179-8966/2025/85557

This article is based on a choice posed to Karen Atala Riffo by the Chilean Supreme Court in 2004: to exercise the role of mother or to exercise her sexuality – but not both. It intends to observe the interrelationships between the categories gender, sexuality and reproduction based on the study of the Case Atala Riffo and Children vs. Chile, at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, understood as an international Justice and Dispute System, through the case study methodology. Still, in addition to discussing the recognition of sexual orientation as a category protected by the American Convention on Human Rights, this work seeks to reflect on the discourse used by both the Chilean and Inter-American Courts regarding the relationship between motherhood and non-heterosexual orientation. In the end, after reassembling in historical perspective the relations of domination that subjugate motherhood to heteronormativity, it aims to question the effectiveness of the Inter-American decision in the face of violence against the LGBTQIA+ community. In the end, it is concluded that the Justice Systems for Conflict Resolution, although they have promoted advances in Human Rights, still face the challenge of structural gender violence.