"Bring in the Argentine Macho": Feminist Resistances to the Participation of AFAB Trans People in Sexual and Reproductive Rights Activism

BLAS RADI; MOIRA PÉREZ

The Liminal Chrysalis. Imagining Reproduction and Parenting Futures Beyond the Binary

Demeter Press

Año: 2021; p. 143 - 159

The recent parliamentary debate in Argentina regarding the legalization of voluntary interruption of pregnancy brought forwards discussions about who are the subjects with the ability to gestate, who should be included in sexual and reproductive rights, and who are the allies in this particular cause. Although proponents of the so-called prolife initiatives (which were defended by the most conservative sections) and proponents of the legal strategies adopted by movements supporting the legalization of voluntary abortion had conflicting aims, in both cases, they assumed that the only ones able to become pregnant (and, therefore, to abort) are women. The latter, identified in Argentina with a green handkerchief, articulated their demands in terms of the human rights of (cis) women, focusing on their dignity, full authority, capacity, and right to decide for themselves and their bodies. The existence of AFAB (assigned female at birth) trans people evidences that women and people who can became pregnant are not synonymous: on the one hand, because there are women who do not have this ability; on the other, because there are people who are not women and actually gestate and abort. Still, cis feminist organizations and activists often showed enormous resistance to acknowledge this, thus leaving AFAB trans people on the opposite side of any possible alliance. Such tensions, however, were often overlooked or ignored by perspectives that only acknowledged the debate ?for? and ?against? the legalization of abortion, thus failing to perceive that both positions relied on what we identify as a cisnormative ontology.