Self-shooting uterus-owners: Examining the selfies of pregnant transmen within the politics of human reproduction

Abstract

This work examines how transmen pregnancy is found within the discourse of moralizing and pathologizing reproductive health. Moralization criticizes the “artificial” character of transpregnancy, and pathologization sees transpregnancy as rather “abnormal”. This work analyses these discursive contentions with case of the increasing public visibility of pregnant transmen through selfies. A commonplace reading of these transpregnant selfies can be, on the one hand, extended forms of othering or, on the other hand, emancipation from moralization and pathologization. However, this work argues that the visual display of transpregnant bodies is neither a form of othering nor gaining recognition but rather a suspension to moralization and pathologization of trans-identities. Transmen pregnancy has the character of both disrupting the concept of pregnancy-as-usual and at the same time evokes a very familiar experience of human reproduction. This thus gives transpregnant selfies their liminal character of both abnormal and normal at the same time. Given that transpregnancy is still a new subject for philosophical inquiry, this work hopes to contribute to the literature by surfacing some of transpregnancy’s ethical dimensions when juxtaposed in the cyberspace.