AIBU to think this is a bit nuts? Trans woman is being praised online for still working at 37 weeks into her "simulated" pregnancy

[CalmGreenEagle]

I have just read on Facebook about this transgender woman, Gabrielle Darone, aged 32, who simulated a pregnancy last year in order to address "gender dysphoria about not being able to carry a child". She wore a fake belly and simulated morning sickness, breathing difficulties, tiredness and other symptoms. She blogged about her experience and received a lot of praise online for still continuing to work at 37 weeks into her "pregnancy".

AIBU to think this is just crazy? Wearing a fake belly and pretending to have pregnancy symptoms is absolutely NOTHING like the real difficulties that women who are actually pregnant have to go through. Sometimes I think I am on a different planet.

Except he has a blog. A dire navel gazing blog which documents his abuse of his wife and children.
In one section he writes about taking his children to the beach and how much HE struggled in his pregnant state in the heat.
I wonder what his children made of this.

"This weekend, I was even able to take my children to the beach (socially distanced at 30+ feet from others, of course) and successfully navigate walking through the sand. The trip to mini golf in 106° heat later in the weekend was not a great choice, and for that, I suffered later, requiring lots of fluid and rest to avoid heat stroke."

"The 7-pound weight that is intended to press against my bladder does not hit me low enough, so unless I drink a ton of water throughout the day, I have less sudden urges to pee than a pregnant person would. Dealing with these limitations sadden me, because I want the whole experience, and I do not get to have it. I get bits and pieces, and for me, it is not enough."

Heck when I was pregnant with my 10 1/2 lb baby any needing the toilet caused Braxton hicks contractions. I couldn't be more than a few minutes from a toilet. I remember taking my toddler to feed the ducks and the walk back to the toilet from the duckpond, trying to convince him to hurry up was hideous. He's trying to simulate that by DRINKING WATER. FFS. I had to balance out drinking enough to not get a UTI to which I've always been prone, with actually being able to go somewhere in the later months of my pregnancy.

He went into this so that he could create some "big feels". Wouldn't it have been more compassionate if someone had said to him "no, we think you need help" before he started to go so far down the route of pretending to be a woman that it became this extreme?

"I went into this journey knowing I could not have it all, but that does not mean it is any easier to accept that I cannot feel all of the things. The hardest part is yet to come. When this part is over, I’ll be happy to have my body back and readjust, but I will be so terribly sad there will be no baby to replace it. Part of me wonders if this remotely approaches what is like to go through a stillbirth. Big feels. There is a reason I will be taking time off of work after my due date. I plan on doing some crying. Maybe, lots of crying.

Stay tuned for what may or may not be a simulated labor in about two weeks (still trying to work out details) and the start of lactation. The journey continues…"

@ParmaVioletTea please accept my apologies for the virtue scolding! I’d not come across you before, didn’t realise the sarcasm in your post!

Part of me wonders if this remotely approaches what is like to go through a stillbirth.

Fucking hell that is absolutely disgusting. What a vile, sick person.

It's quite illuminating when we listen to trans people, isn't it.

The pathology is fairly stark.

I think the OP needs a bit of Mary Cate Delvey in her life.

MaryCate Delvey on X: "WOW!! We have reached PART 40 of LISTEN TO TRANS PEOPLE!! “They just want to pee” — you sure about that? https://t.co/L7XLdx4iJZ" / X

Let's spell this out.

Humping a weight around and restricting your breathing is not simulation of a pregnancy.

At no point is your life potentially at risk.
At no point are you concerned about life long changes to your body.
At no point is their concern about injury during childbirth and continence issues.
At no point is there concern about impact to your career and income
At no point is there worries about how much time you are taking off work for appointments
At no point is their worry about the health of your baby and whether they may have a disability
At no point are you worried about the impact on your relationship post partum
At no point is there concerns about post natal depression or psychosis because you have a history of mental health issues.
At no point is there a worry about pain during child birth or poor care in hospital during childbirth and on the post natal ward.
At no point is there concerns about breastfeeding or not being able to breastfeed.
At no point is there judgement nor issues with you eating the wrong foods

I could go on.

To say that this is remotely like a simulated pregnant is grossly offensive and grossly out of touch with reality.

This is like the girl from St Martins Art College giggling at the guy in the supermarket saying he has no money who can call her Dad when there's roaches climbing the wall.

It's performative privilege that thinks it's sympathetic.

And this is a very unwell man who needs putting back in his box and told firmly that he's offensive and hasn't the first fucking clue.

Well exactly.

I bet they don't cosplay the first trimester properly at all: constant nausea; exhaustion; cancelling social invitations; finding work much harder; BUT YOU CAN'T EVEN TELL ANYONE SO PEOPLE JUST THINK YOU'RE CRAP

So, you don't believe that he did this?

The thing is, does it even matter whether he did this? Because he wrote about doing it, he fantasised about doing it, apparently he joined support groups meant for women who needed to not be part of some man's fantasy.

What part about his self-published fantasies makes this any more acceptable than whether you believing he did this or not?

We also know that there are male people who have pregnancy fetishes and lactation fetishes. There are sites selling fake pregnancy bumps to men. I read once about a New York photographer who did special fake pregnancy photo shoots for this group of male people. And that is before we even consider the size of the group with a lactation fetish in whatever form that takes.

Discussing the harm that male fantasy re-enactment or engagement does to women = pearl clutching?

Good to know.

OK. Omg.

It really does show the extremes that these men go to.

And it highlights the dismissal of the experiences of women by those men very well.

Maybe the best ay to deal with this is ignore it?
Just saying, let this person do them, they’re not affecting you.

Just to point out , this was episode 40! There are plenty of voices that Mary Cate allowed us to hear.

And the next female only group or provision that a male person demands to access, or accesses and interacts with in stealth? We should ignore that too?

How about the court cases where the women who call out this behaviour, we should ignore those women's situations because those male people also didn't affect us?

Or can we continue to discuss that this is already a significant issue across women's and girl's lives and ignore those who wish to ignore it and tell us that it doesn't affect us as individuals, let alone collectively?

Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it.

So, say a teenager you cared about declared himself a girl. What do you do? And where does it stop?

Once he's walking around in fake breasts? Once this six foot boy is wandering blithely into women's toilets unaware or unable to take onboard the distress he could be causing? Once, like Ciara Watkins, he's on the sex offenders register because he is under the erroneous belief he doesn't have to disclose his sex?, Once he's going down the route of having his penis removed (not that many do but if you accept this child you care about can be trans then that's the potential end game).
Except it's not the end game, is it? Because this deluded teenager turns into a man who can only ever pretend they're a woman and feel sad that they have to pretend. They're living in a make believe world where everything they encounter either affirms their feminine feels, or it doesn't. When it doesn't, they get sad. And you can see how some people have to go even further than the pretence and body modification, into trying to recreate experiences that are only female.

Why are you advocating ignoring this man's appropriation of women's experience. What do you think he's trying to do here? What message does it send to women if we indulge this kind of nonsense?

The OP also referred to them as she - have you replied to her in the same fashion?

YABU for referring to a man as she.

I still can't get my head around this. A friend of mine delivered a stillborn child at 20+ weeks after it was found that the baby hadn't developed properly. She had to go through having the very-much-wanted baby injected to kill it, then give birth to a dead foetus in a maternity unit surrounded by women giving birth to healthy children. I have absolutely no maternal instinct whatsoever but I cannot even imagine the horror of going through that.

And this man is fetishising this.

Oh... Well.. That would probably be along the same lines as the drugs that male people who declare that they are having periods and have PMT take. The effect may well be the same and on the exact same organs - ie likely to be the intestines.

There really is no end to the female body functions that some male people seek to fetishise. I mean, there are recipes for ice blocks to insert in the anus too for blood simulation.

It really is misogynistic for endocrinologists to also describe the cycling of progesterone and estrogen as 'periods' too. But there you have it. If a male person wants something enough, there is a group of people, including clinicians, who will help them simulate it.

I mean, if there are people out there who support these male people in their belief that they are in any way 'women / female', the gates are already open wide.

Oh absolutely, it's not like he tried to abuse babies or anything.....

Well said