Motherhood for All—Women, Men, Trans*, Inter*, Nonbinary and Agender-Persons—Examined Using the Figure of the Continuum

This article is about the question of what the term “motherhood” signifies, and how the figure of the Continuum helps recognize and explain pluralities of motherhood beyond the gender binary of “female-male”. After an initial explanation of the concept of gender as a Continuum, the figure of the Continuum will be applied to forms of motherhood and will discuss them in light of the four dimensions of the Continuum—physicality, feeling, sociality, and desire. The tensions between physical and social motherhood will be traced in an examination of Bertold Brecht’s “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” (1948) and its references to biblical, Chinese and German-language texts. Based on the diverse forms of motherhood discussed in the article, concerning trans* men among others, the necessity of a reformulation of the understanding of motherhood as a new parenthood will be outlined, which overturns the limiting connection between motherhood and heteronormatively defined femininity.