Black celebrities, reproductive justice and queering family: an exploration

Abstract

Decades ago, political theorist Cathy Cohen reflected on the meaning and possibilities of coalition among groups as diverse as gay men and single mothers. This article focuses on Black women's fertility struggles as they navigate controlling images and the Black fertility mandate. I compare accounts of how celebrities and non-celebrities have discussed making families through reproductive technology, and whether we can read these narratives as attempting to redefine and even 'queer' family. Ultimately, while the horizons of reproductive technology are ever expanding, those of us who care about justice would do well to ask if and how, in the everyday operations of our life, the technology does anything to change how the particular society in which we are embedded views people on the reproductive margins, such as single mothers and others who 'queer' typical narratives of reproduction.

Reproducing while Black: the crisis of Black maternal health, obstetric racism and assisted reproductive technology

“…Another point worth noting is that, like Selina and Valerie, Melissa's experience exemplifies how ART is a queer endeavour in contrast to coital modes of reproduction (Luna, 2018). ART is not only accessed to address the crisis of infertility, as was the case for Ella (Mamo, 2007;Smietana et al, 2018), but Black women intentionally deploy reproductive technology in the production of Black queer family making.…”

“…The familiarity of Black women with ART is now heightened due to well-known women sharing their conception and surrogacy stories, as Michelle Obama has done in her autobiography ( Obama, 2018 ). Obama and other famous Black women have described using ART ( Luna, 2018 ). Nonetheless, Black women, who have higher rates of infertility, are less likely to pursue infertility services than white women, and, when they do, the success rates are much lower ( Shapiro et al, 2017 , Wiltshire et al, 2019 ).…”

Queering reproductive justice: Memories, mistakes, and motivations to transform kinship

“…For instance, the nonnormative or queer family could be considered the single‐parent‐headed household, multiparent households, trans‐headed families, families created through assisted reproductive technology (ART), families living under state violence and/or extreme poverty, families created through various forms of adoption, among others. Luna (2018) refers to nonnormative families as “disruptive families”—a term I like and will use throughout this article. We can consider an array of disruptive families beyond the heteronormative nuclear family and contest patriarchal, racist, classist, and biological confinement (Acosta 2018; Dyer 2017; Smietana, Thompson, and Twine 2018).…”

Parenthood: Beyond Maternity and Paternity

“…While occurring in culturally distinct ways, common changes in these patterns and relations include complex, cross‐cultural parenting arrangements (for instance, transnational surrogacy), the rise of so‐called delayed parenthood, as well as low and declining fertility rates across much of the world, including East Asia, Australasia, Europe, and North America (Clarke and Haraway 2018; Huang and Wu 2018; Rudrappa 2018). Concerns over low reproduction rates in the global North have conflicted with worries regarding “overpopulation” in the global South (Rudrappa 2018) or stereotypes of Black women's “hyperfertility” (Clarke and Haraway 2018; Luna 2018). Yet parenthood relations remain of key global importance and are also increasingly complex and in need of fresh analyses.…”

“…This is especially obvious considering the burgeoning popularity and availability of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) like in vitro fertilization (IVF) (Franklin 2013; Rudrappa 2018). In recent decades, anthropologists and other researchers have attended to the material, social, cultural, commercial, and policy transformations of these reproductive technologies, including the unequal and shifting (non)use and access to such technologies for trans people, single people, and those in nonheterosexual relationships (Baird 2019; Clarke 2008; Edwards 2000; Gunnarsson Payne 2018; Luna 2018; Nahman 2018; Rudrappa 2018). Research likewise has focused on the cultural meanings, inequalities, and practices of reproductive technologies such as sperm and egg donations (Nahman 2018), contraceptive technologies (Wynn and Foster 2017), and the rise and regulation of local and international surrogacy, adoption, and foster parenting (Gunnarsson Payne 2018; Nahman 2018; Rudrappa 2018).…”