Transantagonisms and the symbolic “woman” in U.S. settler reproductive rhetorics

Dominant reproductive rhetorics in the U.S. settler colonial nation-state, I argue, centralize a symbolic and universal womanhood that functions as a transantagonistic rhetoric. Transantagonism is the symbolic and material hostility that is mobilized to maintain cisnormativity and the colonial/modern binary gender system. I reveal how these settler reproductive rhetorics operate to maintain this system through an analysis of the Dobbs v. Jackson and L.W. v. Skrmetti court rulings.