Male homoparentalité with recourse to surrogate mothers in Quebec

This article analyzes two high-profile cases of gay male celebrities, Kevin Lambert and Joël Legendre, who announced publicly in April 2014 that they had founded families through recourse to surrogate mothers. As newsworthy accounts combining celebrity, male homoparentalité (same-sex parenting) with assisted reproduction, a controversial practice with an uncertain legal status, these cases circulated widely as human-interest stories across Quebec. Drawing on cultural studies methods of discourse analysis and close readings of visual culture, I approach Lambert’s and Legendre’s “performances” and intimate stories of assisted conception and male homoparentalité as a mediated struggle for the recognition (Butler) of double paternité d’origine (two men as parents from the birth of a child). Situating these two cases within a conjuncture where Quebec government subsidies of assisted conception generated heated debates, I read out from these cases to explore discursive struggles in Quebec over norms of sexuality, gender, and kinship – and the reproduction of the nation

Art · Human sexuality · Humanities · Sociology · Gender Studies · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Philosophy · Religious studies · Reproductive Health and Technologies

• Queering genealogies

  Open Access•E Reed, Kate O’riordan•Feminist Theory•2023

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