Paying to reproduce the transgender body: Natalism and fertility preservation as social control

• In Event: Transgender and Queer Embodiments

Abstract

Combining historical analysis of the parallel development of reproductive technologies which enable queer biological parentage and the development of a homonormative model of family formation with contemporary bioethical discourses of transition, I aim to extend the biopolitical logics at work here to the developing biomedical norms surrounding transgender patients’ reproductive futures as imagined by the gatekeepers of medical transition. By establishing a normalized lifecourse and reproductive path while ignoring or obfuscating the financial burden of pursuing the reproductive technologies which enable trans people to adhere to the cis-norm, I argue that the medical standards of “care” are in line with the biopolitical project of population control under neoliberal capitalism – the ultimate goal being to impose financial cost on all expression of individual agency over embodiment and reproduction.

Author

• Carrie Sheehan, Boston University