Transgender man gives birth and wants to be recorded as baby's father

[OrchidInTheSun]

FFS

I just heard this on the news. This fucked up person says it's a breach of their human rights not to be recorded as the baby's father.

I'm kind of running out of words to express my feelings about this

Presumably when the child is 18, they can go to court to get the correct information on their own birth certificate.

And what if the mother changes her mind about identifying as a man in five years or so? Presumably they'd want the birth certificate changed again?

I'm guessing you could have a situation where a person is mother to one child and father to another child? Or both a mother and a father to one child.

What if they identified as non-binary (both mother and father or neither)? What do you put on the birth certificate then?

And this is a quite unusual case where the biological father is unknown. In most cases, the mother and father of a child are known. And that just opens up even more cans of worms.

What if the biological father were on the scene and did not agree that the child has another father? Which father wins that argument? How do you order the fathers in the birth certificate? Who goes first? How do you specify which one of them gave birth to the child?

What if the biological father identifies as a woman? And wants to be described as Mother on the birth certificate? Where does that leave the actual biological mother?

Is the biological father entitled to maternity leave if the birth certificate states that they are the Mother of this child?

The birth certificate includes only the birth mother, her husband or wife or the unmarried father if present.

And the state refers to a child’s birth certificate as ‘their certificate’ i.e. the child’s.

Listener - I presume you were conventionally conceived, with married parents who have raised you. Your failure of imagination is a bit depressing. I can retell you - from personal experience- that birth certificates are enormously important if you don't have a conventional parenting set up

This sums it up for me. People are looking at this from the point of view of the person giving birth - his feelings etc (I use "his" out of courtesy - of course he is a woman as he is giving birth but pronouns don't always bother me)

I look at it from the point of view of the child whose birth is recorded - the main player in all of this I think the record of someone's birth should prioritise their needs and the needs of the state - not the feelings of the person giving birth. The truth is the simplist way of approaching any issue imo.

It is a bad sign for the future of the child for the record of their birth to be being used in this way by the parents.

Popchyk Perhaps the certificate should have:
Birth Mother
Biological Father (If known)
Responsible Parent/Guardian 1 (or some other suitable phrase) and how they would like to be identified.
Responsible Parent/Guardian 2 as above

Jamie Thank you for clarifying!

Pallisers Agreed! The birth certificate should be a clear record of the truth at their birth.

In this instance that would mean the birth mother being stated on the certificate, the biological father as unknown (which I think is the case here?) and also that the birth mother intends to identify as the father going forwards.

but a birth certificate is a record of a birth - not of an intention to be a responsible parent? Why would you be adding all those guardians etc? And what if the guardians bugger off in a year's time - does the poor child still need their consent for a passport? Or would it just be a "feel-good" inclusion on a record of birth.

Record the birth - it isn't a certificate of parenting it is simply a record of birth.

Then record any adoptions etc after that. separate legal documents (all of which should be available to the child who is the subject matter of them)

and also that the birth mother intends to identify as the father going forwards.

why is this necessary? Why? Because of the feelings of the parent - not the purpose of the recording of birth.

My birth certificate records my mother and my father unknown. it doesn't record that my mother intended to place me for adoption or was going to identify as an unknown person to me or that my mother was desperately unhappy at placing me for adoption. it just says what happened. X gave birth to Y on this time and date and place.

People are saying "what does it matter, no one looks at their birth cert etc." Well if it doesn't matter, why can't it not matter to the woman giving birth instead of "adjusting" the truth for the baby.

What the birth mother intends to identify as going forwards has nothing to do with the birth.

The birth father may not be unknown. If they are a UK donor, the child can trace them at 18. Unknown implies the mother has no idea who the birth father is and that isn't true under HFEA guidelines.

And what pallisers says is true - any other parental responsibilities are recorded separately. A birth certificate is literally just that.

But isn't there already a precedent of birth certificates sometimes being changed - I'm pretty sure the public record doesn't have a child's birth parents after adoption, for example?

Pallisers Yes perhaps that is a better way forward and I'm getting hung up on the birth certificate. Maybe a separate document would be a helpful solution.

Regarding the guardians - I meant for these to be the people intending to bring the child up. Say if there was a surrogate mother who was the birth mother named on the certificate but had no intention of being responsible for the child growing up. Them buggering off would be the the same situation as a biological parent buggering off - I assume there is a process in place when this happens.

The birth mother is on the birth certificate in surrogacy cases and adoption cases.

I think they adopt in that situation listeners. So the paper trail is then clear for the child.

And one thing that bothers me in this is us referring to "the child". Adoptees are always "the adopted child". The reality is people are adults in the blink of an eye and have the right to the truth about their birth. Just that.

But isn't there already a precedent of birth certificates sometimes being changed - I'm pretty sure the public record doesn't have a child's birth parents after adoption, for example?

Do you mean is a child's original birth cert expunged from the record after adoption - then no. It remains there as a record of an event that was legally required to be recorded. It may be hidden from the child but that is a different thing. An adoption certificate does not replace a birth certificate, it just follows it and becomes the document of record.

The birth certificate should record the truth, a child deserves that much. Putting the delusions of it's mother down as it's father is a lie and disrespectful to the child.

Pallisers That makes sense.

Right I'm off to bed! Thanks for all the provocation.

Ah, sad I missed the biological discussion regarding intersex individuals. Bowlofbabelfish, excellent job (as usual)! And Shrimpi, as a fellow pediatrician, I was a bit surprised to see you describe a female with CAH as having a penis and scrotum. I've always read and referred to such a patient as having virilization resulting in ambiguous genitalia, (typically clitoromegaly and enlarged, fused labia). I've never seen any suggestion that these little girls have a "penis" or "scrotum." Interesting...

Moving on, though. One thing that really bothers me about transmen having babies is the potential effect of exogenous testosterone on their eggs. Remember that our eggs are part of us from our own fetal life. Exposure to unnatural levels of testosterone (even many years prior to conception) could be quite harmful. Considering epigenetic changes, these children are at risk for significant adverse outcomes, including issues later in life with their own fertility.

Sadly, this concern is no longer being discussed or researched in the medical community. Rather, we "honor" such choices...the children be damned.

Fuck it. I'm so done with this narcissism and obsession with SELF.

God I hadn't even thought of that George! I was reading an interview with a transman a while ago who thought they may want children at some point so were planning on stopping the T, conceiving and then re-starting once the baby was born. Which I thought sounded like a bad idea but I hadn't even thought about the fact that we are born with our eggs. Frightening.

I hadn’t thought about that either.
Would you be kind enough to explain this very simply for non scientists/medics?

What do we know about any epigenetic/genetic/heritable effects on human eggs from testosterone?

If there are genetic or epigenetic changes does this mean that if a biological woman takes testosterone, then uses her eggs, her biological daughter but also biological granddaughter etc etc could be affected by these changes?

If there are likely to be changes what should the advice be to biological women taking male hormones? And what about sperm, is the DNA in sperm affected in biological men taking female hormones in a way that can be inherited? How should these men be advised?

there are lots of children of eastern german athletes who are damaged due to state sponsored doping during the russian occupation.
for women doping often involves meddling with the hormones.

Men make sperm regularly so it wouldn't be the same - you can change the quality and quantity of your sperm by making lifestyle changes.

I wonder if there's been any evaluation of the effect of testosterone on our egg reserves? Probably not

God this is frightening: www.ironcurtainproject.eu/en/stories/ive-given-my-blood-for-union/how-east-and-west-germany-abused-and-drained-their-athletes/

Sadly, this concern is no longer being discussed or researched in the medical community. Rather, we "honor" such choices...the children be damned.

It's shocking. Any such research proposal would likely never be allowed as it would be considered transphobic.