Short Abstract

This panel brings together research on queer family-making in East Asia. Papers will explore the dynamics of queer kinship and family in the context of technological change, cross-border reproductive travel, state and regulatory dynamics, and shifting cultural and social norms.

Description

Against the backdrop of precarious LGBTQ+ rights and the lack of formalized legal access to assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in East Asian countries, queer reproductive and family-making practices are emerging in subtle yet widespread ways, despite their limited visibility across social, legal, and cultural domains. Within this context, it becomes crucial to ask how queer people in East Asia who choose to form families negotiate with technologies and social institutions to realize their aspirations for the future. In doing so, what kinds of meanings and relationships do they create? And to what extent might these reproductive and technological engagements eventually push East Asian societies to reconsider and potentially transform existing gender structures, kinship relations, and family norms?

This panel brings a feminist STS perspective to these questions by foregrounding how technoscience and systems of inequality are co-constituted through the domains of embodiment, gender, and sexuality. Rather than framing queer reproduction as merely constrained, we explore how everyday practices enact creative, relational, and future-oriented responses to structural limitations.

This panel explores the dynamics of queer family making in the East Asian region. We are particularly seeking contributions from scholars working in the following areas:

-LGBTQ access to reproductive technologies

-Cross-border travel between jurisdictions to access IVF

-Involvement of queer people in the reproductive technology industry

-Gamete banking

-Social media networks and the queer family

-Queer kinship

This Traditional Open Panel has 1 pending paper proposal.
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