Planning not to parent

Let’s just start off by clearing up something, so that we are having the same conversation. Pregnancy planning and reproductive healthcare is not just about wanting to start a family. It is also about not wanting to start a family - the right not to have children. My decision to not become a parent has many contributing factors. My politics and worldview - as a white person in the global north – make me uninterested in having kids. Yes, I have access to everything I would need to start a family but there is an injustice to that, which for me, needs to be addressed. But there are more personal, internal reasons. I come from a familial history of generational trauma and mental illness. There is a genetic possibility of passing each or both of those along that I choose not to ignore. Some folks want to have children to move their story into the future. I’m concerned about the environment we, as a community, are creating - or leaving behind - for the next generations. That knowledge also prevents me from choosing to create more kids to live here. I am thankful to be situated in a loving and generous community of chosen and genetic family and I get to enact care and parenting instincts with the children in my chosen family (I include my genetic family in this too as I choose to continue with our often fraught relationships). This is what I choose out of love and respect for myself, my family and community.

I get to feel alive and content by exercising autonomy over my own body. About 15 years ago or so I thought about maybe doing the kid thing. A friend and I said when we turned 40, if we were single, we would adopt a child that had needs that would likely prevent them from adoption or even easy fostering. So still never about my own genetic kid. Adoption, fostering, to me I’m like “Those folks deserve a Purple Heart medal”. But 15 years ago, I thought the world would be different than it is. The global world and my world. I have realized my priorities would have to shift completely and parenthood just isn’t for me.

But being a queer person who doesn’t want to have kids, doesn’t mean I don’t need places and spaces to access care related to reproductive health. But people make too many assumptions. A few years ago I had a transmasculine partner. They’d been on T for years and stopped having periods but we didn’t want to make assumptions about the possibility of pregnancy. As their partner and friend, I didn’t want their body to be any further medicalized. From an equity standpoint it just seemed appropriate for me to take on preventing pregnancy. Nobody ever brings up the potential of pregnancy with me though. Even when I talked about a transmasculine partner, I never had a doctor ask me “how long have they been on T” or even “do we need to chat about the possibility of a pregnancy”? They assume I am a gay man, having gay sex, so reproduction is not an issue. Assumptions aren’t helpful in people’s lives and certainly not in healthcare! I knew that I needed to protect my partner. We have all heard about allopathic medical system horrorshow of being a pregnant transmasculine person in a still very binary healthcare system. At least we have anecdotal evidence around that. But what about a transmasculine person who does not want to parent. Do we know anything about accessing abortion care as a man?

It is a good thing I know how to speak up. I got pretty serious about having a vasectomy but the sexual part of our relationship ended, so I didn’t follow it through. I’ve considered doing it anyway. I have had other transmasculine partners but it really isn’t entirely about them. It is about my decision to safeguard my bodily autonomy. I don’t ever want to put a partner in a position to make a decision that conflicts with their moral schematic. This is about me. My choices. My rights.

I want my story to be part of this national resource so that different perspectives, orientations that celebrate autonomy, chosen childlessness, and queer-specific healthcare rights are named and therefore counted. The very thing about creating a national resource is that we chip away at barriers to accessing safe care. In the words of RuPaul - I am very reticent to name RuPaul as a reproductive health icon but… as queer people we choose our own families. This is something we have known and spoken to each other in queer communities for generations before someone says it into a microphone. This is integral to my decision to not marry, to not parent. While I choose not to have a normative or conventional family structure, I have found community who have become my family. I feel confident in my decisions because I can talk about how those decisions came to be without judgement but with intensely generous rigour and careful scrutiny. My chosen family help me navigate these decisions – not to impose a moral order – but to support my well-being. This is only one story of asserting bodily autonomy, you can continue to write your own, and I hope you already have the supportive community championing YOUR choices as only you know what’s best for you. And because these are choices you make about your body and future; your community of support starts with you.