When I started reporting this story, I thought I was covering a policy success. I was wrong.

This Pride Month, I’m thinking about the lesbian couples I met in France who were promised equal access to fertility treatment, only to be shut out from actually using it. France ranks among the world's best for fertility access, and since 2021, women have had the legal right to state-funded treatment regardless of sexual orientation. On paper, it looked like a win. 

Instead, I found lesbian women still facing barriers in the clinics meant to serve them – asked whether their child would have a male role model, or handed intake forms assuming every family consisted of one man and one woman.

One public hospital was found to have turned away two lesbian couples, citing the "values of the facility". Even for women who weren't turned away outright, years-long wait times and donor shortages stood in the way, forcing some women to seek expensive treatment abroad, and others to risk aging out of eligibility entirely. A right without access isn't equity, and these women deserve better than an empty promise. 

That’s why accountability journalism matters.

After Fuller published the story, the clinic at the center of my reporting said it redesigned its intake forms and will introduce training for psychologists to better serve same-sex couples. Clinic staff told me the intrusive and discriminatory questioning reported by many of the women I interviewed will no longer be part of the process.

While there’s still work to do, including that trans people remain excluded from this public resource, this change is proof that rigorous reporting can make a difference.

Stories like this don't come to light on their own. They require reporters like me to spend time and build trust.

With gratitude,

Ester Pinheiro
Health correspondent