with Alyssa M. Newman, PhD, Georgetown University 

The widespread use of assisted reproductive technologies, coupled with demographic and social change, are normalizing new family configurations that extend beyond biological kinship. Despite the new populations and family formations utilizing these technologies, sperm donor selection is dominated by heteronormative logics and an interest in family resemblance achieved through racial matching. Yet the achievement of racial matching is hardly a given, as 70% of the sperm donors at banks across the United States are white. This talk will interrogate the racialized meanings assigned to donor sperm, drawing on interviews with interracial lesbian couples who encountered difficulties finding a donor of their desired racial background. This talk will also explore the sperm banks’ “diversity problem,” examining how, despite the fertility industry’s quick embrace of diversifying family formations including queer clients and intended parents of color, it continues to center around the reproduction of the white family. In a context of increasing state control over reproduction, the rise of both regulated as well as unregulated sperm markets raises the question of who is being served, or controlled, in the presence or absence of state intervention and policy.