“It was a lot of work, even becoming able to think of myself as a transgender person and a parent”: An exploratory study of reproductive choices and experiences of transgender people with gestational capacity in the Dutch and Italian contexts.
I carried out this explorative study as a thesis project for my MSc in Medical Anthropology and Sociology, it was based on in-depth semi-strectured individual interviews with 19 participants, part of which lives in the Netherlands and part of which lives in Italy.
If you are interested in knowing more about the topic or have questions, you can e-mail me at arianna.rogialli@gmail.com
Abstract: Gestation is generally described as a women’s health issues. However, transgender people who have ovaries and a uterus can have pregnancies as well, and they are too often excluded from such discourse. In this study I have explored how trans people’s personal processes of identity formation and their bodily experiences related to reproduction are articulated throughout their life stories and how they co-shape their procreative, gestational and parental wishes, choices and practices.
A gap in literature about this topic exists both in the Netherlands and Italy, and the specificities and dissimilarities of the two countries make them relevant locations to explore the topic.
The study contributes to the expansion of the limited corpus of literature on the topic, and strives to provide a a comprehensive perspective, that can show how participants relationships with their identities and their reproductive capacity shape the ways they approach procreation and parenthood.