Is Daddy a Man or a Woman? Issues on Transgender Parenting in Canada and Homoparenting in Brazil

Abstract

This article presents a discussion of the category transgender, particularly in the Canadian context, in order to discuss the issue of transgender parenting in Canada and travestite and transexual parenting in Brazil. Based on field data, the focus lies on Canadian transgenders who are dealing with social and cultural constraints to their affective, familial, parental and sexual manifestations, analysing these practices in a dialogue with the Brazilian homoparenting scenario. I question to what extent would not be also relevant in Brazil, both in terms of academic and political discourse, allowing the discursive existence of transexual and transvestite parenting beyond homoparenting. Finally, I analyze the conceptions of fatherhood that underlie these practices, seeking to understand to what extent they reconfigure representations of Western thought by performing parenting in relation to gender.