Procreative consciousness in a global market: gay men's paths to surrogacy in the USA.

This article explores one of the contemporary contexts of reproductive decision-making: gay men's paths to surrogacy within the globalised USA fertility industry. The stories collected from qualitative interviews and ethnographic research with 37 gay men from several countries in Europe and the USA, who all had children through surrogacy in the USA, show that the men's understandings of their own reproductive aspirations and opportunities changed over time, as if recovering the fertility that was lost by coming out. This shift in the men's procreative consciousness - i.e. in their awareness of being subjects that could reproduce (or not) - disrupts the heteronormative idea that to be queer is not to contribute to the reproduction of the species, the family and the nation. Alongside this consciousness shift, however, reproductive decision-making of the gay men in this study was contingent on multiple factors: access to the fertility industry; economics, given how expensive and thus stratified surrogacy is; social support in the men's communities and extended families; their emotions and values. Therefore these gay men's reproductive decision-making could be characterized in terms of reproductive contingency and consciousness change, within which the globalised fertility industry was one relevant element among the choreography of multiple factors. These findings evidence that despite naturalization of reproduction as an obvious or 'natural' event in life, it is contingent, anything but obvious, and its perceptions are changeable. Reproduction is achieved not merely as a result of rational decision-making but rather in the interplay with an array of factors.Wellcome Trust (grant no. 100606 and grant no. 209829/Z/17/Z); European Commission (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IOF, grant no. 629341); Spanish Ministry of Economy, Competitiveness and Industry (grant no. CSO2015-64551-C3-1-R

Chapter 17 The Racial Contours of Queer Reproduction

In this chapter, we bring queer theory into dialogue with critical race studies. We ask “How does the literature in queer kinship engage with the issues of race and intersecting inequalities?’’ This chapter builds upon the foundational literature in queer family studies. It departs from the foundational literature in the anthropology of reproduction by placing the role that racial hierarchies and racial logics play at the center of analysis. We refer to family forms that do not conform to heteronormative, monoracial models. This chapter also advances debates in anthropology that illuminate the social, cultural, and political imperatives that confer respectability and legitimacy to transgressive family forms. Given the changing legal and global landscape, we offer a nuanced analysis of the ways that queer families employ racial and cultural logics as they engage with technologies in their pathways to parenthood. Finally, our analysis innovates and renovates queer family studies by proving an analysis of the ways that heteronormativity and Whiteness mark all logics of reproduction in the early twenty-first century

Affective De-Commodifying, Economic De-Kinning: Surrogates' and Gay Fathers' Narratives in US Surrogacy

In this paper I discuss affective and economic exchanges in commercial surrogacy in the US. I draw on a qualitative study I carried out in the US between 2014 and 2016, consisting of interviews and participant observation with 37 gay fathers in 20 families, 20 surrogates and 15 professionals. My findings suggest that emotions and affects, present in the dominant narrative of gift-giving and relatedness between surrogates and gay fathers, facilitate commodification. At the same time, I argue that emotions and affects render the effects of commodification more bearable for surrogates and intended parents, as they diminish their mutual estrangement and the surrogates’ alienation from the product of their labour. On the other hand, I show how the affective processes work simultaneously with economic dimensions of making kinship. The negotiation of kinship is facilitated by economics, as compensation that surrogates receive contributes to de-kinning their parenting status and cementing the intended fathers’ rights. According to my data, the exchange between surrogates and intended fathers in the US is founded on the women's lower socio-economic status. This stratified exchange, however, occurs mainly within the middle class between relatively economically empowered individuals, which is underpinned by a normative expectation of surrogates’ agency and self-determination. Throughout this paper I aim to show that affective and economic exchanges I observed in US surrogacy mutually reinforce each other. </jats:p

Chapter 17 The Racial Contours of Queer Reproduction

In this chapter, we bring queer theory into dialogue with critical race studies. We ask “How does the literature in queer kinship engage with the issues of race and intersecting inequalities?’’ This chapter builds upon the foundational literature in queer family studies. It departs from the foundational literature in the anthropology of reproduction by placing the role that racial hierarchies and racial logics play at the center of analysis. We refer to family forms that do not conform to heteronormative, monoracial models. This chapter also advances debates in anthropology that illuminate the social, cultural, and political imperatives that confer respectability and legitimacy to transgressive family forms. Given the changing legal and global landscape, we offer a nuanced analysis of the ways that queer families employ racial and cultural logics as they engage with technologies in their pathways to parenthood. Finally, our analysis innovates and renovates queer family studies by proving an analysis of the ways that heteronormativity and Whiteness mark all logics of reproduction in the early twenty-first century

Moral frameworks of commercial surrogacy within the US, India, and Russia

In this paper, we draw on three ethnographic studies of surrogacy we carried out separately in different contexts: the western US state of California, the south Indian state of Karnataka, and the western Russian metropolis of St Petersburg. In our interviews with surrogate mothers, intended parents, and surrogacy professionals, we traced the meanings and ideologies through which they understood the clinical labour of surrogacy. We found that in the US, interviewed surrogates, intended parents and professionals understood surrogacy as an exchange of both gifts and commodities, where gift-giving, reciprocity, and relatedness between surrogates and intended parents were the major tropes. In India, differing narratives ofsurrogacy were offered by its different parties: whilst professionals and intended parents framed it as a winwin exchange with an emphasis on the economic side of it, the interviewed surrogate mothers talked about surrogacy as creative labour of giving life. In Russia, approaches to surrogacy among the interviewed surrogate mothers, professionals and intended parents overlapped in framing it as work and a businesslike commodity exchange. We suggest these three different ways of ethical reasoning about the clinical labour of surrogacy, including justifications of women’s incorporation into this labour, were situated in local moral frameworks. We name them repro-regional moral frameworks, inspired by earlier work on moral frameworks as well as on reproductive nationalisms and transnational reproduction. Building on these findings, we argue that any international or global regulation of surrogacy, or indeed any moral stance on it, needs to take these local differences into account.Funding was provided by the British Wellcome Trust (Grant no. 100606, and Grant no. 209829/Z/17/Z); the Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship – Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IOF, Grant Agreement no. 629341, ‘SurrogARTs’), as well as and Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness / Feder / EU (grant no. CSO2015- 64551-C3-1-R). Funding was also provided by the De Montfort University, UK, via the PhD Studentship program 2013-17

The Racial Contours of Queer Reproduction

In this chapter, we bring queer theory into dialogue with critical race studies. We ask “How does the literature in queer kinship engage with the issues of race and intersecting inequalities? This chapter builds upon the foundational literature in queer family studies. It departs from the foundational in anthropology of reproduction by placing the role that racial hierarchies and racial logics play at the center of analysis. We refer to family forms that do not conform to heteronormative, monoracial models. This chapter also advances debates in anthropology that illuminate the social, cultural and political imperatives that confer respectability and legitimacy to transgressive family forms. Given the changing legal and global landscape, we offer a nuanced analysis of the ways that queer families employ racial and cultural logics as they engage with technologies in their pathways to parenthood. Finally, our analysis innovates and renovates queer family studies by proving an analysis of the ways that heteronormativity and whiteness mark all logics of reproduction in the early twenty-first century

Making and breaking families – reading queer reproductions, stratified reproduction and reproductive justice together

In February 2016 we convened a workshop at UC Berkeley, Making Families: Transnational Surrogacy, Queer Kinship, and Reproductive Justice. We were seeking to bring into direct conversation three theoretical frameworks that have each transformed scholarship and influenced practice around transnational surrogacy and reproduction: ‘stratified reproduction’, ‘reproductive justice’, and ‘queer reproductions’. Given the different intellectual and activist genealogies of these three fields, our aim in the workshop and in this resulting symposium issue was twofold: firstly, to draw out the explicit and implicit contributions of these three areas to understanding and helping shape the changing landscape of transnational surrogacy and assisted reproductive technology (ART) and secondly, to work through apparent tensions among these three approaches so as to forge intellectual and political solidarities that can strengthen scholarship and influence policy.Wellcome Trust (grant no. 100606 and grant no. 209829/Z/17/Z); European Commission (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IOF, grant no. 629341); Spanish Ministry of Economy, Competitiveness and Industry (grant no. CSO2015-64551-C3-1-R

Family-based affirmative action? Subversion and resilience strategies of gay father families

The present doctoral dissertation is aimed at analyzing how and with what consequences gay father families and their children’s schools negotiate possible differences in the construction of family and gender at home and in the families’ social milieus. This objective fits in with the broader goal of researching how family-school interactons are influenced by the social context such as hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 2002). The thesis is based on qualitative fieldwork carried out with 18 nonheterosexual parent families in Spain, comprising 30 interviews with 44 people. The principal participant group were 14 de novo (adoptive and surrogacy) gay father families with resident preadolescent children. The findings revealed that all the de novo families assumed open communication strategies at school with inclusive consequences: apart from incidental questions and reactions of surprise, the children did not suffer homophobic bullying. The analisis showed that the necessary condition for inclusion was not the open communication but rather illocutionary orientation (Habermas, 1984; Soler & Flecha, 2010), understood as the parents’ sensitivity to the attitudes of their children and schools. The schools received the families in an inclusive manner, which, however, was only receptive and not proactive, therefore some of the families (reconstituted ones), coerced by the social context, got excluded. Gender relations at home were predominantly androgynous, and outside home predominantly traditional, yet the children negotiated this difference with inclusive consequences. They participated in hegemonic collective practices, thus confirming the thesis on the similarity between homo- and heterosexual-parent families (Golombok, 2006). Consistently, also the families’ identity politics was “assimilationist” and non-queer. Admittedly, the analisis showed that such a politics was increased by social expectations. Still, the findings suggest that educational and other family policies should draw on broad agendas of gender and family diversity rather than on the politics of difference and the unique status of LGB families.El objetivo de la presente tesis doctoral es analizar cómo y con qué consecuencias se negocian las posibles diferencias en la construcción de familia y género en casa de las familias de padres gays y en sus entornos sociales tales como las escuelas. La finalidad más amplia es investigar cómo las interacciones familia-escuela están influenciadas por el contexto social, tal como la masculinidad hegemónica (Connell, 2002). La tesis se basa en el trabajo de campo cualitativo realizado con 18 familias de progenitores no heterosexuales en España, englobando 30 entrevistas con 44 personas. El grupo participante principal fueron 14 familias de padres gays de novo (adoptivas y por subrogación) con hijos/as preadolescentes residentes. Todas las familias de novo asumieron las estrategias de comunicación abierta en la escuela con consecuencias inclusivas: aparte de las reacciones de sorpresa puntuales, los hijos/as no sufrieron bullying homófobo. La condición necesaria para la inclusión fue la orientación ilocucionaria (Habermas, 1984; Soler y Flecha, 2010), entendida como la sensibilidad de los padres frente a las actitudes de sus hijos/as y sus escuelas. Las escuelas recibieron las familias de manera inclusiva que, sin embargo, no era proactiva, así excluyendo algunas familias (reconstituidas), coaccionadas por el contexto social. Las relaciones de género en casa eran mayoritariamente andróginas, y fuera de casa mayoritariamente tradicionales, pero los hijos/as negociaban esta diferencia con consecuencias inclusivas. Participaban en las prácticas colectivas hegemónicas, así confirmando la tesis sobre la similitud entre las familias homo- y heteroparentales (Golombok, 2006). También la política de identidad de las familias fue “asimilacionista” y no queer. Coherentemente, aunque este tipo de política fue incrementado por las expectativas sociales, las políticas educativas y familiares deberían basarse en las agendas amplias de diversidad de género y familia más bien que en la diferencia y el estatus único de las familias LGB

Queer decisions: Racial matching among gay male intended parents.

How does race and location shape the reproductive decisions of gay men who are intended parents? In this article, we propose the concept of strategic racialization to characterize the ways in which gay male parents employ racial matching in their selection of egg donors and surrogates in the United States and United Kingdom. We argue that racial matching is a strategy of stigma management. This study draws upon interview data from 40 gay male couples who formed families through surrogacy. We find that pre-conception fathers seek racialized resemblance to reinforce kinship between themselves and their children. In California and England, gay men seeking donor eggs engage in racial matching, which reveals that the racialized biogenetic model of kinship remains dominant. This study makes a significant contribution to the literature on race and queer family formation