Is this parody? I hope it is. (Reproductive rights for people with testicles. What?)

[VestalVirgin]

"I can’t have babies. And no one in the reproductive justice movement is talking about this."

This complaint is uttered by a transwoman. I.e. biological male.

everydayfeminism.com/2015/11/trans-women-reproductive-justice/

Has any actual woman ever demanded that treatment for her very real infertility of her real female body be placed above issues like contraception and abortion in the feminist movement? I cannot remember even one such instance.

But here this transwoman is, and demands that feminism prioritize sperm banking.

According to the "are you cis sexist" article linked on another thread not questioning why there are no tampon machines in the men's loo makes you cis sexist

Erm? It's rare I find a tampax machine in the Ladies these days!

I still can't believe it isn't satire.

I think Everyday Feminism was actually created for and by transactivism and has nothing to do with women or feminism at all.

I will dutifully wonder why there are no tampon machines in the men's loo should I ever enter one. Which I rather suspect I will never.
(Also, I never saw something like that in the women's loo, but I suppose it is okay not to wonder why lowly ciswomen are not given this opportunity?)

Where I live, there are only machines that sell condoms in the ladies' restroom. Because priorities, probably. Or they are being trans-friendly by pretending acknowledging that some women have penises?

I have never seen anyone buy a tampon or tights or a condom or a disposable toothbrush from a toilet machine . Which is probably why they are so rare now...

I did, once, at a wedding when I was about 18 and caught unprepared. Clearly that £1 wasn't enough to keep the industry afloat though.

I suspect most of us borrow off a friend or nip to a 7-11 type store if we are out in town. As towels and tampons got smaller, having one shoved in your handbag anyway probably more likely.

Unless things are very different where that author lives, I find it hard to believe that a trans man went from a world of tampon abundance in the Ladies to a famine in the Gents. Not sure if the author was cis/trans/bepenised/bevaginaed.

I assume the author does realise that they are a commercial service that has to pay for the machine, the stock, refilling the machine, emptying the cash and bearing the loss if it is vandalised.

The baby photo thing had me foxed for a bit, but it's actually your baby photos, as in, of you, when you were a kid (I assume, as the other really is a bit too bizarre).

It's because to avoid prejudice, transwomen avoid showing anything from when they presented as the other gender - so references from old jobs, baby photos etc.

Most of my baby photos I'm either just in a nappy, or in the clothes of the day which were very gender neutral (everyone wore the same mothercare dungarees my mum tells me) - you'd be very hard pushed to tell the difference between me and my DSes in baby/toddler photos. I don't think any colleagues have seen.

As far as I know the reproductive justice movement focuses on access to contraception, abortion and sexual health services. I didn't realise it had anything to do with infertility and wouldn't expect that to be a good fit.

I'm very surprised that someone who opts to take hormones for the primary reason of suppressing their natural hormones would not be aware that this would leave them infertile.

I also don't like the way pregnancy is talked about. I wince at couples who say 'we're pregnant' so this is too much for me. Isn't pregnancy a protected characteristic under the Equalities Act? It already means something important.

Chunky, I don't think it is. It's about other "cis" people being "cis sexist". It wouldn't be the trans person's own baby photos. It's because we as women have to be sensitive to their feelings that it's not fair biological women can have kids, and it reminds them that they're not biologically women.

I don't think Jazz Jennings realises her sister is a real person who isn't just there for her benefit. Therefore why would she even bother to consider that it might have a negative outcome for her sister?

Isn't the baby photo thing about how we dress babies in pink or blue according to gender norms? Therefore we are being cis sexist towards our children by coercively assigning them a gender role?

I read it as just like the job references thing - someone who isn't trans can happily show them off without thinking (this is the 'cis privilege') whereas a trans person can't without 'outing' themselves

The pink and blue thing plays into that - although my kids as babies just wore whatever came next out of the big box of second hand clothes we had - whatever colour it was, because they're just babies, and they're just clothes so there's a plus point for Rad Fems surely? If we dressed all babies in whatever colours we liked (ie. ignore gender) then everyone could freely show their baby photos.

I guess it could be any/all of those things.

How many people actually go round showing their baby photos to people they haven't know very long? You'd be considered quite odd if you did...
It's such a random thing to take issue with.

I just came across this tragic story:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-30544737

Even though the mother TOLD them she gave birth to a girl, they still insisted the baby boy was hers. They made a mistake. The parents have now been told the children won't be swapped back, since it has been five years. And this mother was just doing what any one would - referring to the actual biological sex of their child. Except some would have it that doing such a thing is coercively assigning the baby female at birth (I THINK that is what the whole CAFAB thing stands for). This is the sort of (hopefully) RARE thing that happens to women giving birth, something where the sex of their child matters, with people NOT LISTENING to her because she's 'just' a woman, or 'just' poor, or 'just' black.

And we're supposed to get all worried and apologetic and shut up about actual female experiences (like bleeding, like giving birth, like panic when you were young and just started your periods and you couldn't find a tampon machine and you were too embarrassed to go to the school nurse, like suffering period pains, or hot flushes, or PMS and ALL those other things that go along with out actual biology!) -- we're supposed to SHUT-UP and not even celebrate the birth of a child by showing colleagues pictures, just in case some male is made to feel a teeny bit uncomfortable because they have been reminded that they DON'T have female biology.

Makes me want to take up free-bleeding, to be frank! :-)

The 'ask the person in question, not the person carrying them to term' one annoyed me a lot - coupled with the 'yes, this includes your own child' it seems to be framing the idea that I can know the sex of my baby as some sort of tyrannical position. A doctor told me some medical information - it has no bearing on how I will treat a child or what I will expect them to like or do.

It's terribly written, so maybe that wasn't intended but the 'carrying them to term' just irritated me because it sounds like they're intentionally removing the role of the mother from pregnancy, but also because 'carrying to term' means a particular thing, it isn't just a synonym for pregnancy. Surely one can't 'be carrying to term' before being full term?

I get the impression that actual, real, growing a baby inside you, pregnancy and birthing is one of those 'fucked-up' messy female biology things that the writer would prefer wasn't spoken about in favour of euphemisms and saying you're pregnant because you can produce sperm.

@Buffy: While death in childbirth is rarer nowadays, it is frequently used as plot device in historical novels or fantasy novels with medieval-ish setting ... so yes, I am sure Jazz knows that. He just doesn't care.

Just like the anti-choicers. They do not care one bit for the lives of women. They only care for the potentially male foetuses.

And just like millions of men who "don't like condoms".
(I am in favour of persecuting rapists for attempted murder if they didn't use condoms, because of the risk pregnancy poses ... but as most rapists aren't even convicted of rape ... good luck with that.)

If the risk of death in childbirth was treated like other risks, this world would be a very different one. Especially in countries where it is still high.

"ask the person in question, not the person carrying them to term"
This is INSULTING to women (Oh, how surprising!) in SOOO many ways! Referring to a 'person' first dewomanizes the MOTHER if someone is really pregnant (who'd a thunk I'd have to write REALLY pregnant!) they are hopefully going to give birth and people who give birth are female, and are mothers, whether or not they are the biological mother in the genetic sense (egg donation, sperm donation etc etc). The BIRTH mother matters, SHE isn't just an incubator. Reminds me of my little bit of classical culture Orestes, after killing his mother (who killed his father, cheery lot these classical greeks!), is on trial, and Athene (I think) as his advocate argues that the FATHER is the one true parent, the mother is just a receptacle for his sperm, just an incubator..............

The PERSON carrying the baby will be the birth MOTHER, but that's messy female biology for you!

The PERSON in question will be a baby if carried to term, and referring to a fetus AS a person is just anti-abortion campaigners all over!

Are we SUPPOSED to act as if the actual sex of the actual baby ISN'T known, whilst magically pretending that it DOESN'T matter, and this little proto-person COULD be a mother (or a father) irrespective of their ACTUAL biology! So, don't you go buying different nappies depending on their actual plumbing then.........................

It's jusy co-opting what feminists have always said, we treat babies DIFFERENTLY based on their actual or assumed sex. Rather than try to CHANGE that, instead the genderists would have us treat them differently based on their GENDER when they are old enough to tell us what it is. And insist they MUST have one..................

It's a a GIRL, that MATTERS when it comes to what will happen to her body later in life, and shouldn't matter when it comes to what toys she likes or doesn't like, what subjects she prefers at school, what career she choses, and what she gets PAID! You DON'T solve the problem of sexism by pretending you can ERASE sex and replace it with a gender that someone of any sex can have (hence no SEXISM stoopid!).

I'm thinking it can't get any more stupid or offensive, but I've said that before and was disappointed. Seems there IS no peak trans, it just keeps getting worse and worse.................

I found pregnancy knocked me for six. I struggled to walk for months with SPD, had morning sickness pretty much the whole way through, insomnia, restless leg syndrome, exhaustion. I never expected it to affect me so severely. Then childbirth with ventouse, tearing, episiotomy. I still get some pain during sex around the stitches, 15 months after giving birth. Plus let's not forget the stretch marks and the fact that my once toned stomach now has a permanent sag. But yeah that's all exactly the same as producing sperm. I see that now. It was wrong of me to think otherwise.

You DON'T solve the problem of sexism by pretending you can ERASE sex and replace it with a gender that someone of any sex can have (hence no SEXISM stoopid!).

Yes. This.