Carlo Sariego, Department of Sociology & Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Yale University
“Is Daddy Having a Baby?” Speculation and Race-Making in 20th-century Histories of Male Pregnancy"
Abstract:
This chapter focuses on the social visibility of trans reproduction in the periods directly before and after the widespread popularization of in vitro fertilization (IVF) following the first successful birth of Louise Brown in 1978. Much of the historical research on trans reproduction is on the development of trans medicine. Focusing on newspapers, magazines, newsletters, and media demonstrates how innovations in reproductive science are seen through the looking glass of all kinds of reproduction. Instead of focusing entirely on medicine, this chapter considers how changes in reproductive technology prompt speculation about the stability of sexual differences. While the world marveled at an embryo created outside the body, the possibilities for sexed roles inside the body transformed. Drawing on the concept of the speculative present (Radin; 2019), I organize my analysis according to three genres of trans-reproductive past: scientific enchantment, sensationalism, and miracle. Each concept describes a different affective form of reproductive speculation discovered in my analysis.
In the following, I begin with a review of the rise of sexological and social sciences, focusing on transsexualism and family pathology in the early 1960s. Examples from novel gender clinics and racist studies of Black families such as the Moynihan report demonstrate the co-constitutive nature of racism and reproductive normalcy. I provide a review as context for the period. However, for an extensive history, many excellent and thorough examinations of early trans history in sexology and reproduction have been written (shuster; 2024 Gil-Peterson; 2018; Meyerowitz 2004). The context of medical and psychological sciences at the time provides a basis for understanding how race and sexual dimorphism are co-constituted and become embedded in broader media coverage due to changes in reproductive technology before and after IVF.
Keywords: transgender studies, race, reproduction, fertility, science, medicine, history
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