Hooked on a feeling? Exploring desires and ‘solutions’ in infertility accounts given by women with ‘atypical’ sex development

Abstract

Sociocultural meanings accorded to infertility, and rapid developments in assisted reproductive technologies, have long been central concerns in feminist and social scientific research. However, knowledge is scarce concerning how individuals make sense of infertility when it is disclosed in adolescence, for example as the result of an ‘atypical’ sex development, rather than as a result of failed conception. This article examines how understandings of desires, kinship and ‘solutions’ take shape and are negotiated in the accounts women give of infertility resulting from ‘atypical’ sex development. Through a thematic analysis it demonstrates how the interviewees described their desire for relationships and connectedness, which they considered to be made possible through pregnant embodiment, and details how these desires connected to a preference for medical ‘solutions’. Specifically, the article discusses how the interviewees’ accounts exemplifies how biological kinship can be ‘done’ without giving precedence to genetics. By addressing the specificities of finding out about infertility as a result of ‘atypical’ sex development, it furthermore highlights gaps in the common medical definition of infertility. These findings underscore the urgency of examining how definitions of infertility obscure certain experiences and consequently limit affected individuals’ access to support and treatment. In conclusion, it is suggested that the article contributes to a more positive discourse on infertility in feminist scholarship by teasing out the temporal dimensions of how affected individuals ‘make active use’ of assisted reproductive technologies to mitigate uncertainty and maintain hope, while at the same time renegotiating dominant norms of kinship.