Moren er Død, Moren, Leve...

Abstract

Gay men are carrying a history as being suspected as potential pedophiles and non-suited parents, and while the reproductive technology of transnational gestational surrogacy makes it possible for gay men to become parents within heteronormative logics, the constructions of families without a mother are looked upon as problematic at best. Through field observations and interviews with gay men, who have been or who are involved in transnational surrogacy I explore how gay men fragmentize the notion of the mother in to several positions. The article argues that the gay men are reproductive vulnerable and are negotiating and fighting for the possibility to become legible as parents inside a heteronormative and homophobic framework. This relies on their ability to diminish the mother. By activating and using misogynic and colonial discourses and strategies, the gay men eradicate the kinship positions of the surrogate and the donor, thus giving discursive and affective life to gay men’s possibility to embody motherhood and parenthood.