Thread by @SwipeWright

🚨A NEW PAPER published by Springer Nature argues that "pregnancy is not to be defined by biological phenomena but instead as a genre of political, aesthetic, and affective experience...involving birth and becoming in a larger sense."

It's the most 🦇💩 paper I've ever read. 🧵

First, you can watch/listen to me and @brad_polumbo discuss this paper in all its insane, hilarious, and often disturbing detail now on our new podcast, Citation Needed.

Subscribe and join the community!
citationneededpodcast.com/p/yale-researc…

The first sentence of the paper is a flat lie, claiming that Texas HB 2690 defined a "woman" as "an individual with a uterus, regardless of any gender identity."

In reality, it defines "woman" as "an individual whose biological sex is female," and provides additional details.

So off to a good start.

The paper then outlines three arguments rooted in "archival research, novels, poetry, and theoretical work" for why pregnancy should be divorced from biology.

It presents 3 "case studies" involving "transition," "performance," and "labour."

Hmmm 🤔

The main problem with our notion of pregnancy, they claim, is that "reproduction is stuck."

Stuck in what? Stuck in the "view that pregnancy is exclusive to female bodies" and that "reproduction remains trapped in the sticky meaning attributed to reproductive difference."

Okay, now onto the arguments.

The first argument supporting the view that males can get pregnant is that there are some similarities between pregnancy and transitioning.

You see, because "pregnancy and transition both involve a subversion of hormones, radical changes to the body, and a new self" and "are both processes of becoming," then it follows that trans women can therefore get pregnant.

What the f*ck?

As evidence, the author provides a case study of a man who identifies as a woman who had to go off estrogen to produce enough sperm to then store in a sperm bank.

Because this process involved a hormonal shift, wearing baggy clothes (underwear), and taking vitamins, and because pregnant women ALSO undergo hormonal shifts, wear baggy clothes, and take vitamins... he concludes "I'm pregnant."

The author says: "To be pregnant as a trans woman is to perform these routine tasks that help her gestate the needed sperm."

The next case study presented to argue that men can get pregnant is a trans-identified male in 1969 who paid a woman to have his child and then claimed to have "gestated and birthed" the child himself.

The authors description of events flips between affirming his pregnancy and admitting that "While Hall did not actually gestate a child herself, she rehearsed the motions of pregnancy."

The author ultimately concluded that "Hall used genre norms to achieve her reproductive desires and gain legitimacy as a woman capable of gestating, despite the challenges."

All right, you probably thought things couldn't get more insane. But you'd be very, very wrong.

The last argument for why men can get pregnant cites a science fiction short story called "Bloodchild" where a young boy named Gan is living in an alien colony "run by insect-like creatures called the Tlic." The humas living in this alien colony are refugees from Earth.

But, you see, "The Tilc utilise human bodies to gestate their larvae, implanting eggs inside the abdomens of human beings until the larvae develop and begin to eat their way out."

Gan was "chosen to carry the eggs of a female Tlic name T’gatoi."

According to the author, this story "utilise[s] the alien to de-familiarise routine reproductive realities"

The author's conclusion?

"Pregnancy, as a type, can be experienced by men as well."

The paper concludes that the case studies presented demonstrate that "trans reproduction involves an inclusive and existential experience of giving life that goes beyond biological reductionism."

According to the author, "This will benefit all pregnant people, those who can become pregnant, those who desire and dream about pregnancy, and those who care about pregnancy."

Do you agree?

If you your eyes glossed over halfway through reading this thread, you can listen to me and @brad_polumbo discuss it on our latest podcast episode.

As a palate cleanser, we also cover a very SANE paper debunking the utility of "positionality statements."
citationneededpodcast.com/p/yale-researc…

@brad_polumbo Oops, *Sage Journals, not Springer Nature. My bad. Still a major journal publisher.