Trans argument comparing adoptive parents to trans people

@TerfsUp 'Wrong thread, itatiangreyhound.'

What's wrong with my comment?

I said " If the government succeed in implying being trans is not a medical issue then how long before they end up denying people counselling or medical treatment on the NHS."

In response to StringandGlitter comment "How much cheaper for the government to say let’s go to self ID and save $$$."

I believe genuinely dysphoric people do need counselling and may choose surgery or medication. The government want to show trans as a non-medical thing. I know for some it is. But for dysphoric people I believe it is a 'medical thing' as dyphoria is a medical condition.

I know it is not the theme of the thread, but @OlennasWimple said

'The small numbers who apply for a GRC probably mean that the overall cost to government isn't really that high. A few hundred a year (partly offset by the £140 application fee) can't put that big a hole in the coffers.'

But I think the medical costs could be more of an issue. Making 'trans' not a medical thing could somehow free the NHS of responsibility for it.

Just my point of view.

Am just watching the Handmaid's Tale and realised that for this analogy to work, us adopters would have to behave like the wives: pretending to be in labour and having our feet massaged etc. when the Handmaid is in Labour.

Actually how the Wives/the Gilead system behaves to the Handmaids is a bit like how the TRAs treat women. Appropriating their fertility, pretending the babies are theirs, using violence and propaganda to stop them being themselves....

Is this not just about trying to infantilise trans people and make them appear as vulnerable as children who are adopted?

One other angle to this tripe: although there are many adoptive parents who are also bio parents, the majority have come to adoption through complications or inability to be able to conceive and carry naturally.

And nothing makes one more aware of one's own biology than stuff that "should" happen naturally fail to do so (never mind those of us who have undergone invasive tests and treatment in order to try to become pregnant, or who have suffered miscarriage after miscarriage)

Perhaps that's one reason why there is a relatively large number of adopters on the FWR board?

Wrong thread, itatiangreyhound.

You can also be a birth parent and an adoptive parent simultaneously.

You can't self-id as an adoptive parent either.

Adoption is different to choosing to identify as a member of the opposite sex. No one denies adoption. Adoptive parents call the birth parents ‘birth parents’ no one is trying to deny their existence or biological truth. Adoptive parents don’t mind the prefix of adopter. Children must be parented in society or they will die. If they have to be ‘parented’ in a non permanent and non family setting like a children’s home then they fail to thrive. Children must be raised properly and looked after the state has a moral and legal obligation to make sure society does this and new permanent parents are selected for a child. Not long ago many women died in childbirth, in our social species it was necessary for us to have the ability to adopt. If we were unable to adopt children and babies whose parents were dead or unsuitable I am not sure the human race would have survived. Adoption serves a very important group survival function that is natural and up until a few decades ago was probably a lot more common than it is now. I agree also that parenting is very much a doing word over a long period of time and covering many different activities, emotional, physical etc. Children cannot have brain, spiritual, emotional, social development or biological growth and development unless parented well especially children who have had broken attachments in early life hence why adopters are ‘trained’ in a specific type of parenting for children with attachment disorder and foetal alcohol syndrome etc. I knew the debate would get desperate enough to link the two. Actually adopters are a powerful and quite influential bunch so this may prove a bit of a own goal for TRAs.

Adoptive parents aren't an apt analogy at all - because they are parents, they're just not biological parents.

A better analogy would be if a group of childless people decided that they identify as parents. After all being involved in conception isn't required to be a parent (adoptive parent), nor is raising a child (deadbeat dads). Parents don't have to even meet a child to be a parent - a mother can die in childbirth or a father might leave before birth. Likewise plenty of people who are biologically related to a child lose the legal right to be parents or deny that they are parents. Biology and relationship to a child are therefore irrelevant. What makes a person a parent is that they claim that role and identity.

Now these transparents demand entry into PTA meetings, mothers groups, and so on. Then they protest when the topic of children comes up. Don't they know some parents don't have children? Some parent's children die and some people never have them at all. TRANSPARENTS ARE PARENTS!

If the government succeed in implying being trans is not a medical issue then how long before they end up denying people counselling or medical treatment on the NHS.

How much cheaper for the government to say let’s go to self ID and save $$$

The small numbers who apply for a GRC probably mean that the overall cost to government isn't really that high. A few hundred a year (partly offset by the £140 application fee) can't put that big a hole in the coffers.

@ OlennasWimple

Apart from the masterbation question, (which is massively intrusive) I can relate to your post. I met someone who went through a different council who was asked about masterbation and I was shocked then too.

I had rude remarks made to me at approval panel about my weight.
We had to pause the process for a few months counselling to deal with “unresolved issues” (they weren’t unresolved and not issues). Contraception conversations, being told not to expect our child to succeed academically.

I do get why they do that. But it is intrusive.
I think they make it deliberately hard to see who stays the course.
We were told when we came back after counselling that not many couples do. They get offended and give up.

Anyway it is tough and rightly so. And while I have every sympathy for people who feel like they want to change gender, I still think that should be a tough process too.

I’m assuming though that administering tough processes cost money.
How much cheaper for the government to say let’s go to self ID and save $$$. I wonder if it goes through, how many lawsuits down the line it will take before there’s a cost benefit to bringing back tougher controls for GRC.

being asked how often we masterbate

WTF? That is not a normal part of the approval process. That's surely a sacking offence for a SW.

Apparently it was part of establishing whether the couple in question had a healthy and strong relationship I've heard of a few people being asked similar, rather intrusive questions during the assessment, all from different parts of the country

being told that drinking a glass of wine every night would make us a bad parent

Being a parent is what makes me do this

Well, quite!

@Maryzsnewaccount you mentioned donors. As an aside. we had donor egg treatment over a number of years (none successful).

If it had been I knew we would always tell the child the truth because it is better for them.

The risk of not knowing until later in life and feeling betrayed/lied to is too big.

Current thinking on donor treatment now is it is better to tell early (like adoption) but on the birth certificate who carries the child and her partner/husband are legal parents (it protects the child).

So I would have used my name but told the child. slightly more complicated than sperm donor as I would have been the biological parent but not the genetic one!

I wonder how much the author knows about trans issues or adoption?

The author is a transwoman. I'm pretty sure she knows bugger all about adoption from the article.

Oleanna

There are so many hoops to jump with adoptions. Until fairly recently, for a step-parent to adopt their spouse's children, the spouse had to adopt them too. Yes, their own, biological children. That was barmy.

Adoption really isn't a good comparison when the point is that self-ID should be accepted...

I think in this one area of biology verses non-biology, or genetics to be more precise, there are some similarities.

However, in the UK being adopted is all about the issues with birth parents, and availability of adoptive parents/a.

Birth parents either cannot look after children, or in rare cases choose not to, or in even rarer cases may not be alive.

I am sure trans people would say their situation is all about themselves not external forces. But for adopted children it is almost exclusively the situation of the birth parents and availability (willingness suitability) of adoptive parent/s.

So the comparison breaks down.

I wonder how much the author knows about trans issues or adoption?

being asked how often we masterbate

WTF? That is not a normal part of the approval process. That's surely a sacking offence for a SW.

being told that drinking a glass of wine every night would make us a bad parent

Being a parent is what makes me do this.

Yy, Strings and Italian

I confess that when I read about the complaints regarding the current GRC system (that it's intrusive, that it's decided by a panel who don't know you, it involves medics deciding what is best for you etc etc), I could almost cry if I compare it to the pre-adoption process.

Particular highlights experienced by DH and me and friends we met during prep include:

• being asked how often we masterbate
• being required to lose weight (size 20 woman too fat to be a mother, of course)
• being told that drinking a glass of wine every night would make us a bad parent
• being told that it was a major red flag that an incident mentioned by a father (as part of taking up references) had not come up during home study, despite it happening 25 years ago and it genuinely meaning nothing (SS decided that it was a sign of repressed anger towards the parent, so therapy to resolve the issue was needed before assessment could re-start)
• detailed discussion about contraception - with a social worker
• being told that our expectations were too high and we should be prepared to have to parent a child who would not achieve well at school

And, of course, having to scrub the house ahead of every SW visit and decide what sodding biscuits to serve

Both longer meaning both becoming a birth parent and a parent by adoption.

I am a birth mum and a parent by adoption. Neither of. these are things I identified into.

The process to be a birth mum took a couple of years plus, and fertility treatment.

Being an adoptive patent took a six month wait then a 20 month process. so both longer than getting a GRC would, as far as I am aware it is 2 years.

The adoption process involves a medical, lots of meetings and lots of checks that I was safe to be a mum to an adopted child. Even though I already had a child - checks I felt were always rightly needed.

The only area where one of my children differs from the other is that of biology. It means all the things mentioned before on this thread, like not being able to be a donor for my younger child and not knowing the medical history.

I think a trans woman is never going to biologically be female (and vice versa) and so areas where biology matters - like single sex services and sports etc that is where the difference lies and should not be muddled in with being female.

Self-id is a terrible idea, almost like adoption with no checks at all.

Stonewall including cross dressers in the definition of trans is a bat shit idea that will hurt genuine dysphoric people.

Oh and that “identified as a mother” is tongue in cheek. I wanted to be a mother but couldn’t sustain a pregnancy.

I knew I wasn’t a mother, I know now I didn’t birth my daughter. We’re very open about the fact we’re a family by adoption.

I’m an adoptive parent and I say this is bollocks when you think about changes to self ID.

I identified as a mother but biology didn’t agree with me. However I didn’t fill in a form online that said I identified as a mother and get handed kid the next week. For us it was a gruelling three-year process having my background, emotional, financial, physical, mental strength and readiness assessed. We went on courses, volunteered with kids, hours and hours of paperwork and assessment meetings, went to 2 panels (approval and matching), our friends, family, previous counsellors and employers were interviewed and had to give references to say they thought we would be suitable, even now nearly a year after placement we still have monthly social worker visits checking it’s all ok, oh and three court hearings to get through before it’s finalised.

And you know what, for all my friends who got frustrated on my behalf and questioned why it took so long, it should take a long time. You should be pushed and tested to see if you’re resilient and robust, it should be hard. It’s a major life change with profound implications if it goes wrong and you’ve got to understand the issues you’ll face. If you can’t hack the process, you won’t hack the reality if you’re New life.

So TRA can fuck off coopting me into their argument. Legal gender change should be difficult, lengthy etc. It’s not like putting on a blue vest instead of a red one. It really matters and people should be given all the resources to make sure it’s the right choice and how to come to terms with that.

Parent a role that we chose.
So anyone fulfilling the role can be a parent.

Being a woman, a fact of biology made worse by the attitude of society. Not role play. Not a game.

Since when does being an adoptive parent require a birth parent to give up their rights to safety and security?