Gamete Donation and ‘Race’

Abstract

Examining processes of gamete donation offers an opportunity to expose ideas about ‘race’ and examine perceptions about the racial substance that is ‘passed on’ from donor to offspring. Racial categories are of interest in the context of gamete donation because established ideas about the transmission of racial markers between generations and within racialised communities infuse the way in which donation is organised in clinical settings. The use and maintenance of these categories in donation practice has wider political implications because it reinscribes and re‐legitimises problematic and contested categories. This short article begins with an overview of the conceptual challenges associated with categorisations of race, considers the subsequent complexities of differentiating gamete donors in racial terms and concludes with a discussion of the implications of these debates for clinical practice, kinship relations and beyond.