The workshop aims to create a landscape textile art piece that depicts participant's family building journey while discussing the topic.
Each participant is invited to create three textile pieces that illustrate 1) the beginning of their fertility journey or family building journey, 2) their current stage of their fertility journey or family building journey, and 3) what do their future fertility journey or family building journey look like? Each participant is invited to write a sentence that describes their overarching family building journey and three keywords per stage of their finished textile art work.
Due to participants’ focus and ability, not all participants could complete the three stages, but all could finish at least one textile art piece. Below are some of their stories.
Each participant is invited to create three textile pieces that illustrate 1) the beginning of their fertility journey or family building journey, 2) their current stage of their fertility journey or family building journey, and 3) what do their future fertility journey or family building journey look like? Each participant is invited to write a sentence that describes their overarching family building journey and three keywords per stage of their finished textile art work.
Due to participants’ focus and ability, not all participants could complete the three stages, but all could finish at least one textile art piece. Below are some of their stories.
Story 1What does family mean to you? Being a queer person, ‘family’ has an expansive meaning. It could be the family you're born into, but also ‘chosen family’, a very close support network of friends when our families haven't been able to be there and show up for us. What does having your own family mean to you? I am sure that I want to be a mom, although I don’t yet know how it will happen. My partner is trans, so our fertility journey will obviously be quite costly. Furthermore, not a lot of research on how hormones and testosterone affect fertility are available, or any existing longitudinal studies. It is unknown for us what a biological child would look like. I'm very open to adoption and fostering, so I definitely know I'm going to be a mom, despite not knowing how that's gonna happen exactly. How do you feel about the uncertainty and not knowing what are the possibilities to have your own family? I don't feel uncertain. I think access has been categorically denied to queer families to having a path to parenthood. So I know my options. It's not daunting, it's just kind of sad, but that's the reality for a lot of queer families as they try to become parents. What does building a family mean to you? I think it means being consistent. It is a continuous process in building all of your relationships, but committing to it and nurturing it is a really special part. What comes to your mind at the beginning of your ‘fertility journey’? When did you first want to start a family and have a child? I feel very viscerally uncomfortable with the thought of it, because the term itself implies a very straight cis mindset. Yeah, it has its own connotations with couples dealing with infertility or related to difficulty in getting pregnant. It just feels so far from me, specifically because I'm not married to the idea of having my own biological child for so many reasons. I don’t know how to better phrase it, because it's so layered and in terms of heteronormativity, accessibility and classism. I don't know how fertility could become accessible for other people who can't afford it. I would use my partner's eggs, and be the one carrying the child. But specifically, the egg retrieval process for my partner would be traumatic and full of unknown. We've gone to fertility doctors and enquired about the process: him to freeze his eggs and they're like, ‘you're one of the few that we've this far’. We would become a test case, because there were trans men freezing eggs, but none of them have come to use them yet. Obviously, it's not my eggs, so I don't have that underlying fear of medical racism, but there's just so much distrust, especially in having to be a test case, a case study. No, I don't think a straight person who comes in to talk to a fertility doctor would feel, ‘oh, I'm going to be an experiment.’ I'm going to be the person that gives answers for other people, necessarily. It's a very tumultuous relationship I have with [‘fertility journey’] because my experience will be the one that's groundbreaking, or leading to new information. At the same time, it is a great responsibility to open that door for other trans men to be able to have their own biological children. Yeah, I think it's way more important to my partner to have biological children because he's an only child and has lost a lot of family. I think there's an element of biology that feels important to him, through death or through transphobia, or both. The egg collection experience for my partner was difficult. It was an all women's facility, all women sitting in the waiting room eyed him dismally. Other than that, cost is obviously an issue. I remember being quoted $10,000 for an introductory of ART, just for egg freezing. I'm not even sure about the handrails and all that. You just don't just have that financial means hanging around. And you need to first have a safe home and be able to afford that consistently, let alone like food bills, emergencies… etc.. Then on top of that, to think about the cost of having a child. When people who can have children naturally, that is such a luxury, and that's why it's very exclusionary to people of colour and to queer people because you're people who are traditionally left out of the economy. There's so much structural racism, homophobia and transphobia that exists that directly impacts fertility in ways that straight couples don't experience. It's demoralising to make these invisible. Why is being a mum important to you? It's important for a number of reasons. There are a lot of systemically forces that keep queer, black immigrant people from creating families. On the other hand, there are a lot of beautiful things from both sides of my family that I'd like to carry on the heritage. My priority is creating a home and environment that is beautiful, safe, and loving with an open door. So fertility is not the central point of my parenthood or my parenthood journey. It's just a beautiful thing that can come from doing the work of making sure I'm ready emotionally, physically, spatially, spiritually, to have children, it means making sure that I've created a community of support network of chosen family that can all be there, ready and be present. So it's very intentional. Please tell me about the moment when you first thought about parenthood in your textile art piece. The moment I started thinking about my family was in a friend’s house, on the sofa in the living room. That moment, sitting there with my friends, led to me conceiving these ideas, what I want my family to look like, choosing my own people and making it… a family. Making my own, making new shapes and structures, it doesn't have to be anything already prescribed. Please tell me the three key words you have decided for ‘family building’ when creating your textile artwork. My three key works are “love”, “safety” and “support” In an ideal world, what would parenthood be like for you or for everyone? I'd hope that people would grow on themselves before deciding to have children heal their own wounds, handle their own shit and not put that on children. Children are so beautiful and precious and impressionable, and wise. If we could just respect them, care for them, make sure they feel safe, that would be the perfect world to me. For my personal family journey, I hope that I could have no expectations. Because I believe that it will come however it will come. I hope my partner and I can focus on ourselves, get ready to create a place that's safe enough for a family. What was the sentence that describes your family building journey? I wrote “creating a circle of support”. The family, the chosen family, cannot happens in a vacuum, you cannot do it alone. So having that circle, not only for yourself, but for your eventual child is really special and important. |
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Story 2What does family mean to you?
For me, I'm gay and Jewish. I grew up Orthodox Jewish, so very religious. The family unit is the core component of the Orthodox Jewish life. Everything revolves around the family. I come from a big family with mulitple younger siblings. The community is key, you'd have Sunday activities, schools, and you'd be with your siblings. On the weekend, the Shabbat comprised around Friday night dinner with your family, Saturday lunch with your family, families will be going in and out. To me, family is a core cohesive social unit and a key element in religious life. But on the other side of my identity, which is being gay, that always ends with my religious identity. Because in Orthodox Judaism, being gay is traditionally considered to be unallowed by Jewish law. So the idea of ever having a family, as seen in the context of how I grew up, and in how I would envision when I was younger, what the community would look like, is something I was never able to picture. So I think, in theory, I'd want a family, but in reality, can I even do that with the way I've been brought up? What does building a family mean to you? I think a big part of building a family is sacrifice. I've constantly seen how much my parents have put us ahead of them, from holidays that they weren't able to take to just nicer things for them. So building a family definitely to a certain extent means sacrifice, and putting the family above yourself, putting the unit above your individuality. I went to Orthodox Jewish school up to 12th grade, up until university, so University was the first non religious educational environment I've been in. My high school grade, now aged 26, 27, they're all at the stage of having their second baby. By age 19, 20, they were married and pregnant. In the Orthodox Jewish world, you get married pretty young. According to the community’s expectation, something is wrong if a woman aged 24, 25 is unmarried. I definitely grew up with that expectation. I think being Orthodox Jewish, there's no space to be gay in that community. So as soon as I came out, those expectations were removed. There was no conversation in the community that goes to me, like, is she married? Is he dating? These questions would never come up for me, because I don't think there was any framework of what a gay Jewish Orthodox Jewish family could look like. So I've never felt that same pressure to have a family, because I don't think I ever had a model to understand what it would look like. At first, it was liberating and fine. But now, I find this annoying and sad, because it's almost demonstrated that there isn't a space or a pathway forward. I think the community is changing, certainly in parts of the Jewish worlds, you can do that. But overarchingly, there's limited space to have a true, so called traditional family unit as a homosexual couple. I mean, why aren't you asking me if I am dating or not. I tried to find a direction over the past COVID years. Some of my friends just got married or have kids, because that's the direction they're expected to go or gives them a purpose in life. I think for me, if I was straight, I would have already probably been married with kids at this point. And I think it would have been much easier. What does having children mean to you? I think on the sacrifice side, but also such joy in parenthood. I like seeing how kids grow and when they learn something. And just having company with them. There's obviously passing your legacy to the next generation and carrying on the family. I think there's also a lot of fear in being parented and cliquey. Don't know what you're doing. If anything happens to that kid, I was particularly struck and thinking this past year with the school shootings in America because they were the same age as my cousins. There's such fear that you didn't protect them. What are the options you and your partner may consider? There's a lot of options where you could do adoption, surrogacy…etc. I definitely want a kid to a certain extent have some genetic overlap, like mixing you and your partner semen so that you know, 50-50% chance, right? We did have a close family friend who did surrogacy, but it's a little bit taboo to discuss in the community. Please tell me about the textile art piece you have created. Family building makes sacrifice. So this is a moment of a parent sleeping on the floor in the child’s room because the child is having a nightmare, just to be with the child in his room. The other one is the tennis ball put at the bottom of a walking aid for an aging parents. So, it’s both ways. What I think about family might not be what I observed from my family, but from other people too. I am more aware of how important family is to me after this workshop, it’s very therapeutic. |
Story 3
What does having a family mean to you?
Just having the support network in my life that I know that I can trust and rely on no matter what. So it can be my actual parents and relatives. But for me, it's friends. It's also an extended
family.
I am a cis, white woman. So I guess that means having children of my own, but at the same time, I'm not entirely sure I want to have my own kids. Kids are a luxury product.
I've been interested in working a lot with fertility and embryology. There's a running joke that I actually forget that for some people who want to have children, can just have sex. Because, for me, I'm very focused on IVF. I find it fascinating. So I kind of forget that it's possible to occur naturally.
What does having your own family mean to you?
For me, because I have lived in many different countries, and in this strange time of my life, I see myself developing a expansive, support network of friends everywhere, instead of settling down. Having children means some sort of permanence and responsibility.
But I am to become an embryologist, embryology is like some sort of fascinating Gods complex. I am committed in giving people families at their most vulnerable, making the process more possible, more accessible, less emotional painful for queer families. I care and want to journey with them.
Just having the support network in my life that I know that I can trust and rely on no matter what. So it can be my actual parents and relatives. But for me, it's friends. It's also an extended
family.
I am a cis, white woman. So I guess that means having children of my own, but at the same time, I'm not entirely sure I want to have my own kids. Kids are a luxury product.
I've been interested in working a lot with fertility and embryology. There's a running joke that I actually forget that for some people who want to have children, can just have sex. Because, for me, I'm very focused on IVF. I find it fascinating. So I kind of forget that it's possible to occur naturally.
What does having your own family mean to you?
For me, because I have lived in many different countries, and in this strange time of my life, I see myself developing a expansive, support network of friends everywhere, instead of settling down. Having children means some sort of permanence and responsibility.
But I am to become an embryologist, embryology is like some sort of fascinating Gods complex. I am committed in giving people families at their most vulnerable, making the process more possible, more accessible, less emotional painful for queer families. I care and want to journey with them.
Story 4
What does fertility or infertility mean to you?
I think that infertility is just a fact of life. Although infertility is pathologized as something that is pretty bad in many cultures, if it's affecting one in six hetero couples, then the numbers are a lot higher for LGBT couples.
For me, parenthood is also an investment in the future of humanity. That's also why I've worked in education a lot because there's only so much that a single person can do. The biggest mark that you can make is [impacting] other people who can then change other people and change other people.
I was going through transition and have been terrible at knowing what the future may hold. So I decided to freeze my sperm. Fast forward one year, I was surrounded with so much fertility talk that I seriously considered my fertility. Fast forward another two years witnessing other people having kids, colleagues adopting because they're in lesbian relationships, seeing the effects that child raising or having kids has on them and giving them purpose, makes me want that experience too.
In the record keeping software, you can't have a semen sample attributed to a female profile. There's so much infrastructure that just pulls the heteronormativity.
I think that infertility is just a fact of life. Although infertility is pathologized as something that is pretty bad in many cultures, if it's affecting one in six hetero couples, then the numbers are a lot higher for LGBT couples.
For me, parenthood is also an investment in the future of humanity. That's also why I've worked in education a lot because there's only so much that a single person can do. The biggest mark that you can make is [impacting] other people who can then change other people and change other people.
I was going through transition and have been terrible at knowing what the future may hold. So I decided to freeze my sperm. Fast forward one year, I was surrounded with so much fertility talk that I seriously considered my fertility. Fast forward another two years witnessing other people having kids, colleagues adopting because they're in lesbian relationships, seeing the effects that child raising or having kids has on them and giving them purpose, makes me want that experience too.
In the record keeping software, you can't have a semen sample attributed to a female profile. There's so much infrastructure that just pulls the heteronormativity.
Story 5
What does family mean to you?
I imagine kids, a spouse, and a nice house in the country. Instead of a more flexible concept, the image of a family that I had from the beginning is set - a family with two kids in a cottage.
The house represents being grounded, having a place that unites all of you, a safe space, a place you all come together. So I depicted that countryside house in my textile art piece, the river symbolises the journey.
What does having a child mean to you? Or what does becoming a parent mean to you?
It doesn't necessarily have to be a biological relation. I think of obligations, you do things for your family even when you don’t feel like doing.
Being a parent is a devotion and your life will never be the same. Also understanding, you've created a whole new person, the same way you're a person and you are also a child once. You see yourself as separate from your parents, your kid is going to soon become that. Not to projecting your own dreams, aspirations, hopes onto your child, just giving them the toolkit to make their own decisions.
You need to nurture the environment, the surroundings as well as the child. The house is the family too, the things around, not just the people.
I imagine kids, a spouse, and a nice house in the country. Instead of a more flexible concept, the image of a family that I had from the beginning is set - a family with two kids in a cottage.
The house represents being grounded, having a place that unites all of you, a safe space, a place you all come together. So I depicted that countryside house in my textile art piece, the river symbolises the journey.
What does having a child mean to you? Or what does becoming a parent mean to you?
It doesn't necessarily have to be a biological relation. I think of obligations, you do things for your family even when you don’t feel like doing.
Being a parent is a devotion and your life will never be the same. Also understanding, you've created a whole new person, the same way you're a person and you are also a child once. You see yourself as separate from your parents, your kid is going to soon become that. Not to projecting your own dreams, aspirations, hopes onto your child, just giving them the toolkit to make their own decisions.
You need to nurture the environment, the surroundings as well as the child. The house is the family too, the things around, not just the people.
