‘I’m Not the Mother Type’: Gender Identity Upheaval

Abstract

In Chapter 4 I posed questions about gender difference through three of Ettinger’s matrixial claims:

• that because the foetal experience of trans-subjectivity is available to all, people of whatever gender (and women whether they mother or not) have access to feeling ethical com-passion;

• that trans-subjectivity is more likely to be foreclosed among men;

• that metramorphic experiences of pregnancy precipitate the kind of transgression of the boundaries of unicity that last beyond pregnancy and can provide the basis for maternal care.