Reproducing Eugenics, Reproducing while Trans: The State Sterilization of Trans People

The global proliferation of radical gynaecological surgeries: A history of the present

“…Numerous legal challenges to such policies have been made since c.2000, as well as to other forms of denial of rights to full legal parentage of 'seahorse' fathers'men with complete female reproductive internal organs who give birth to infants (Alaattinoğlu and Rubio-Marín 2019; Dickens 2020). Both intersex and transgender studies scholars have queried why gonadal-organ removal has even been considered automatically necessary, noting the denial of reproductive rights it entails, reflecting the medical view of both transgender and intersex parenting as inadmissible (Lowik 2018). The unique violence of the modern biomedical approach to such matters has been well demonstrated by comparative historical and anthropological scholarship (Herdt 1996;Moore 2019Moore , 2018.…”

Engaging with Law’s Menstrual Moment

“…For example, the inclusive approach in menstrual product legislation might be in tension with laws in many jurisdiction requiring trans people to be sterilised in order to have their gender formally recognised by the state, a practice that Lowik argues tracks onto longer term eugenics logics. 114 Other contemporary examples include non-consensual menstrual suppression and sterilisation of disabled women, 115 and hysterectomies of precarious women labourers in contexts of profoundly limited choice. 116 The coercive cessation or suppression of menstruation as a means of reproductive control has a long history, as demonstrated by the eugenics era at the beginning of the twentieth century which targeted 'unfit' populations including disabled, racialised, Indigenous and poor women, 117 and population control focused development policies which began in the 1970s and 80s but still persist.…”

Reproductive injustice, trans rights, and eugenics

“…This is not a new phenomenon, for example, the Terman-Miles M-F Test is an example of attempts to maintain gendered order that can be counted among the ordinary eugenics of the twentieth century. [1][2][3] I here follow the concept of "passive eugenics" as coined by Bowman,4 who introduces the distinction between "active eugenics" and "passive eugenics". The first category applies to policies that encourage or discourage reproduction among certain populations.…”

“…In some cases, forced sterilisation can be a result of the requirements established by legislation or the court, even when it is not openly stipulated in the text of the law. Lowik 3 has shown how cisnormativity and the “best interests of the child” play a determining role in establishing these eugenic requirements. The requirements include, for example, an “adjustment of sexual characteristics by means of medical-surgical treatment previously authorized by the courts”; 13 accreditation of at least two years of hormonal treatment “to accommodate the physical characteristics of the claimed sex”; 14 or the “removal of sexual organs and mammary glands for trans men and the removal of sexual organs (testicles and penis) for trans women”.…”