Vermote, Samuel Luis; (2024) A Sterile Syringe, a Book, and a Towel to Lie On: The History of Lesbian Motherhood and Donor Insemination in England throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This PhD thesis interrogates the history of lesbian motherhood and self-insemination in England throughout the 1970s and 1980s. During this period, a heteronormative bias that deemed lesbians unfit to mother pervaded British society, pushing would-be lesbian mothers to collect donor semen themselves. The lack of a clinical framework regulating these practices meant lesbians were free, but also required, to construct and manage the literal and figurative distance between their families and the donor. Bridging the gap between lesbian history and masculinity studies, this thesis concentrates on the relationships between donors and would-be lesbian mothers this newfound proximity fostered. The thesis is centred around three main arguments. Firstly, it identifies lesbians’ experimentations with donor insemination in the 1970s and 1980s as a unique and significant moment in the wider history of assisted reproduction. Foregrounding the creative ways in which would-be lesbian mothers strategically navigated and circumvented heterosexist attitudes to achieve pregnancy without penetrative sex with a man, it shows how lesbians permanently altered popular imaginations of assistive reproductive technologies by carving out a space for themselves as one of its target audiences. Secondly, the project argues that sperm donors should be considered agented subjects who introduced their own motivations and desires into self-insemination. Conceptualising the procedure as a continuous negotiation between donors and would-be lesbian mothers, it uncovers the ways in which both parties had a vested interest in communicating, balancing, and safeguarding their ideal donor arrangements. Finally, the thesis calls for the material practice of self-insemination to be taken seriously as an object of study. More than a pragmatic necessity, it treats the performance of the procedure as a highly choreographed event, arguing everything from its locus to the various movements of lesbians and donors were designed to construct and uphold the desired boundaries between both parties.

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