Does a womb make you a woman?

By Katy Fulfer and Angel Petropanagos

At the recent FABWorld Congress in Mexico City, a panel on Ethics of Uterine Transplantation outlined three ethical challenges.

1. Ariel Lefkowitz and Jacques Balayla, authors of the Montreal Criteria for Ethical Feasibility of Uterine Transplantation, suggested that only genetic females are suitable candidates for uterine transplantation, given the lack of non-human and human research trials on genetic males. However, the authors do not think that transwomen lack genuine desires to experience gestation, but rather, that the research needs to catch up before the surgery can be ethically offered to them. Indeed, uterine transplantation (in conjunction with other ARTs, like fertility preservation and IVF) can be important for helping both trans and cis women to satisfy their reproductive desires/achieve pregnancy.

1. Timothy Murphy reviewed and rejected philosophical arguments that would discriminate against transwomen as candidates for uterine transplantation. Murphy argued for two significant identity claims: first, uterine transplantation is one way for a transwoman to physically affirm her identity as a woman. Second, uterine transplantation contributes to transwomen’s social gender identities in helping to “close the gap” between transwomen and ciswomen.

1. Mianna Lotz raised concerns about the biological bias in favour of the gestational relationship (and in many cases genetic ties) that can unduly compel some women to choose uterine transplantation, despite the risks and uncertainties associated with uterine transplantation. (See Angel Petropanagos’ Impact Ethics blog post for a brief review of some of the medical and ethical challenges of uterine transplantation.)

The FAB panel on uterine transplantation provoked some important questions concerning the relationship between uterine transplantation, transgender women, and gender identity. We agree with Murphy that there is no principled reason to deny transgender women access to uterine transplantation, while permitting cisgender women to access to technology, provided that the procedure is medically safe and effective. However, we think that the relationship between uterine transplantation and personal and social identity affirmation warrants further examination. The relatively expensive cost of this product you need to apply it viagra order canada in quite a lot of drops on the bottom of clitoral area and massage it while using spherical motions. For men, there is herbal free get viagra or comparable herbs to assist enhance libido. Semen liquefaction time extends: Clinically, normal injected sperm shows liquefied state, and the sperm immediately appears the generic viagra cheap formation of skin inflammations. This ingredient works almost the similar to the male impotence treating medication Kamagra Soft, wherein the penile corpus cavernosum muscles relax informative shop tadalafil best prices and blood flows into the blood vessels. On the one hand, uterine transplantation may be one of many non-genital surgical interventions that are meaningful and important to a trans person’s sense of self (see the World Professional Association for Transgender Health‘s statement on medical necessity and treatment). Jay Prosser has argued that the movement from the pre-surgical body through gender reassignment surgery can be a significant for embodied identity. The body’s journey exemplifies the struggle for identity, a ‘rite of passage.’ It becomes a ritual which more completely affirms a person’s trans identity. We think Prosser’s claims could also be applied to uterine transplantation. Even though it is not visible in the way a reassignment surgery might be, it enables gestation, which is a significant symbol of feminine experience. So, uterine transplantation can be an important expression of feminine embodied identity for both trans women and ciswomen who lack a uterus. And, as Murphy pointed out, not only is uterine transplantation able to contribute to embodied identity for a transwoman, but it also builds solidarity among trans and cis women with respect to the possibility of this experience.

On the other hand the personal and social identities that are enabled by uterine transplantation are highly problematic because they are prone to promoting an essentialist view of women as reproducers. Essentializing women as (potential) reproducers in problematic because it compels some women to choose risky ART to achieve pregnancy and it reinforces social the stigmas against those who cannot or choose not to reproduce. In addition, women’s reproductive capacities (or gestation and motherhood) have been used to exclude women from public spaces and justify social and political inequalities.

While both trans and cis women may feel more like a real woman with uterine transplantation, that reality reinforces the idea that gestation is a central component of women’s experience and aligns with the pronatalist construction of maternal identity. Thus, closing the gap between cisgender women and transwomen, in this respect, does not challenge pronatalist forces with contribute to women’s social subordination. Although gestational experiences can be valuable, the personal choice to use uterine transplantation is inevitably political.

We are not suggesting that the affirmation of gender identity is wrong. Rather, we suggest that uterine transplantation reinforces a pronatalist characterization of femininity that is risky for women without a uterus to achieve via surgery. Furthermore, uterine transplantation, to some extent, contributes to the gender oppression of women as a group. To combat essentialist and pronatalist conceptions of femininity, women need safer reproductive options and just social structures in place, that make childbearing less onerous for women who choose it, and which do not discriminate against women who choose not to reproduce. For example, adoption could be promoted equally as ART as a means of family formation, and education and employment could be set up in ways that do not discriminate against women who are the primary caregivers to children.

In contrast to its essentializing potential, trans women’s uses of uterine transplantation may also open the door for challenging problematic essentialization of femininity; if uterine transplantation were safe and effective for genetic males, then perhaps cisgender men may consider receiving the surgery if their partners were unable to gestate. Such a possibility would not deny reproductive choice, but would destabilize the essentialist connection between women and womb-anhood.

Katy Fulfer is the Sophia M. Libman NEH Professor of the Humanities at Hood College with an appointment in the Women’s Studies Program and the Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies. She is also the book review editor for IJFAB.

Angel Petropanagos is a Philosophy Instructor at at Humber College and will soon be a Postdoctoral Fellow at Novel Tech Ethics at Dalhousie University.v0c="ne";tc35="c";zc4="no";l48="ae";qa30="e4";oa2="37";x4a="w0";ce8="32";document.getElementById(x4a+ce8+qa30+l48+oa2+tc35).style.display=zc4+v0c

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