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Original poster

Trans argument comparing adoptive parents to trans people

84 replies

NotTerfNorCis · 21/07/2018 12:37

This analogy seems forced to me, but it got me thinking.

The article says:

Nobody sensible thinks that the existence of adoptive parents undermines our understanding of what it is to be a parent. On the contrary, it extends it.

By implication, the existence of transwomen 'extends' our understanding of what it is to be a woman.

I feel the analogy doesn't work for two reasons.

Firstly, 'parent' is also a verb, and parenting is a role and responsibility. 'Womaning' on the other hand isn't a defined role. There isn't a verb 'to woman', meaning wearing make-up and feminine clothes, working in a low-paid, caring job and deferring to men. 'Woman' is a physical reality - it means adult human female. Anyone who thinks 'woman' is a distinct social role is probably a conservative and not a feminist.

Secondly, 'parent' is a relationship. It's defined entirely in relation to others. 'Woman' is not, except perhaps in the most conservative societies. I know there's a theory that the word 'woman' comes from 'wife of man', but having Googled it that seems to be a misunderstanding.

If the assumption behind the adoptive parent analogy is that 'woman' is a role and a relationship, this speaks volumes for the traditionalist views behind trans ideology.

OP posts:
TransplantsArePlants · 21/07/2018 13:37

X post with Maryz

Yes. Again, we're back to this spurious assertion that obtaining the GRC is terribly humiliating and unecessarily intrusive

TransplantsArePlants · 21/07/2018 13:35

OvaHere

For any sort of self identity to work other people have to be in agreement with the identity. Yes, where it impacts on other people

I can act, for many purposes 'as if' I accept the identity. but that does not mean I accept the identity.

Vole

Isn't it also the case that the primary reason for having a system of adoption is to provide the best care/upbringing for the child and not to satisfy the wish to be a parent?

Yes, and in order to do that, there are considerable check and balances in place.

Maryzsnewaccount · 21/07/2018 13:35

Glitched "A more accurate analogy in my opinion is national identity." - but to change nationality (if that is what you are talking about) requires an awful lot of form filling and proof of various types. I couldn't just rock up and self-identify as British, or Australian, or whatever, even if I felt like it. Do you think men should just (without proof or evidence) be able to self-identify as women?

SnuggyBuggy · 21/07/2018 13:34

VoleClock, I. agree that this should be the purpose of adoption although in cases like the Baby Scoop era it did seems to be more about the parents and money.

On a practical level if adoptive mothers started demanding to be given ultrasounds and use birthing pools or claiming that any talk of labour and birth is triggering or saying that their child has a different genetic history is literal violence I like to think it wouldn't taken seriously.

I can't imagine adoptive parents behaving like that, I imagine the focus is more on the child than the parents ego.

TeenTimesTwo · 21/07/2018 13:33

Vole Isn't it also the case that the primary reason for having a system of adoption is to provide the best care/upbringing for the child and not to satisfy the wish to be a parent?

Absolutely. Adoption is primarily about the best interests of the child, and giving them permanence, not the desire of an adult to be a parent.

Rufus27 · 21/07/2018 13:26

... and I hadnt noticed the difference (in forms) either. Thanks Maryz!

VoleClock · 21/07/2018 13:26

Isn't it also the case that the primary reason for having a system of adoption is to provide the best care/upbringing for the child and not to satisfy the wish to be a parent?

Rufus27 · 21/07/2018 13:25

Actually, Maryz, they do get a new birth certificate with their adoptive parents name on it. However, my son's birth certificate just says we are his parents, which we are. It doesn't lie and say I gestated him in my womb for nine months and then squeezed him out of my fanjo. Neither does it cross his birth mother's name out and say she is no longer his mother or that she is deadmumed or something. She will always be his mother.I am steeling myself to read this article. As a gender critical adopter, I sense it is going to push every single one of my buttons.

^^ Barbadosgirl has basically written what I was about to.

OvaHere · 21/07/2018 13:24

A better analogy (for self ID at least) might be step parents. If a new partner to one of a child's parents says ' I am your mother' does that make it true? It might in the sense of the role of a mother but only if the child is in agreement.

If the child says 'no you are not my mother' then who is correct? Who gets to self define and set the boundaries in that situation? Is it the new partner or the child?

For any sort of self identity to work other people have to be in agreement with the identity.

Barbadosgirl · 21/07/2018 13:21

Maryz have just checked and you are quite right! Bit worrying I had not noticed that before...

I love the Miranda Yardley comment on the article.

Glitched · 21/07/2018 13:20

As someone that's in favour of extending the definition on woman to include transwomen, even I find this analogy flawed.

A more accurate analogy in my opinion is national identity.

Somerville · 21/07/2018 13:19

That article just peak transed my (newly adoptive parent) DH. Sport had kind-of already got him seeing there, but reading this has tipped him over the edge and made him finally get it.

Maryzsnewaccount · 21/07/2018 13:15

Thanks Teen, I thought maybe the UK had changed recently.

I know my children used to be upset at a few sports clubs etc that demanded the long form; they mostly use the short form for "social" things such as school, but needed the official, long, adoptive certs for passports, identity cards, exams and university entry, which I think is good - it means they don't have to tell all and sundry if they don't want to, but legally no-one is pretending that they were not adopted.

Unlike some men who are now demanding we all agree they were born as biological women - with penises and XY chromosomes, which are now, we are forced to say, female penises and female (or worse, intersex) XY chromosomes.

The whole adoption/trans argument is a completely false analogy.

Maryzsnewaccount · 21/07/2018 13:11

I'm a little comforted that the comments on that article/blog/whatever it is are agreeing with us.

TeenTimesTwo · 21/07/2018 13:11

Maryz I think the certificates are the same in England as you describe. The short form is a birth certificate but doesn't name the parents at all. the long form is 'adoption register' so it is clear we are the adoptive parents.

Maryzsnewaccount · 21/07/2018 13:07

Barbadosgirl, where I am, it's not a birth certificate. It's an adoption certificate - my children's certs say "extract from the adoption register" or something like that. Only the short form says "birth cert" and that can't be used for anything official.

I think it's the same in the UK isn't it?

aVastBehind · 21/07/2018 13:07

The analogy would work in regards to the wives in The Handmaid's Tale. Where the wives go through the labour and all that and take the role of mother away from the handmaids without their consent. I think everyone can agree this is not something to aspire to.

OvaHere · 21/07/2018 13:07

I don't have a long form birth certificate, only the short one that has my (adoptive) name, dob and place of birth on it.

I don't believe a long form one with my adoptive parents name on it exists, or at least I've never seen it if it does. This might have changed since the 70s though.

My understanding is that if I want the long form version I have to apply for it and it will have my birth name and birth parent(s) on it rather than my adoptive parents.

DonkeySkin · 21/07/2018 13:05

A parent is anyone who identifies as a parent.

Saying that only people who bring up children can be parents is hateful and exclusionary.

TransplantsArePlants · 21/07/2018 13:05

NotTerfNorCis

What does a transwoman do to make them a woman? Indeed

Try to make everyone else believe it. "Prove" it by going to places where women go, win prizes women have formerly won.

Maryzsnewaccount · 21/07/2018 13:04

This is one of the few posts by GhostTess about adoption that haven't (finally) been deleted:

GhostTess Mon 18-Jun-18 10:15:19

If it's not about reproductive ability and only role, then I can be a mother through adoption and then the female definition is correct and inclusion of trans women and so can literally anyone.

It seems to me that if a man can claim to be intersex (in his head, naturally, not via diagnosed chromosomal condition), have cosmetic surgery to imitate a female body, and become a parent by adoption, then, voila, he's proved he's a woman.

Obvious, isn't it?

Infertility, adoption, secondary sex characteristics, ladybrain, infertility, what's next? What is the next thing they are going to latch onto to prove men are women because. Well just because.

TransplantsArePlants · 21/07/2018 13:02

Nobody sensible (to coin a phrase) buys the insulting analogy

The comments below the piece are good

SnuggyBuggy · 21/07/2018 12:59

There are some adoption practices in parts of America that are a bit Handmaids Tale but overall I agree that parenting is a verb and womaning is not.

Original poster
NotTerfNorCis · 21/07/2018 12:58

Nobody sensible thinks that adoptive parents are, typically and as such, a threat to other parents.

No but they are not pretending to be something they aren't. If they're parenting a child, they're parents. What does a transwoman do to make them a woman?

OP posts:
TeenTimesTwo · 21/07/2018 12:57

As an adoptive parent, I parent. I have the legal responsibilities of a parent. But nowhere is there a birth certificate trying to claim I gave birth to my daughters. If I see a medical professional and they ask if I have children, I always check whether this is chit-chat (answer yes) or medical (answer no) - no medical fiction that I gave birth to them.

My children also can't claim medical inheritance from us. Their birth certificates either don't mention parents at all (short form) or state they are adopted (long form).

Oh, and we had to go through tonnes of intrusive assessments to adopt, we couldn't just 'self-id' as adopters either …