Pregnant trans men Guardian article

[Todayissunny]

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/mar/22/story-one-mans-pregnancy-trans-jason-barker

I just find this so confusing....
It tells me that we should just be able to live how we want to. We should absolutely not be defined by gender.

Or am I just really, really old fashioned that this is just absolutely crazy.

No, not ‘what about the men’.

The question is why men aren’t being accused of having a natural gender predisposition towards dong ‘shit work’ when men without a choice often end up doing ‘shit work’?

... trans demands to speak of 'pregnant people' rather than women, to not deny all the 'men' who've given birth.

I suppose that comes down to weather you believe that the female biological expereicne can be erased so easily. Personally, I don't think that the whole language has to be changed to 'pregnant people' but it's possible to recognise that Jason and five other transmen gave birth, along with almost 700,000 women each year.

While lots of women give birth, it's quite a personal thing, they want different expereinces. A friend has just had a home birth, which was exactly what she wanted but in no way negates a woman who elects to have a c-section. Most women don't want to be treated as an amorphous mass when they're birthing.,

Do you think men who spent hours down coal mines weren’t doing ‘shit work’? Do you think they had a choice?

I think they got paid and then got their supper made for them and their clothes washed et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

it's possible to recognise that Jason and five other transmen gave birth, along with almost 700,000 women each year.

Yes. However, if we have to agree that transmen are men, we are actually being asked to recognise that 6 men gave birth last year.

That is where things start to become Orwellian.

The question is why men aren’t being accused of having a natural gender predisposition towards dong ‘shit work’ when men without a choice often end up doing ‘shit work’?

It is an interesting example of how the patricharcy oppresses most people, that in it's not just all men opressing all women that it's often contracted to, by some.

The question is why men aren’t being accused of having a natural gender predisposition towards dong ‘shit work’ when men without a choice often end up doing ‘shit work’?

I don't really understand what you're saying but that might be the wine, all work is shit! Can you really not think of a reason why hard physical labour or fighting on the front line might be a natural gender disposition across the globe, whether it needs mentioning or not? Sounds like WATM to me.

I think they got paid and then got their supper made for them and their clothes washed et cetera, et cetera, et cetera

The question was do you think they chose to go down the mines because they had a choice (People in the Welsh Valleys love darkness and being underground!) or do you think they were just human beings doing what was possible in their circumstances?

Do you think the women had a choice?

You seem to think innate gender qualities influence how people behave, but I think the vast majority of people throughout history have had very limited choices.

*Yes. However, if we have to agree that transmen are men, we are actually being asked to recognise that 6 men gave birth last year.

That is where things start to become Orwellian.*

This is where I came in. Your truth isn't an absolute truth. By all means disbelieve what other people tell you about themselves but that doesn't give you a free pass on negating their experience or to be mean about it.

I can say that 'cis' is an acceptable Latin term or that TERF is an accurate acronym but I knew that many women don't want to be called those things. My objective truth doesn't outweigh their right to name themselves, that's not how respectful people behave.

I didn't say that Jason was male I said he was a bloke. That's what he calls himself and he uses male pronouns. Neither of those thing take anything away from you.

Jason's experience of birth was a 'female biological experience'. Jason's psychological issues with their body needed to be managed sensitively but this is true for many women. Midwives are supposed to give woman centred care, which means responding to the individual so this shouldn't be a problem (except that obs and gynae services are seriously underfunded so it is the exception rather than the rule for any woman to get responsive care). Jason didn't seem to be up in arms about being referred to as 'mum' which is good, but there have been other articles where this type of thing was cited as the cause for a serious complaint.

Can you really not think of a reason why hard physical labour or fighting on the front line might be a natural gender disposition across the globe, whether it needs mentioning or not?

Men are bigger and stronger than women and don’t become pregnant. Cultures divide labour differently, but physical reality influences the division of labour, not ‘gender’.

Now the nature of warfare and work has changed,women can control their fertility and women have more choices, but as I have already said, that is a very recent development.

The point is that women aren’t choosing to do ‘shit work’ (still not sure what means) any more than men.

I don’t think all work is ‘shit’, and am still not really sure what stillscresming defines as ‘shit work’.

But Rat while I can't talk to fighting on the front line (although for smaller communities risking the lives of women of childbearing age would probably be a bad strategy), hard physical labour cannot be said to be 'a natural gender disposition across the globe'. In subsistence economies everyone works because that is the only way that the family survives and the majority of work is hard labour.

This is where I came in. Your truth isn't an absolute truth. By all means disbelieve what other people tell you about themselves but that doesn't give you a free pass on negating their experience or to be mean about it.

You are confusing opinion and facts. Facts are evidence based and objective. I am not negating experience. To produce eggs you have to be female. That is just what the word means. Jason might have all sorts of bad feelings about the word female and that is subjective. However it doesn’t change what a woman is.

I don’t want to be ‘mean’, and wouldn’t care about your opinions on gender if they weren’t harmful.

On the other hand I do appreciate that you are being honest. I wish a few Guardian writers would face up to what they are actually saying when they claim that gender exists but refuse to define it.

Agree nooka

Woman in pregnancy shocker! (Did her midwife advise her not to take testosterone whilst pregnant, do you think?)

It's p-a-t-r-i-a-r-c-h-y.

Petty, sorry, but it's doing my bloody head in.

In the South Wales mining communities at the peak of the coal industry the mortality rate was higher for Miner’s wives than for the miners.

(Source - exhibition at Big Pit Mining Museum, Blaenafon, part of the National Museum of Wales.)

Coal mining is an interesting example to use since the women went down the mines too, often with a baby at the breast.
There is photographic evidence.

I'm still not sure why this fatuous, self- indulgent article requires any more attention paid to it than any of the other fatuous, self - indulgent life- style articles which feature so prominently in the Guardian.

Re coal mining I think in the UK female working underground seems to have stopped around 1840.

www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/the-scandal-of-female-miners-in-19th-century-britain/

Here are female miners today.

www.100daysinappalachia.com/2017/02/27/miner-matriarch-coal-mining-women-west-virginia/

Are we agreeing that biological sex is innate? (I haven’t seen an argument against this).

But arguing (rather strongly) about whether any aspects of gender might have an innate/interior quality due to hormones?

I appreciate that the question of where the burden of proof lies is political. But does it matter if we, like the rest of the human race, can’t be totally sure that no aspect of gendered behaviour is innate/hormonal driven?

The gendered behaviours in the “might plausibly be innate” category are not the ones that the TRAs are demonstrating.

Presumably Stillscreaming doesn’t hold truck with ideas that maintaining an extreme-stereotype appearance in the name of femininity could plausibly be innate?

I imagine there are more sophisticated arguments to be had about things like “nesting instinct” in late pregnancy, etc.

about whether

Also what is the big deal with the Cathy Brennan thing in a nutshell. Is she in litigation?

genderidentitywatch.com/how-to-file-attorney-grievance-complaints-against-lesbian-lawyers/

"Gender is a social construct" is useful shorthand but too simplistic (as is the "nature vs nurture" dichotomy).
Some "gendered behaviours" probably do originate in biology (caring, playing with dolls) while others probably don't (liking pink, being compliant).
It's pretty clear that the aspect of gender that TIMs embrace is exclusively the social construct. They are probably incapable of understanding the biologically based behaviours. And this includes fear of random males with penisis.

But does it matter if we, like the rest of the human race, can’t be totally sure that no aspect of gendered behaviour is innate/hormonal driven?

This isn’t about hormones. Hormones influence behaviour, but people who identify as trans don’t necessarily have different hormone levels to anybody else of the same biological sex. Hormone levels vary within men and women and women with higher testosterone levels are not men.

(Separately, some people have intersex conditions, but that is not the same as being trans. People who have given birth or fathered several children are not intersex)

It matters when you are encouraging people to believe there is something wrong with them if they don’t conform to stereotypes.

It matters if the government is endorsing restrictive gender stereotypes.

It matters because gender stereotypes have oppressed women for so long and now it seems that we are going backwards.

Yes, I understand Merry.

But why does it matter if Stillscreaming tends a bit more towards the nature argument whereas I tend to nurture?

I don’t see the big need to fall out.