The Doing/Undoing of MRKH and the Doing of Gestational Pregnancy and Gender Through Uterus Transplants

Women with the rare Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome are born without a uterus. Following international interviews with 34 women with MRKH and 15 surgeons and specialists, we explore how the usually invisible condition of MRKH is made visible and "done" through biomedicine. MRKH is highly medicalized, with much work undertaken to make MRKH bodies fit heteronormative standards. Some people with MRKH prefer to define themselves as intersex. Others undertake uterus transplants (UTx), to experience menstruation, gestation, and birth. UTx reconstructs their bodies to heteronormative expectations at the same time as it reinforces gendered identity as normative women, and potentially as mothers.