Pregnant Husbands, Reality, and Imagination: The Queer Potential of Babymaking Technologies

Abstract

This thesis project considers the issue of babymaking among queer people, or in other words, the ways that queer people employ reproductive technologies to have children. Although some queer theorists have characterized reproduction as an inherently heteronormative endeavor, I argue that queer babymaking can introduce unique opportunities to challenge dominant norms of gender and sexuality. To demonstrate this possibility, I consider the issues at stake in the reality television special My Pregnant Husband, which aired on TLC in 2020. The show follows two pregnant transgender men and their wives in the final months of pregnancy. Through a close reading of the program, I argue that despite the limitations of reality television and the nuclear family, the parents in the program are demonstrating queer imagination about how to resist restrictive norms of gender and sexuality through their parenting decisions. Particularly when considering the racial implications of reproductive politics, I argue that queer politics should take more seriously the myriad injustices inflicted upon queer parents of color and their children. I close with a consideration of the role of technology in the lives of the parents in the show and argue that queer politics should engage in technological imagination alongside other forms of political imagination as a way of enacting queer futures.