Pregnancy | micha cárdenas 6/3/21, 9:11 PM

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PREGNANCY

REDSHIFT AND PORTALMETAL

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Pregnancy

micha
cárde
nas Pregnancy
Digital HD video, 13:15
micha cárdenas

https://michacardenas.sites.ucsc.edu/pregnancy/ Page 1 of 5
Pregnancy | micha cárdenas 6/3/21, 9:11 PM

My hybrid poetry/bioart project,

Pregnancy, presents a vision of trans
latina reproductive futures, based on
my experiences of cryogenic tissue
banking, aka sperm banking, after
having been on hormones for many
years. At the 2014 Civil Liberties and
Public Policy Conference, Morgan
Robyn Collado stated that violence
against trans women of color is a
reproductive issue, because we are
prevented from living long enough to
realize our dreams of having children.
I want more than just to live. Existing
literature on transgender pregnancy
and family planning, such as in lesbian
parenting books, focuses almost
exclusively on transgender men.
Books such as Trans Bodies, Trans
Selves, focus almost entirely on trans
men, while making on the most brief
reference to the fact that trans
women can bank their sperm. This
reproduces a transmisogynist
dynamic where trans men are highly
valued by queer communities and
transgender women’s concerns and
existences are erased. In response,

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Pregnancy | micha cárdenas 6/3/21, 9:11 PM

my project Pregnancy puts women of

color feminism in dialog with bioart
through DIY biotech and poetry
describing trans of color experience.
The emerging trans of color feminism
can inform feminist movements for
reproductive justice in important
ways. Pregnancy was written during a
two month period in which I had to
stop taking my prescribed hormones.

“20141219_165451.mov
I am no testo junkie,
this is no experiment,
these are not drugs, they’re my body.
I take hormones every day of my life
out of necessity,
just to have a body I can live in,

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Pregnancy | micha cárdenas 6/3/21, 9:11 PM

to avoid death,
to survive”

Pregnancy is available for exhibition or

screenings. To contact me about
showing this work, use the comment
box on this page, which will send me
an email, and the comment will not be
made public.

Forthcoming print version in

Transgender Studies Quarterly’s
Transfeminisms issue

July 2015 – Exhibited at That’s So

Gay: Fall to Pieces at the Gladstone
Hotel in Toronto, ON

June 2015 – Performed at the

National Queer Arts Festival as part
of Mangos with Chili’s “All That You
Touch You Change” in San Francisco.

April 2015 – Exhibited at Open

Embodiments: Locating
Somatechnics in Tucson

April 30th-May 5th – Exhibited in Los

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Pregnancy | micha cárdenas 6/3/21, 9:11 PM

Angeles at the SCA Gallery in

iMappening 2015, alongside my
game Redshift & Portalmetal.

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