Talk with Professor Róisín Ryan-Flood: 'Off Grid' Donor Identity Disclosure

'Off Grid' Donor Identity Disclosure: What Happens when People Trace their Egg or Sperm Donor through Social Media or Genetic Testing?

Zoom Link: https://ucph-ku.zoom.us/j/69421280618?pwd=ZWpJK2lQeWFITHFlN2dTWlhUN2JFZz09

This paper explores the experiences of those who are affected by donor identity disclosure through ‘off grid’ means in the UK, drawing on qualitative research funded by the British Academy. Legal frameworks prohibit seeking donor identifying information until a donor conceived person reaches the age of eighteen (and deny access to donor information to those conceived prior to 2005). Nonetheless, increasingly donor conceived people, or their parents, are attempting to access information about their own or their child/ren’s biological roots either through social media sites or genetic testing. Using in-depth and photovoice interviews, this project investigates the experiences of those who are affected by this form of donor identity disclosure (e.g. donors, donor conceived people and/or the parents of donor conceived people), experiences which are rarely heard in the public sphere. Issues arising include consent, ethics, identity and connection. The paper explores new understandings of the role of digital intimacies and genetic testing in contemporary life, as well as the changing context for assisted reproduction and intimate citizenship.

Róisín Ryan-Flood is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Intimate and Sexual Citizenship (CISC) at the University of Essex. Her research interests include gender, sexuality, kinship, digital intimacies and feminist epistemology. She is the author of Lesbian Motherhood: Gender, Sexuality and Citizenship (2009). Her other books include Secrecy and Silence in the Research Process (2010), Transnationalising Reproduction: Third Party Conception in a Globalised World (2018), Difficult Conversations: A Feminist Dialogue (2023) and Consent: Gender, Power and Subjectivity (2023). She is co-editor of the journal Sexualities: Studies in Culture and Society.