Abstract Book of the 4th International Conference on LGBT Studies
Year: 2025
[PDF]
From Broken to Becoming: Queering the Politics of Infertility and Family in Medical Contexts
Dr. Penny Harvey, Teresa King, Violet Fox, Dr. Sam Costa
ABSTRACT:
This paper examines the intersections of biopolitics, embodiment, and medicalized family-making in the context of donor conception, centering trans and queer intended parents. Using a biopolitical lens, we explore how fertility and family formation are shaped by medical and legal systems, emphasizing the barriers queer and trans individuals face when conceiving outside heteronormative frameworks. Through online narratives, we analyze how intended parents navigate infertility, entitlement, and loss in relation to dominant norms of family and the “working body.” Embodiment reveals how fertility is constructed as a function of a normative, cisheterosexual body, leaving trans and queer people to contend with perceptions of “brokenness” or failure. We examine how these narratives uphold exclusionary ideals of parenthood, reinforcing the notion of the “deserving parent” and privileging cisgender, heterosexual pathways to family-making. By interrogating distinctions between medicalized infertility, social infertility, and the overlapping experiences of trans and queer parents, we highlight systemic inequities in reproductive care. We also explore ethical tensions in online donor conception communities, where debates emerge over anonymous donation, international gamete sourcing, and the perceived entitlement to parenthood. Clinics and legal systems shape these decisions, often failing to prioritize donor-conceived people’s rights or queer family needs. These tensions reveal the political stakes of reproductive technologies, underscoring the need for more inclusive, transformative models of care that affirm trans and queer pathways to parenthood.
Keywords: bio-politics, families, fertility, LGBTQ, social media