Recently, I was asked why in my writing at Rabble.ca on M-312, I had suggested that trans people should be concerned about attempts to criminalize abortion. This was from someone who was trans and angry at the suggestion, since she considered herself to be "pro-life."
Most of us have learned from experience that far right transphobes are motivated by a desire to impose their particular ideal about how people are supposed to live upon everyone else, and should be able to see through the hypocrisy of people wanting to end abortion, yet also wanting to limit access to contraception, to keep youth from being able to learn about sex in an age-appropriate way, to limit the distribution of condoms, to vocally oppose relationships that don’t result in their preferred family format (gay / lesbian families, single parenting), and wanting to end in-vitro fertilization. But beyond that, there are some obvious reasons to empathize with reproductive rights.
A significant part of trans activism is focused on surgery, even though it affects only some trans people. This is because we recognize the need for bodily autonomy, the right to make medical decisions for ourselves. In the case of abortion restrictions, though, some of the proposed mandates can go the opposite direction and even jeopardize the lives and health of women in medical emergencies in order to protect a fetus.
By extension, we also need to realize that bodily autonomy decisions are quite often life-changing, and that attempts to criminalize abortion are attempts to wrest that choice away from women. Through history and throughout the world today, pregnancy and childbirth have been used to control and oppress women in life-changing ways. Because childbirth uniquely places a life-long obligation upon women, it’s been used to dictate their entire lives. There’s nothing wrong with starting a family - imposing it upon someone is another matter, especially considering life-changing consequences. And that’s the thing about "pro-life": pro-choice is not a question of "yay, abortion, everyone have one," but the "pro-life" lobby is very much about arresting and prosecuting any and all women and physicians involved regardless of circumstance, need and all of the other factors that could contribute to such a complex decision.
But this is why this is such a contentious issue for women: it’s a complete life change, and implicit in the quest to ban abortion (even if pro-lifers aren’t consciously pursuing this end) are the conclusions that sex should only be engaged in for the purpose of conception, and that conception should always result in a lifetime role of motherhood. You wanted to go to college? You wanted to pursue a career? All of those are secondary now. Now, you’re a mother, whether you’re emotionally, financially or physically ready for it or not. Banning abortion takes self-determination right out of the equation, and the effects last a lifetime. And how many anti-abortion organizations seek to mitigate this result by supporting programs to enable mothers attend higher education? How many support subsidized day care or welfare programs? Most often, it’s quite the opposite, and we end up with Rush Limbaughs bemoaning the existence of "overeducated" women.
At that point, abortion really does become a human rights issue. Whenever a characteristic class has their autonomy and self-determination taken from them, human rights are at issue. And that kind of struggle against the dictation of how people should live their lives is something that we do indeed share.
During those articles I was also accused of being an imposter, of trying to co-opt womens’ struggles over this issue, even though my trans history meant that I don’t have the lived experience. At the time, I was clear that I wrote as someone who basically wanted to add a voice of support, and who has never had to participate in this kind of life-changing decision, and not likely to in the future. Relatively speaking, that qualifies as a position of privilege, even though it’s not "male privilege," nor is it something that I feel very privileged by (although my personal choice is not to add to a world that is overpopulated as it is).
But it’s disingenuous to say that trans people have no place in the larger discussion of reproductive freedom. Because in addition to the issue of bodily autonomy, we as trans people also regularly have our right to make reproductive decisions brought into question or denied us.
For those of us who medically transition, part of the decision involved realizing that some treatments will end our ability to parent children. For some of us, it’s a sacrifice we’re willing to make, but there are also people who desire to parent as well as to have children. When Thomas Beatie was dubbed by media as the pregnant man and propelled into the public consciousness, it was the first inkling that many people have had about this. Even many trans people were appalled by his decision to bear a child, because he challenged notions about gender, parenting choices and instincts, and the presumed "one true way" to be trans. Since Beatie’s media flurry, we’ve heard of other trans men choosing to conceive, and have come to recognize this as something that happens in modern day - although our society still hasn’t always come to grips with the implications. Only a couple months ago, Winnipegger Trevor MacDonald made news when the breastfeeding advocacy and counselling organization La Leche League Canada (LLLC) refused to allow him to enter a leadership role in the group - a decision which was later reversed.
Prior to this, trans people have had the option of storing sperm or ova prior to transition, and then exploring the possibilities of artificial insemination or in-vitro fertilization. For trans women, it is still currently the only option. While Swedish doctors performed the first ever mother-daughter uterus transplant [1] this September, the underlying biological infrastructure means that it will be quite some time before this sort of medical technology will be well enough developed for trans people... even though one of the first attempts was tried with Lili Elbe, one of the first known transsexual women, in 1931 (she later died during the organ rejection).
And while modern society is still coming to understand the concept of trans parenting, there are still places in the Western world (let alone elsewhere around the globe) where trans people having custody of pre-transition children or trans parents adopting is seen as controversial. Reproductive justice is as much about the choice to have children as the choice not to.
What’s more is that legal identification often hinges upon surgical status. In Canada - with the very recent exception of Ontario, which is still working out the implications of a legal precedent - one has to have verifiable change of their physical sex in order to be able to change the most foundational of their identity documents, especially birth certificates and social insurance records (other ID can sometimes be changed sooner, under certain circumstances, including Alberta Driver’s Licenses). Consequently, legal citizenship, enfranchisement and accommodation can require surgery, and surgery negates any ability to parent. Hormone therapy too is most often sterilizing (and it has happened a number of times in the past where transsexual people had not been informed of this prior to transition). Some countries are worse, too, literally writing sterilization into their legislation governing identification changes, or even requiring it in order to start transition.
What all of this points to is that as transsexual and transgender movements are becoming more enfranchised, empowered and self-guiding, they are also raising questions about the status quo, and seeking new ways to parent, new ways to conceive, and asking new questions about what that means.
It will be interesting, and will probably challenge all of us. And probably, when it happens, some of the people involved with reproductive rights movements now will reject the new questions we as trans people bring. But even so, it is important to educate ourselves about the guiding principles and be allies to those who we will probably one day ask to stand with us.
Not to mention that it is simply the right thing to do.