Not of women born: Sociotechnical imaginaries of gender and kinship in the regulation of transmasculine reproductive citizenship in Denmark

In 2014, Denmark abolished the castration requirement that had been in place since the 1950s in order to obtain legal gender reassignment. As a self-declaration model was introduced, the law was amended to enable everyone with a uterus to retain access to pregnancy care and assisted reproduction. Combining Science and Technology Studies with critical transgender scholarship, this paper explores how the legal reforms, which sought to separate legal gender status from the healthcare system, have shaped the emergence of reproductive transmasculinities and the institutionalization of reproductive citizenship for trans men. Drawing on the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries (­Jasanoff, 2015), I discuss how specific understandings of coherence between bodies, gender and parenthood organize and restrict the reproductive practices of trans men. For example, men who give birth are still registered as mothers. Through the framework of biomedicalization (Clarke et al., 2010), I extend my discussion of reproductive autonomy to fertility preservation access. I discuss why, in Denmark, sperm can be frozen in relation to gender- affirmative treatment, but eggs cannot, and in doing so I highlight how this disparity is not only shaped by normative practices of risk prediction, but also by the political opposition to surrogacy in Denmark

Between Necessity and Delight - Negotiating Involved Fatherhood among Career Couples in Denmark.

Fathering practices are changing. Many fathers are no longer simply providers but are also active caregivers. While women’s entry into the labour market spurred a need for men to engage with the ‘second shift’, research has showed that men’s engagement with childcare does not necessarily imply an equal division of labour. By examining the construction of father’s identity in a context where traditional scripts for ‘doing family’ cannot (easily) be applied, this article discusses how necessity affects practices of involved fathering and the sharing of responsibilities. Based on qualitative interviews with 22 Danish men who are in relationships with so-called career women, the article argues that among this group of men, who in many ways appear as frontrunners of egalitarian family practices, fathers’ involvement is not only negotiated as a an emotional investment but also from a need to ‘make it work’. These fathers’ close relationships with their children and their parental independency is as much the result of the career orientation of the mothers as an expression of their having embraced the (Nordic) ideal of gender-neutral, symmetrical parenthood. Finally, in showing how intensive involvement and care-giving change men’s experience of fatherhood, the article contributes to the ongoing academic enquiry into what it means to be an involved father