In the Name of the Child: The Political Discourse of "Protecting Children" Restricted; Files Only

Abstract

The discourse of "protecting children" is ubiquitous in political conflicts across countless issues. The figure of the child is defined by innocence, dependence, and vulnerability, representing the future and its reproduction of present-day norms and power relations. In this thesis, I examine how the state (and other individuals and institutions invested in securing an exclusionary future) use the figure of the innocent child in need of protection to conceal their own violent political interests and to legitimize violence against nonnormative and marginalized groups. I examine the discursive strategies surrounding the "protection of children," their structural and historical context, and the material effects of the oppressive policies and practices they justify. The first chapter examines the trans child and the current escalation of anti-trans policies; discourses on the trans child, the child manipulated into transness, and the harms apparently inherent to transness—especially invoked within anti-trans legislation itself—seek to expand state control over sex and gender and to reimpose social hierarchies. The second chapter explores the unborn child in relation to anti-abortion and fetal protectionist advocacy, legislation, and visual media, which depict the fetus as an innocent child separable from and threatened by its gestator; fetal protection discourses work to justify control over reproduction (and thus over marginalized populations), rooted in hierarchies of whose lives are worth reproducing. The third chapter analyzes the Indigenous child within the colonial residential school system, the violence of which was justified by denigrating Indigenous populations and traditions in favor of settler colonial ideals, as revealed by "before-and-after" photography; these strategies sought to expand colonial power and to disrupt the possibility of Indigenous futures. In these cases and many others, the figure of the child acts as the beneficiary of oppressive violence in the state’s efforts to produce an exclusionary future—a project which is constantly thwarted by marginalized people’s survival and struggle for liberatory possibilities.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Bringing the Child Up for Debate 1

Chapter 1: The Trans Child: Producing and Policing Gender 11

Sex, Gender, and the (Trans) Child 14

Gender as State Power 35

Conclusion 47

Chapter 2: The Unborn Child: Fetal Innocence, Personhood, and Protection 54

Constructing the Unborn Child 55

Controlling Reproduction 70

Conclusion 85

Chapter 3: The Indigenous Child: Annihilation and Assimilation at Residential Schools 91

The Native Child, the Native-as-Child 93

Settler Colonial Control and Futurity 106

Conclusion 115

Conclusion: Reclaiming and Reimagining the Future 123

Bibliography 126

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Gender Studies
Keyword	figure of the child fetus fetal protection transgender decolonization transgender child fetal personhood settler colonialism innocence residential schools Indigenous boarding schools childhood abortion gender-affirming care criminalization unborn child
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Olson, Alix, Emory University
Committee Members	Mulla, Sameena, Emory University Park, Linette, Emory University

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