The Ethics of Helping Transgender Men and Women Have Children
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 53 (1):46-60 (2010)
| Abstract | A transgender man legally married to a woman has given birth to two children, raising questions about the ethics of assisted reproductive treatments (ARTs) for people with cross-sex identities. Psychiatry treats cross-sex identities as a disorder, but key medical organizations and the law in some jurisdictions have taken steps to protect people with these identities from discrimination in health care, housing, and employment. In fact, many people with cross-sex identities bypass psychiatric treatment altogether in order to pursue lives that are meaningful to them, lives that sometimes include children. Cross-sex identification does not render people unfit as parents, because transgender identities do not undercut the ability to understand the nature and consequences of pregnancy or necessarily interfere with the ability to raise children. Moreover, no evidence suggests that being born to and raised by transgender parents triggers the kind of harm that would justify exclusion of trans-identified men and women from ARTs as a class. The normalization of transgender identities by the law and professional organizations contributes, moreover, to the need to reassess pathological interpretations of cross-sex identities, and trans-parenthood puts those interpretations into sharp relief. | |||||||||
| Keywords | ethics transgender children parents assisted reproductive technologies | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,631 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesTimothy F. Murphy (2012). The Ethics of Fertility Preservation in Transgender Body Modifications. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 9 (3):311-316.
Timothy F. Murphy (2005). Gay Science: Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Sexual Orientation of Children. Reproductive Biomedicine Online 10 (Sup. 1):102-106.
Timothy F. Murphy (2009). Choosing Disabilities and Enhancements in Children: A Choice Too Far? Reproductie Biomedicine Online 2009 (18 sup. 1):43-49.
Margaret Somerville (2011). Children's Human Rights to Natural Biological Origins and Family Structure. Bioethics Research Notes 23 (1):1.
Timothy Murphy (2011). When Choosing the Traits of Children is Hurtful to Others. Journal of Medical Ethics 37:105-108.
Timothy F. Murphy (2012). Commentary: Crossing Cultural Divides: Transgender People Who Want to Have Children. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 21 (02):284-286.
Stephen Wilkinson (2010). Choosing Tomorrow's Children: The Ethics of Selective Reproduction. OUP Oxford.
Timothy F. Murphy (2013). Getting Past Nature as a Guide to the Human Sex Ratio. Bioethics 27 (4):224-232.
Andrew N. Sharpe (2007). A Critique of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 4 (1).
Mary E. Hunt (2004). AIDS: Globalization and Its Discontents. Zygon 39 (2):465-480.
Timothy F. Murphy (2011). Same-Sex Marriage: Not a Threat to Marriage or Children. Journal of Social Philosophy 42 (3):288-304.
Stephen Beckerman (1999). Violence, Sex, and the Good Mother. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (2):215-216.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-08-30Total downloads6 ( #145,407 of 548,941 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,511 of 548,941 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
