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Chapter 11 - ‘Spunkles’, Donors, and Fathers
- from Part II - Children’s and Adults’ Lived Experiences in Diverse Donor-Linked Families
- Edited by Fiona Kelly, La Trobe University, Victoria, Deborah Dempsey, Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria, Adrienne Byrt, Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria
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Summary
Growing numbers of men, trans/masculine, and non-binary people are bearing children, some of whom utilise known donor sperm to conceive. How this diverse population understands the role of known donors has, to date, received little attention. This chapter focuses on nine individuals who used known donor sperm to conceive, drawn from a larger international study of 51 men, trans/masculine, or non-binary people who were gestational parents. The participants discuss the role of donors in their children’s lives, exploring topics such as identifying potential donors, the incorporation (or not) of donors into existing kinship narratives, and the need to create opportunities for children to negotiate their own relationships with donors in the future. The findings highlight the potentially unique social scripting needs of men, trans/masculine, and non-binary people who conceive using donor sperm. The chapter concludes by providing suggestions for how this diverse group of people may be assisted in developing these unique social scripts.
Index
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Contents
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one - Theorising transgender
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The aim of the first chapter of this book is to explore how transgender has been approached within different theoretical fields in order to foreground my discussions of gender diversity in subsequent chapters. I begin by engaging with medical models of transvestism and transsexuality. While transgender practices themselves stretch infinitely back in time, the study of transgender is relatively recent, emerging from medical studies around 100 years ago. Medical perspectives on transgender have, however, come to occupy a dominant position that has significantly affected how transgender is viewed and experienced within contemporary Western society. As Ekins and King argue: “[…] medical perspectives stand out as the culturally major lens through which gender blending may be viewed in our society. Other perspectives must take medical perspectives into account whether they ultimately incorporate, extend or reject them” (1996: 75).
The subsequent sections of the chapter are organised around critiques of medical discourse brought by varied strands of social and cultural theory. First I consider ethnomethodology, which provided an initial critique of medical perspectives on transgender practices. Importantly, ethnomethodological studies located gender at the level of the social and analysed how ‘common-sense’ methods of understanding gender are acted out in everyday exchanges. Yet ethnomethodology emphasises a binary model of gender in assuming that all individuals fall within either a male or a female gender category. The following two sections of the chapter address critiques of medical discourse brought by lesbian and gay studies, and feminism. As I will explore, however, many writers within these fields have reinforced the marginal position of the transgender individual.
The next section considers the ways in which other feminist writers have attempted to develop more progressive perspectives on gender and sexuality. Yet feminism remains problematic for a contemporary understanding of transgender. As Monro argues: “[…] feminism is problematic as a basis for analysing trans in that its locus rests on male–female categorisation” (2000:36). This critique can also be applied to lesbian and gay theory. As I move on to explore, poststructuralist and postmodernist feminist work and queer theory are more helpful for developing a contemporary understanding of transgender.
three - Transgender identities and experiences
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Transgender identities are cut through with multiple variables such as gender, sexuality, ‘race’ and ethnicity, class, age, transitional time span and geographical location. While the subsequent two chapters focus specifically on gender and sexuality in relation to the construction of transgender identities and subjectivities, this chapter explores how transgender identities are constructed and experienced in relation to a range of additional composites.
There is a wealth of autobiographical work on transgender identity formation and recently work that can be considered under the banner of ‘transgender theory’ offers a postmodern mix of critical analysis, political critique and autobiography to explore the experiences of gender transition. Nataf (1996) and Feinberg (1996), for example, articulate a range of female-to-male (FtM) gender and sexual identities. Although Nataf explores gender as a performative concept, he does so by drawing on a range of transgender lesbian subjective experiences of the expression and interpretation of gender. In Feinberg's work, the author is placed at the centre of the narrative as the analytical investigation of transgender histories links with Feinberg's gender trajectory. Feinberg's later work (1999) vocalises a diversity of (trans)gender and sexual identities, and calls for an inclusive trans politics that is able to dually celebrate and specify difference. Significantly Feinberg incorporates the structures of age, class and ethnicity, as well as gender and sexuality, into the discussion of transgender identities, thus paving the way for a material and social analysis of transgender.
There are a number of studies within sociology, social policy, anthropology and literature and cultural studies that adopt a micro analysis variously to explore transgender identity constructions, behaviour patterns and politics. Devor (1989), Lewins (1995), Nataf (1996) and Cromwell (1999) explore a range of FtM gender and sexual identities. Halberstam (1998) makes visible the historical and contemporary diversity of female masculinity. Kulick (1998) examines the identities and experiences of transgendered prostitutes in Brazil. Wilson (2002) looks at the formation of transgender identities in Western Australia. Monro (2005) explores collective identities and transgender politics. Ekins and King (1999) have developed a cartography of transgendering to take account of the ways in which transgender narratives are distinct. Hirschauer (1997), King (2003) and Ekins and King (2006) employ the concept of gender ‘migration’ to examine experiences of transition.
four - Gender identities and feminism
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As was explored in the previous chapter, participants in the research on which this book draws used a variety of terms to describe their gender identity. While some participants identified as ‘man’ or ‘woman’, most used the prefix of ‘trans’ before gender nouns, or employed the terms FtM or MtF to articulate the ways in which their gender identities were distinct. This chapter further develops previous discussions of gendered understanding by exploring participants’ discussions of the relationship between transgender and feminism in order to consider the ways in which transgender and feminism are theoretically correlated and connected through lived experiences. In this way, feminism is utilised as a lens through which to analyse both subjective (trans)gender identities and the divergent links between feminism and trans masculinity and trans femininity. Feminism and lesbian, gay and bisexual movements are significant here as social movements that challenge the meanings of gender. Meanings of feminism are explored in this chapter and movements around sexuality in the next.
Research data is initially analysed to address the ways in which transgender male participants articulate their experiences of second-wave feminism. To posit the argument that there are important connections between feminist concerns and transgender practices and experiences, the latter part of this section moves on to draw out some of the ways in which these participants relate to contemporary feminism by looking at how they situate themselves in relation to feminist concerns. The next section examines these issues in relation to the narratives of transgender women. The separation of the narratives of transgender men and women is purposefully employed with the aim of distinguishing between (trans)gendered identity positions and subjectivities. While there are common themes within feminist thinking on transgender masculinity and transgender femininity, and similarities between the experiences and understandings of feminism for transgender men and women, I believe that these gendered narratives merit individual consideration. As discussed in the previous chapter, transgender identities and subjectivities are cut through with multiple variables. In examining transgender men and women's narratives independently of each other, my aim here is to pay heed to (trans)gendered difference. In doing this I also hope to go some way towards remedying the tendency within analyses of transgender to focus on the experiences of trans women (Ekins and King, 1997), and thus to marginalise the experiences of trans masculinity.
seven - Kinship and friendship
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From polemic that denotes a crisis in family life, bemoaning the loss of the ‘traditional’ family, to suggestions of increased agency in the creation of ‘families of choice’ (Weston, 1991), contemporary familial relationships provoke much public and sociological debate. While the impact of gender transition on relationships with parents, siblings and extended family differs with individual circumstance, to present instances of positive interaction and of disconnection the process of transition will always take place to some extent within the social framework of kinship. With this point in mind, the first section of this chapter explores gender transition within the context of kinship relationships. Initially I address the significance of support and care from parents and other family members for people beginning gender transition. The section then moves on to explore the narratives of participants whose transition led to fractured relationships with their family of origin.
As discussed in Chapter Two, various studies have shown that friendship is increasingly significant within contemporary practices of intimacy (Altman, 1982; Rubin, 1985; Nardi, 1992; Weeks, 1995; Weeks et al, 2001; Roseneil, 2003; Roseneil and Budgeon, 2004). Friends are seen to be as important as partners or family members and, for many lesbians and gay men in particular, friends are positioned as family (Nardi, 1992). The latter part of the chapter situates friendship as a significant site through which to address altered dynamics of intimacy within the context of gender transition. Here the concept of ‘friends as family’ is considered in relation to previous discussions of fractured familial relationships. Finally, the chapter explores practices of friendship in terms of the impact of gender transition upon existing friendships and in relation to discussions about the significance of friendships with other transgender people.
Kin relationships
Support of family
The support of family members, and particularly parents, can be seen to affect significantly both the decision to begin and the experiences of gender transition. For younger people, parental support is particularly significant. In the following quotation, for example, William (age 25) discusses how the support of his family gave him the confidence to begin transition as a teenager:
I kind of bumbled through with my parents and they were always with me. I’ve lived with them for 25 years and they’ve always been there throughout my transition as I’ve lived at home.
two - Analysing care, intimacy and citizenship
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This chapter relates gender diversity to existing work on the practices and meanings of care, intimacy and citizenship. What follows is a selective discussion of this body of literature; it is impossible here to address this extensive field in its entirety. For example, the chapter does not include feminist work during the 1970s that focused upon the role of women within the family, theorising the capitalist and/or patriarchal family as an agent of women's oppression (Wilson, 1977; McIntosh, 1978). Although this work relates to the arena of care in its analysis of women's role within the family, its broader premise of theorising the family from a Marxist–feminist perspective is beyond the scope of this book. Likewise, the chapter does not examine recent studies into changing family practices, which have illustrated shifting gender roles and suggested an increased fluidity of identities within contemporary family life (Irwin, 1999; Morgan, 1999; Smart and Neale, 1999). Rather, the aim here is to explore the ways in which recent work has challenged notions of gender essentialism and/or heteronormative understandings of care, intimacy and citizenship. In particular, the aim of the chapter is to consider how, by moving beyond the restrictions of a binary gender model, this book may contribute to studies that challenge a heteronormative analysis of care, intimacy and citizenship.
Care can be broadly defined as: “the […] day-to-day activities which are so central to the sustaining of family lives and personal relationships – helping, tending, looking out for, thinking about, talking, sharing, and offering a shoulder to cry on” (Williams, 2004: 17). Moreover, I agree with Williams’ understanding of the concept of ‘care’ as practised at both an individual and collective level. Such an understanding of ‘care’ goes beyond a political comprehension of care as it relates to welfare policy, to explore care as a practice of everyday support. In discussing ‘intimacy’ and ‘intimate relationships’, I refer to close, caring, personal relationships that are both sexually (partners and lovers) and nonsexually (friendships) experienced and practised.
The first part of the chapter examines how early feminist work on care challenged the idea that unpaid caring work was a ‘natural’ female role through which the carer demonstrated her love for, and commitment to, her family. Rather, from a feminist perspective, care came to be analysed as an integral feature of women's exploitation (Finch and Groves, 1989; Finch, 1989).
six - Partnering and parenting relationships
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As Chapter Two discussed, there has been an expansion of research into shifting familial and partnering structures within sociology and social policy. Intimacy is seen as a site of social transformation within contemporary society (Giddens, 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995). Lesbian and gay partnering and parenting relationships are positioned at the forefront of changing affective structures (Weston, 1991; Giddens, 1992; Sandell, 1994; Stacey, 1996; Roseneil, 2000; Weeks et al, 2001; Roseneil and Budgeon, 2004). For Stacey, lesbian and gay families are the “pioneer outpost of the postmodern family condition, confronting most directly its features of improvisation, ambiguity, diversity, contradiction, self-reflection and flux” (1996: 142). This research suggests that transgender intimate practices further illustrate how family life is subject to ongoing contest, negotiation and innovation.
Studies of same-sex families and intimate relationships pose a challenge to a sociology of ‘the family’, which theorises intimacy through an all-exclusive focus upon the nuclear, heterosexual, monogamous, reproductive family. However, as Roseneil and Budgeon argue, non-normative patterns of intimacy tend to be relegated to “subfields of the sociologies of family and gender” (2004: 136). Further: “these practices, relationships and networks largely fail to be registered in a sociological literature which retains an imaginary which, without ever explicitly acknowledging it, sees the heterosexual couple as the heart of social formation, as that which pumps the life-blood of social reproduction” (Roseneil and Budgeon, 2004: 136).
Moreover, the partnering and parenting relationships of transgender people are ignored not only within sociologies of the family, but also within gender research. Thus sociologies of the family, studies of samesex intimacy and analyses of gender relations have yet to take account of the specificities of transgender. While the impact of transition upon relationships with partners, lovers and children will differ in individual circumstances, the process of transition will always take place to some extent within a social framework of intimacy. It is from this juncture that I move on to explore changing experiences of intimacy through transgender practices of partnering and parenting.
In the first section of the chapter, patterns of intimacy are explored in relation to the reconfiguration of existing partnerships. The chapter moves on to consider the narratives of participants whose transition is linked to partnership separation. It then addresses the formation of new intimate relationships following transition. Finally the chapter explores how participants negotiate gender transition as parents.
Introduction
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This book explores a range of gender identities and experiences that fall under the broad umbrella of ‘transgender’. The term transgender relates to a diversity of practices that call into question traditional ways of seeing gender and its relationship with sex and sexuality. Used broadly, the concept of transgender is extensive – incorporating practices and identities such as transvestism, transsexuality, intersex, gender queer, female and male drag, cross-dressing and some butch/femme practices. Transgender may refer to individuals who have undergone hormone treatment or surgery to reconstruct their bodies, or to those who cross gender in ways that are less permanent. Transgender has also been referred to as ‘gender blending’, ‘gender mixing’, ‘gender fucking’ and ‘gender crossing’ (Ekins and King, 1996). In this book ‘transgender’ is used as an umbrella term to cover a diversity of practices that involve embodied movements across, between, or beyond the binary categories of male and female. My use of the term ‘transgender’ thus relates to transsexual identities and practices, and those that are articulated from a variety of other (trans) gender positions.
Influenced by transgender community activism and linked to the proliferation of ideas around gender and sexuality from postmodernism and queer theory, transgender gained academic capital in the 1990s. As Whittle comments, this new strand of academic engagement with transgender:
started from the premise that to be trans was not to have a mental or medical disorder. This fundamental shift was built upon within academia, and enabled trans men and women to reclaim the reality of their bodies, to create with them what they would, and to leave the linguistic determination of those bodies open to exploration and invention. (2006: xii)
In recent years transgender has also emerged as a subject of increasing social and cultural interest in the UK. Popular representations of transgender are apparent in TV drama, sitcom and reality TV, while the ‘trans confessional’ is a chat-show staple. Tabloid journalists and magazine feature writers increasingly search for trans people for ‘real life’ stories, and television documentary and broadsheet journalism has focused upon the experiences of both female and male trans people. Transgender characters have had central roles in recent mainstream films, and, on stage, cross-dressing performers such as Eddie Izzard, Lily Savage and RuPaul draw large audiences.
Notes
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Bibliography
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nine - Conclusions: (re)theorising gender
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Towards a queer sociology of transgender: implications for (trans)gender theory
Conceptually, this book has mapped out a queer sociological approach to transgender. A queer sociology of transgender sits on the intersections of deconstructive analyses and empirical sociological studies of identity formations and practices. The theoretical starting point of the book was a critique of medical perspectives on transgender. Over the last century, medical perspectives have occupied a dominant position that has significantly affected how transgender is viewed and experienced within contemporary Western society. Although contemporary medical approaches represent a more complex understanding of transgender practices than was previously offered, I have argued that there remain serious problems in the correlation of transgender and biological and/or psychological pathology. A medical model remains tied to a binary understanding of gender that fails to take account of the many gender identity positions that fall between or beyond the categories of male/female. Moreover, medical approaches to transgender continue, in the main, to work within a heteronormative framework that is unable to account for the complexities of transgender sexualities. A range of alternative theoretical perspectives – ethnomethodology; historical and anthropological studies; radical, pluralist, poststructuralist and postmodern feminism; queer theory; and transgender studies – were drawn upon to explore the varied ways in which social and cultural theory has critiqued medical discourse on transgender.
From this diverse body of work, I identified pluralist, poststructuralist, and postmodern feminist approaches, queer theory and transgender studies as significant for the development of a queer sociological analysis of transgender. Pluralist feminist approaches offer a theoretical framework of gender and sexuality that is able to account for nonnormative identities and practices, enabling an analysis of divergent gender expressions that are unfixed to the ‘sexed’ body. Importantly, poststructuralist and postmodern feminism emphasises the discursive formation of gender and sexuality, bringing an understanding of gender as distinct from biological ‘sex’. In bringing attention to ‘difference’, these perspectives encourage feminism to move beyond a singular and an essential conceptualisation of ‘woman’. I have argued, however, that some strands of poststructuralism and postmodern thinking are problematic for a sociological theory of transgender as they neglect the role of embodiment within gender identities and expressions and fail to account for material conditions.
Appendix - Research notes
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The research
The empirical material on which this book draws comes from two research projects. The first research project – ‘Transgender Identities, Intimate Relationships and Practices of Care’ – was completed for doctoral study (2000–04). The research was funded by the ESRC research project ‘Care, Values and the Future of Welfare’ (CAVA) at the University of Leeds. The second project – ‘Transgender Practices of Identity, Intimacy and Care’ – was funded by an ESRC postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Leeds (2004–5). The aim of the project was to conduct detailed further analysis of the previous research in light of the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.
Communication was first established with transgender community, self-help and campaigning groups. A range of transgender organisations that publish regular newsletters and journals agreed to carry an outline of my research and a call for participants. Further access to sources came from placing requests for participants on transgender websites. I had two personal contacts that put me in contact with other people. I also made contact with academics working within transgender studies. Over a period of several months prior to interviewing, I visited a range of transgender spaces, such as self-help groups, social events, workshops and community meetings. I also made use of internet transgender discussion forums to talk about the research. In selecting people to interview, I used a theoretical sampling strategy (Weston, 1991; Weeks et al, 2001) whereby participants were purposively selected in relation to a range of variables (gender, sexuality, age, occupation, geographical location, partnering and parenting status, and transitional time span) in order to maximise diversity of the sample group. However, research findings do not presume to be representative of transgender people as a whole group.
The research was carried out in a UK setting and research on non-UK, and particularly non-Western, transgender cultures would have produced different findings. Time limitations of the research meant that I was unable to interview all the people who were interested in participating in the project. I am aware that the people who contacted me are connected, to varying degrees, with a wider transgender ‘community’, or, at least, subscribe to transgender newsletters, journals or email mailing lists where I placed the requests for participants. This is not the case for many transgender people who have no contact with other transgender people and transgender groups.
Acknowledgements
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five - Sexual identities
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As I sketched out in Chapter One, transgender practices have been the subject of much debate within feminism, lesbian and gay scholarship and queer theory. Moreover, trans sexualities have been subject to intense medical gaze. As Schrock and Reid comment: “Most people [however] do not have their sexual biographies evaluated by mental health professionals who determine whether they can inhabit the bodies they desire” (2006: 84–5). Moreover, these studies have largely neglected the subjective meanings and lived experiences of sexuality for transgender people. The dominance of a medical model of transgender has frequently positioned transgender people, and transsexuals in particular, as asexual. As Cromwell states: “Medico-psychological practitioners insisted that ‘true transsexuals’ had low libidos, were asexual or autoerotic. They were also said to feel disgust and abhorrence for their sex organs” (1999: 124).
This chapter addresses the relationship between gender transition and sexual desire, identity and practice. The first section of the chapter explores the negotiation of sexual desire and identity through transition. Initially, it considers how sexuality is located as a fluid process within participants’ narratives. It then moves on to look at the ways in which sexual desire, identity and practice may be understood as stable factors within other participants’ narratives of transition. Here I examine the links between sexuality and gendered experiences of embodiment. The second section considers the links between transgender identities and non-heterosexual practices by examining subjective understandings of similarity and difference. The third section builds upon this theme in relation to understandings of commonalties and divisions between transgender and lesbian and gay politics.
Negotiating sexual identity and desire through Transition
Fluidity of sexual identity, desire and practice
In discussing theoretical approaches to transgender in Chapter One, I examined how lesbian and gay theorists and radical feminist writers in the 1970s and 1980s critiqued transgender practices by arguing that transgender people assumed conservative gender and sexual roles, which left dominant relations of power intact (Ekins and King, 1997). Yet, in this research, 16 of the sample group identified as non-heterosexual. Del (age 44), for example, explicitly articulates a queer sexuality, as shown in the following section of our interview:
S: How do you define your sexuality?
D: Queer, pansexual.
eight - Transgender care networks, social movements and citizenship
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This chapter begins by considering practices of care within transgender support and self-help groups. Here I am extending the meanings of care discussed in Chapter Two to look beyond care as something that is given or received within an intimate context of family or friendship networks in order to examine care practices in relation to self-help groups and social movements.
Social movements have been explored in relation to contemporary processes of social change. Giddens (1991) has discussed social movements as a significant form of ‘life politics’, while Beck (1992) discusses the realm of ‘subpolitics’ whereby disenfranchised groups participate in the reconstruction of social life. Social movement theory has traditionally focused upon the structural claims of social movements around the redistribution of wealth and social inequality (Martin, 2001). More recently, Fraser (1995), Mellucci (1996), Williams (1999) and Williams et al (2002) have brought attention to the ways in which social movements represent struggles over social recognition and difference. Williams et al suggest that social movements are made up of ‘collective actors’ and “consist of subterranean networks of people and groups embedded in everyday life” (2002: 9). In broadening the study of social movements beyond a structural analysis, Williams (1999) follows Fraser (1995) and Honneth (1996) in using a ‘politics of recognition’ to account for the diversity of welfare struggles around difference.
In considering practices of care within transgender support groups, the aim of this chapter is to incorporate transgender community self-help groups into studies of social movements. The first part of the chapter draws on research into transgender care and then moves on to discuss the main transgender support and self-help groups in the UK, addressing the specific kinds of care these groups provide. The second part of the chapter explores the significance of support groups in relation to the notion of shared experience, and looks at the values that matter to transgender people in relation to the giving and receiving of care within support groups. The next section considers the extent to which transgender support groups fill the gaps left by a deficit of professional care. Finally, the chapter considers the complexities of involvement in support groups in relation to a politics of transgender visibility and issues of transgender citizenship and recognition.
TransForming Gender
- Transgender Practices of Identity, Intimacy and Care
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This book is a major contribution to contemporary gender and sexuality studies, addressing changing government legislation concerning the citizenship rights of transgender people.
Frontmatter
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