Queer Intimacies and Structural Inequalities

Abstract

This article examines queer intimacies produced by and within a growing industry in assisting human reproduction. Queer users of fertility biomedicine such as gay men, gender queer, and transgender people are constituted within expanded biomedical fertility services in ways similar to their heterosexual counterparts, reproduce more than humans: they reproduce consumer marketplaces, normativities, notions of belonging, and intensifying inequalities. Yet as they negotiate and, at times, reinforce these contours, they also participate in new kinship forms as they demand inclusion in one of the most durable and supported social practices: having children.

Adult offspring of lesbian parents reflect on having been donor conceived: Feelings about their sperm donor and donor siblings.

“…In their description of family identity theory, Byrd and Garwick (2004, p. 313) stated that “Women in interracial partnerships described their racial identity development in two processes: (a) rejecting constraining narratives and (b) identifying with empowering narratives.” The NLLFS offspring, too, were aware that their conception was atypical but clearly felt empowered in their families. As Mamo and Alston-Stepnitz (2015, pp. 524–525) have stated, “Lesbians, as they negotiated fertility biomedicine, did so in ways that imagined and created kinship ties based on the affinities offered by the technoscientific offerings.” Thus, the offspring grew up among other families with parents with minoritized sexual identities, where the presence of sperm donors and donor siblings was not as unusual as it might have been in heterosexual-parent families.…”

“…Finding sperm donors and donor siblings affects their sense of family and relatedness, a process that can change over their life course. Mamo and Alston-Stepnitz (2015, p. 526) theorized that in families with parents with minoritized sexual identities, “biological ties alone no longer bond who and what constitutes a family and instead, a constellation of bio and social connections form the basis of kinship.”…”

Fertility Preservation Options for Transgender Patients: An Overview

“…There is no denying that issues related to cryopreservation of reproductive cells or tissues among transgender people have the potential to beget unprecedented ethical, financial, religious and legal challenges, such as establishing the biological and familial relationships on legal documents that cannot recognize fathers who gave birth or mothers who donated sperm. Further complicating these scenarios are the tissue inheritance rights for those who do not end up using their preserved tissues [60]. The answers to these questions await the results of additional research and discussion [52].…”

Repronormativität und reproduktive Gerechtigkeit – eine interdisziplinäre Analyse zur Fortpflanzung im Kontext von Trans

“…Es sollen also diverse Ursachen der Verletzung reproduktiver Rechte sowie ihr Zusammenwirken (Stichwort: Intersektionalität) in den Blick genommen werden ( Ross 2017 : 304). Auch eine globale Perspektive auf reproduktive Gerechtigkeit ist angesichts eines wachsenden transnationalen Marktes für Adoption, Eizellspende und Leihmutterschaft angezeigt ( Mamo und Alston-Stepnitz 2015 ).…”