Science Is Redefining Motherhood. If Only Society Would Let It

Karl, a PhD and lecturer at MIT, gave birth to both of his children—and despite being the one with the baby bump, he was routinely asked to wait outside while the nurses attended to his wife. At best, says Karl, unconventional pregnant parents cause “total gender confusion” even among medical practitioners, but at worst it results in trauma, violence, and harm, in trans men failing to get emergency care during miscarriages, in trans women being treated as pedophiles, and in nonbinary identities being entirely erased. Some commentators go so far as to suggest that a trans woman’s pregnancy “inverts” and warps “immutable biological realities.” But motherhood is not immutable, and it is not biological. The concept of “motherhood” must be actively decoupled from its exclusive connection to “womanhood” or we risk devolving into a society that penalizes, imprisons, or commits violence against would-be parents or their children. One is an experience, and the other is a political institution in which “all women are seen primarily as mothers; all mothers are expected to experience motherhood unambivalently and in accordance with patriarchal values; and the ‘nonmothering’ woman is seen as deviant.” These restrictive assumptions do more than limit the opportunities for women; they limit access to health care for those who would become mothers but who do not fit the traditional concept of motherhood.