Beyond the Binary: Intersectional Nursing Approaches to Male Infertility

Male infertility contributes to nearly half of the global infertility, yet nursing scholarship continues to marginalize men's experiences, reflecting entrenched assumptions that equate reproduction with femininity. This article reframes male infertility as a relational, socially embedded phenomenon and a site of disciplinary transformation. Drawing on intersectionality, masculinity theory, performativity, and stigma, this article shows how race, class, sexuality, disability, and cultural context intersect to produce compounded stigma, invisibility, and restricted access to care. For example, queer and trans men remain largely invisible in heteronormative reproductive discourse, while men from low-resource settings face systemic barriers to psychosocial support. To address these silences, this paper proposes an intersectional nursing proposition grounded in reflexivity, cultural humility, couple-centeredness, and structural awareness. Visual scaffolding (one table and two figures) clarifies the pathway from entrenched binaries to intersectional praxis. The manuscript presents male infertility as both a clinical and theoretical challenge, urging nursing to reconceptualize care, vulnerability, and reproductive justice to serve diverse masculinities and reduce structural inequities.