Micha Cárdenas "Pregnancy"
Reproductive Rights of Trans Women
Micha Cárdenas’ Pregnancy explores reproductive issues through the lens of a Latina trans woman utilizing cryogenic tissue banking. The poetry/bioart project focuses on an under-reported aspect of trans reproductive rights, that of which pertain to trans women, and in the case of this piece, trans women of color. Historically trans reproductive rights have focused on the rights of trans men, something that is no doubt extremely important in the wake of attacks on abortion, however this focus often leaves the reproductive issues of trans women hidden and illegible.
Cárdenas presents poetry alongside pictures of her sperm samples allowing us to both viscerally feel the weight of this process while envisioning the product of it. We see the beginnings of the transformative process of cryogenic tissue bankings, discontinuation of HRT, something that is necessary to stop if a trans woman wants to produce useable sperm for reproduction. In this transformation we see the dysphoria it bears
“my body is foreign to me
it’s changing, in ways I don’t like,
shape, texture
and so many little blacks hairs coming back, despite being tortured out of existence”
A return of black hairs once thinned out through the use of estrogen. A return of the dysphoric effects one transitions away from. Cardenas then informs of us the precariousness of life as a trans women of color, who are the forefront of transphobic violence.
“knowing that as a trans woman of color,
I’m not likely to survive until my
next dream is realized my next poem is written,
my next performance is danced and spoken,
my next city, country welcomes me,
my next surgery date comes,
or, this time,
until I see the eyes of my bright screaming beautiful baby come into this dimension”
When we discuss reproduction we are actually discussing two things; first the biological reproduction which relates to the reproductive system of the human body, it’s purposes and effects, as well as social reproduction, which is the production of care and control for minds and bodies. This production works in tandem with colonial and imperial directives to create oppressive structures subjugating along the axes of race, gender, and sexuality. (Aizura, 2021)
The act of Cárdenas cryogenically preserving her sperm is not just an act of biological reproduction, for a trans woman of color it is an act operating inside of social reproduction as well. Cárdenas process goes hand in hand with her survival, and the survival of a lineage that oppressive systems fight to ensure does not exist, one only needs to look towards the historical and continuing sterilization of Black, Hispanic, Native American women to see the how systemic forces work to negate lineages of color. (Shreffler et al., 2015)
Cárdenas also marks how this transformation off of hormones marks what the cis-heteropatriachy desires trans women to be. Unestrogenized “Men” who uphold the patriarchy and reproduce within it’s norms. This piece, in it’s depictions of dysphoria, in archiving the process of a trans woman upholding her right to reproduce inside of a process that is often assumed to be sterilizing, and one of which many states require sterilization for recognition, (Identity document laws and policies 2026) holds a illuminating flame to this suffocating construct. Trans women of color can and do reproduce, despite, or possibly in spite of, what the powers at be wish to restrict.
References
Cárdenas, Micha. (2016). Pregnancy: Reproductive Futures in Trans of Color Feminism. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, 3(1–2), 48–57. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-3334187
Aizura, A. Z. (2021). Reproduction. In Keywords for gender and sexuality studies (pp. 188–193). essay, New York University Press.
Shreffler, K. M., McQuillan, J., Greil, A. L., & Johnson, D. R. (2015). Surgical Sterilization, Regret, and Race: Contemporary Patterns. Social Science Research, 50, 31–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2014.10.010
Identity document laws and policies. Movement Advancement Project. (2026, May 8). https://mapresearch.org/equality-map/identity-document-laws-and-policies