Trans Parenthood: Modern Families in the Unmodern Legal Landscape

In the context of today’s cultural wars, the site of transgender rights is one that has been indisputably rife with tension. With vocal public figures such as J.K Rowling and politicians alike marching under the banners of vitriolic transphobia[1], trans individuals and their access to equal social, medical, and reproductive rights stands as an apparent political hot-topic. Trickling into the legal terrain, the question of trans parenthood – or rather its capacity for legal recognition – represents one of the many herculean battles trans individuals face in this present hostile climate.

Tom Saunders, ‘JK Rowling: I’ll Happily Go to Prison for Women’s Rights’ (Thetimes.com18 October 2023) <https://www.thetimes.com/article/jk-rowling-prison-free-speech-trans-womens-rights-lwn2s95r7> accessed 25 January 2025.

Historically the subject of trans reproduction has been met with an attitude of hostility, indicative of pervasive heteronormative conceptions of reproduction. More specifically, trans masculine practices of pregnancy have been the focal point of widespread media coverage, deemed as the harbinger of a sort of ‘moral panic’[2]. The realm of parenthood is one that is heavily gendered, with the concept of trans reproduction standing as a defiant transgression of pregnancy – a concept that is traditionally seen as something that is inherently or even sacredly feminine. After all, where pregnancy and reproduction has traditionally been tied to the condition of womanhood, the pregnant trans man appears to be fundamentally oxymoronic. In such a case, infertility has always, albeit problematically, been recognised as the ‘reasonable’ price to pay for transitioning, and thus pregnancy, represents a socially controversial ‘U-Turn’ in one’s transition[3].

Against this backdrop, trans individuals are consistently told that “their bodies are not meant to reproduce, and that they cannot, or should not, parent the kids they make and the kids they raise” [4]. This rhetoric is exemplary of the highly gendered political mythology that reinforces ideas of ‘repro-normativity’ – or rather the widespread assumption that reproduction belongs solely to those in a heterosexual and cis-gendered relationship[5]. Where these cultural presumptions go unquestioned, they reinforce a dangerous belief that trans-individuals exist as a sterile population who inevitably prioritise transition over the potential of child-rearing, reproducing or family-making. It goes without saying that assumptions of this nature are not only absurd but also have the effect of generalising trans subjectivities and experiences. It need not be spelled out that just like the rest of the population, trans individuals (unsurprisingly) also experience what Yeung describes to be the “powerful and aching longing” for a child[6]. In the words of Strangio, trans bodies are not merely “vehicles crossing from one side of a coherently sexed gender binary to the other”, but rather have the desire to exist with “child-bearing, sperm-producing and menstruating capacities”[7].

Quispe Lopez, ‘There’s No Trans Healthcare without Reproductive Rights’ (Them30 June 2022) <https://www.them.us/story/struggle-for-trans-healthcare-and-reproductive-rights-are-the-same-fight>.

“The traditional system does not account for modern families”[8]

Still yet, the law continues to drag its heels when it comes to recognising equal rights to parenthood for LGBTQ+ families. In an article for The Guardian, journalist Freddy McConnell details his experience with legal parenthood after having given birth[9]. Under the UK’s Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA), McConnell is legally recognised as male, with his passport and NHS records reflecting his chosen gender identity[10]. This is McConnell’s lived reality, yet the birth registration certificates of his children tell a different story; though McConnell is legally recognised as male for most purposes, he remains paradoxically female in the realm of parenthood. His gender recognition certificate thereby rendered null and void[11].

When the case was brought to court, the Court of Appeal determined that regardless of their legal sex, trans individuals are to be registered as parents in accordance with their sex assigned at birth[12]. Whilst the judgement of this case affirms Section 12 of the GRA that operates as an exception to legal gender recognition – that is, all trans men must be legally designated ‘mother’, and likewise a trans woman who provides sperm must be registered as ‘father’ – the courts disappointingly “missed a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rectify a human rights breach for trans parents”[13].

The effect of the decision is such that the cogency of legal gender recognition is put into question. Implicit in the judgement is that the law is willing to recognise your gender identity so long as you do not have any biological children, or else you then legally exist as both sexes simultaneously. McConnell then, according to the law, exists in a bizarre limbo state of being contemporaneously both a man and a woman, or as McConnell aptly describes “Schrödinger’s dad” (allegorical to Schrödinger’s hypothetical cat that was thought to be both alive and dead)  [14]. Indeed, the law’s refusal to account for modern families flies in the face of the way they live their actual family lives[15]. Like many trans men, McConnell self-identifies as the father of his children. He is recognised by his children, their teachers, their peers, and society at large as their father, and yet, the law (and only the law) bizarrely deems him to be the ‘mother’. McConnell’s legal plight is, moreover, confirmation of precisely how the law functions as a gendering institution. In other words, it exists as a mechanism of regulating and more specifically dictating families on the basis of an “ideological commitment to a strict gender binary and heteronormative family structure”[16].

‘Freddy McConnell: Transgender Man’s Bid to Be Named Father Fails’ BBC News (29 April 2020) <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-52471697>.

As of this year, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 is 11 years old. Queer couples in the UK have, for just over a decade, been legally and rightfully allowed to marry. The familial rights afforded to queer and trans couples, however, stop at marriage and the road to equal parenthood, is one that is blockaded with legal hurdles. The law remains steadfastly obstinate in the face of change, clawing onto the traditions of the cis-hetero nuclear family. The ideal (and perhaps only) family, according to the law is one that is decidedly straight and cis-gendered, in spite of the multiplicity of queer families; modern families that challenge what it means to be a mother or father, families that dare to challenge the gendered presumptions of parenthood, and (trans)men like McConnell who subvert the traditionally feminine role of pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing. For these families, ‘equality’ remains still out of reach – a phantasmic fiction that the law has yet to realise.

[1] Brendan Morrow, ‘J.K. Rowling’s Transphobia Controversy: A Complete Timeline’ (The Week13 February 2023) <https://theweek.com/feature/1020838/jk-rowlings-transphobia-controversy-a-complete-timeline>.

[2] Martine Gross, ‘Gay, Lesbian, and Trans Families through the Lens of Social Science: A Revolution or a Pluralisation of Forms of Parenthood?’ (2016) 23 DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals).

[3] Paula Cocozza, ‘The Story of One Man’s Pregnancy: “It Felt Joyous, Amazing and Brilliant”’ The Guardian (22 March 2018) <https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/mar/22/story-one-mans-pregnancy-trans-jason-barker>.

[4] Chase Strangio, ‘Can Reproductive Trans Bodies Exist’ (2016) 19 City University of New York Law Review 223,

[5] Pedro Carapeto and others, ‘Where Repronormativity Is Questioned: A Case Study of Male Pregnancy in Berlin’ [2024] Men and Masculinities.

[6] Miriam W Yeung, ‘A New Queer Agenda: Reproductive and Genetic Justice’ (The Scholar & Feminist Online2012) <http://sfonline.barnard.edu/a-new-queer> accessed 25 January 2025.

[7] Chase Strangio, ‘Can Reproductive Trans Bodies Exist’ (2016) 19 City University of New York Law Review 223, 245.

[8] Robert Booth, ‘Trans Man Loses UK Legal Battle to Register as His Child’s Father’ The Guardian (16 November 2020) <https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/16/trans-man-loses-uk-legal-battle-to-register-as-his-childs-father>.

[9] Freddy McConnell, ‘We May Have Equal Marriage – but LGBTQ+ People Are Still Locked out of Equal Parenthood’ The Guardian (27 April 2024) <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/27/equal-marriage-lgbtq-people-equal-parenthood-families>.

[10] Robert Booth, ‘Trans Man Loses UK Legal Battle to Register as His Child’s Father’ The Guardian (16 November 2020) <https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/16/trans-man-loses-uk-legal-battle-to-register-as-his-childs-father>.

[11] Freddy McConnell, ‘We May Have Equal Marriage – but LGBTQ+ People Are Still Locked out of Equal Parenthood’ The Guardian (27 April 2024) <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/27/equal-marriage-lgbtq-people-equal-parenthood-families>.

[12] R (McConnell and YY) v Registrar General for England and Wales [2020] EWCA Civ 559

[13] Dave Grimshaw, ‘Transgender Man Denied Permission by Supreme Court to Appeal Decision on Child’s Birth Certificate’ (Irwin Mitchell16 November 2020) <https://www.irwinmitchell.com/news-and-insights/newsandmedia/2020/november/transgender-man-denied-permission-by-supreme-court-to-appeal-decision-on-childs-birth-certificate> accessed 25 January 2025.

[14] Freddy McConnell, ‘We May Have Equal Marriage – but LGBTQ+ People Are Still Locked out of Equal Parenthood’ The Guardian (27 April 2024) <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/27/equal-marriage-lgbtq-people-equal-parenthood-families>.

[15] Alice Margaria, 'Trans Men Giving Birth and Reflections on Fatherhood: What to Expect?' (2020) 34 Int'l JL Pol & Fam 225

[16] Ibid.