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Why did you bring me this piece of meat?

Can I call it meat?

That’s what it is.

So that’s what you should call it.

There’s nothing wrong with that piece of meat.

It’s lab-made.

It’s not a soy or plant-based substitute.

It’s meat.

Genetically produced from scratch.

And what do you want me to do with it?

Am I supposed to eat it?

No animal was killed to make that meat in front of you, André.

It was developed from bovine stem cells.

The cells are preserved and available in a database.

To be perfectly honest, you don’t even need a cow.

Any other mammalian cells work.

You should visit a lab.

I can get you inside if you want.

It looks more like meat than true meat looks like.

That word “truth” doesn’t make much sense anymore.

I heard it tastes like real meat too.

Of course, that’s because it is meat.

Have you tried it?

If it doesn’t come from any animal, what’s the harm?

Don’t tell me you can’t make that jump?

Do you want me to cook it for you?

I don’t know...

It sounds artificial.

- Hi Carl. - Hi Mirene.

I’m ending this call.

Good to know you kept my visit secret from André.

Let’s see what our dear vegan does.

Don’t you love it?

Why didn’t you tell me Carl had passed by?

He came by yesterday but you arrived late.

To have to deal with this so early in the morning...

Are you gonna eat that or not?

C’mon, you’ll be late to the university.

Becoming Male in the Middle Ages

The ovary had been implanted surgically just below Vicente’s belly button.

The surgery was extremely simple.

The scalpel opened the tiniest cut on his abdomen

and in there the ovary went.

Vicente walked out of the clinic on his own two feet.

Carl waited for me at the clinic the whole time.

Then back home, he wouldn’t stop taking care of me.

As if I was invalid.

And how do you feel carrying that implant inside of you?

It’s abstract.

It’s an organ, I don’t think much about it.

And now?

Now we wait.

But you know there are trans men who give birth, right?

And women who don’t have any ovaries.

Vicente wasn’t exactly pregnant.

He had no belly.

He wouldn’t have to sleep sideways.

He wouldn’t have to endure any vomits and morning sickness.

He wouldn’t feel his hormones go wild and moody,

and no one would complain about him being temperamental.

Vicente would not give birth, because he will never have an uterus.

Vicente only carried the ovary for about ten weeks.

Any fatty tissue works fine for the implant.

Preferably the inner side of the arms and the belly.

Or in certain cases even one breast.

This isn’t Vicente’s case, who remains slim as ever.

At this stage the ovary remains dormant.

Later the man must undergo hormonal therapy to resurrect the ovary.

The eggs are harvested via a syringe

and from there it’s a regular IVF process

and a surrogate mother.

If the ovary doesn’t produce any eggs

doctors call it a “failed male pregnancy.”

And the ovary must be removed from the host body.

Why didn’t anyone tell me about it?

I don’t know, I’m sorry.

It’s been so hard for both of us lately,

I didn’t want to bother you with more problems.

And Vicente knew about the risks.

It might not work, so he didn’t want to talk much about it.

But I’m his friend as well.

It’s kind of weird that I wasn’t told anything at all.

André, please.

Alright.

Are you meeting them?

Yes, later today.

And you?

How do you feel?

I mean, I’m happy for them, but honestly?

They’re so obsessed with themselves.

And their life, it’s all so predictable and alienated.

Right, even their language.

Have you noticed?

He’s not even pregnant.

It’s all an illusion.

But sometimes I wonder if you aren’t implying that in getting pregnant,

men like him are stealing the place of women?

No, that’s not at all what I’m saying, André.

I’m talking about medical negligence.

Hysteria and psychoanalysis.

The Pill.

What are you trying to say?

Of course, I’m sorry.

But if you think about it,

maybe they’re liberating women from those stereotypical roles.

No?

Is he alright?

Yes.

We’re trying again.

How much do you want this baby?

He wants this baby.

And I’m not the one to tell him no.

Haven’t you ever felt that desire of parenthood?

I never wanted a child.

But I know it’s important for him.

I know he thought about it when he was young.

When he first came out.

If he’d ever have any children.

And what about adoption?

We’ve discussed this before.

It’s complicated.

Vicente is...

Right. I’m sorry.

We’ll talk later.

The reasons for your implant’s failure are certainly physical.

But we should also care for your psychological condition.

But saying that the failure was psychological

feels a bit absurd, no?

These things between body and mind aren’t that linear.

Well, what’s important is how you

as a couple are dealing with the situation.

Vicente’s ovary came from a woman.

But her identity remained anonymous.

Just like their future surrogate.

Neither Carl nor Vicente seemed to think much about it.

I, on the other hand, could not help but wonder

about a woman who had been surprised by cancer.

And because of it decided to freeze one of her ovaries,

in the hope of, once cured, re-implant it back in her body,

And hopefully one day have children.

I thought about those organs.

Two functional ovaries, just like mine,

and still no baby.

You know it has to be like this.

Some days are more fertile than others.

And there’s a full moon.

I know, but it’s like we’re treating my hormonal cycles as a factory.

Or the best hours to send an email.

Do you want to go back to the injections?

No.

Enough hormones.

They make me feel sick.

André always wanted a child.

For years we avoided the topic.

He knew I didn’t want babies.

Not for professional reasons.

It was my choice and I had a right to it, that was all.

André respected me and stopped talking about it.

But once we reached our thirties

André raised the issue again.

And I eventually conceded.

A last attempt, now that our chances were narrowing.

I guess he meant my chances.

André was up for a surprise.

Everyone talks about women’s biological clock.

But not many people know about

the loss of quality in men’s sperm.

It’s a crisis.

In reality one in six men suffer from infertility.

Not that you’re entirely infertile, André.

But the motility of your sperm, that is,

the way your sperm navigates,

its movement,

is not the best.

We have here a slight deformation.

Here we were thinking that the problem was Mirene’s

when in fact it was you all the time.

It seems the cause can be toxicity from plastics.

Like to make plastic more gelatinous and soft, you know?

Or maybe it’s just environmental pollution,

hormonal disruptors, chemicals in the air, in the water...

We barely notice it until it’s too late.

Maybe that’s also my problem.

Or Carl’s own sperm.

Maybe we have the same problem as André.

Vic, your problem doesn’t have anything to do with this.

Right, sure.

Keep your expectations low.

That seems to be the new philosophy.

At least that’s what the psychologist says.

And it’s all so expensive...

Yes, but the truth is that a male gay couple

earns more money together than a straight couple.

After all they’re two men.

A woman always learn less.

And now?

Now nothing.

It was months since that first ovary

had been removed from Vicente’s body.

After the failure of the first and second implant

Vicente got another one.

And then another.

And another.

Vicente was collecting scars.

Now the ovary came to him in apparitions.

All those ovaries grafted in his body

– after the belly, the arm,

after the arm, the thigh –

melted into a mental image of that first ovary.

Vicente felt a cellular-like form of loss with each failure.

If even André, confronted with his infertility, felt something,

how not Vicente?

At some point I lost track of Vicente and Carl’s attempts.

And withdrew voluntarily from their drama.

André and I had our own problems.

It was just that ours were less spectacular.

André complained about it,

the attention that Vicente and Carl’s struggle got.

And I know how, in secret, they suffered.

Without talking, as usual.

I didn’t want to make our infertility a private matter.

I wanted it to be public.

But the fact that the infertility was his

made the case even more political.

For me it revealed something about fragility.

And how our bodies never belong entirely to us.

This was it, right?

Yes.

Your ova were perfect.

They were ready to inseminate.

But who could’ve guessed that such a terrible thing

would happen to your surrogate.

And so young.

There’s nothing we can do.

But I ask you not to lose hope, we’ll find a belly.

We’ll have to freeze.

Hello, Carl.

Hi Mirene.

Vicente told me about the good news.

Yes.

But we’ve got an issue.

Wait.

Go ahead.

That’s when Carl told me that their surrogate mother

had just been diagnosed with cancer.

How ironic, I thought.

A woman’s cancer had given Vicente

the possibility of an implant.

Of imagining that he too could gestate.

And now it was cancer what also stole him of his dream.

Still my thoughts weren’t with them.

But with that woman.

Now they would have to find another surrogate mother

and the process would be complicated.

“I ate some of that artificial meat that Carl showed me.

I don’t know why I did it.

I don’t feel well.”

Do you want a child or a family?

There’s nothing strange with my question.

It’s a rhetorical question, Vicente.

Not at all.

I could have a baby by myself or have a child with you.

It doesn’t matter.

The ova are okay.

The process went well.

I decided to be the surrogate mother to your baby.

Isn’t it too close to home?

Too confusing?

Isn’t that the point of a family?

It sounds artificial.

We can create our own artificiality.

Carl?

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