Faculty Presentations: Plemons Presents in Johns Hopkins Department of the History of Medicine

Associate Professor Eric Plemons will give a paper in the Trans/Medicine workshop in the Johns Hopkins University Department of the History of Medicine. The paper is titled “The Allegory of the Pregnant Transsexual: reproductive technologies and the destabilization of sex.”

Abstract: Transgender women have recently been discussed as possible recipients of transplanted uteruses, but this is not the first time that a major change in reproductive technology has led researchers and the public to ask who should be the beneficiaries of technologically enabled pregnancies. Here, I examine a moment in Australia in the 1970/80s when IVF advancements made the potential of transsexual pregnancy possible and, according to many alarmed commentators, something that would happen “any day now.” The issues that arose in this moment help me frame contemporary scientific and bioethical questions about trans women as uterus transplant recipients that are about claims to trans authenticity, entitlements to intervention, and definitions of sexual difference that hinge on reproductive biological distinctions.

Anthro News Digest date: 11/12/2021