Pregnancy
Digital HD video, 13:15
micha cárdenas

My hybrid poetry/bioart project, Pregnancy, presents a vision of trans latina reproductive futures, based on my experiences of cryogenic tissue banking, aka sperm banking, after having been on hormones for many years. At the 2014 Civil Liberties and Public Policy Conference, Morgan Robyn Collado stated that violence against trans women of color is a reproductive issue, because we are prevented from living long enough to realize our dreams of having children. I want more than just to live. Existing literature on transgender pregnancy and family planning, such as in lesbian parenting books, focuses almost exclusively on transgender men. Books such as Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, focus almost entirely on trans men, while making on the most brief reference to the fact that trans women can bank their sperm. This reproduces a transmisogynist dynamic where trans men are highly valued by queer communities and transgender women’s concerns and existences are erased. In response, my project Pregnancy puts women of color feminism in dialog with bioart through DIY biotech and poetry describing trans of color experience. The emerging trans of color feminism can inform feminist movements for reproductive justice in important ways. Pregnancy was written during a two month period in which I had to stop taking my prescribed hormones.

Continue to Chapter 2