Trans argument comparing adoptive parents to trans people

[NotTerfNorCis]

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

X post with Maryz

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

Come to think of it, I couldn't self-identify as an adoptive parent either; I had to fill in a heck of a lot of forms and satisfy a huge number of requirements. Much of the assessment was intrusive and embarrassing and time-consuming and fucking awful.

I also can't just change my mind and identify out of it if i decide i don't want to be my children's parent any more. And even if I tried to, my children would retain legal inheritance rights etc.

So there is pretty much no comparison at all

Interestingly I was thinking about this yesterday but from a different angle....

It is very easy for most people to become a parent - no laws, etc - you just give birth

BUT if you want to adopt lots of safeguards in the way and long and onerous process....

Parallels with changing gender/sex????

Lots of us are just born women - don't have to do anything special it just happens

But for those who want to live as a woman it should be a similarly onerous process, with lots of checks and balances....

Doing this is a very significant thing - as is bringing up a child - Both should rightfully be taken very seriously with appropriate safeguards for all concerned

Ageee with you.

There are myriad different ways to be a parent; all of them valid. There is only one way to be a woman. You either are or you aren’t!

Well, Maryz in the past there was definitely many instances of people lying about adoption and parents not disclosing to their children that they were adopted and pretending they were biologically related. Lying about biological parenthood also happens e.g. if a mother tells a man he is the father when she knows this to be untrue or doubtful.

BUT the point is that they are not comparable because parent is a legal construct and woman is not. A parent is someone who falls into one of several categories. It does not depend on biology for its definition. E.g. a woman giving birth to a baby conceived by egg donation who is not biologically related to her is a parent. A man donating sperm through a clinic is not a parent but a man making a DYI donation is. An adopted parent is a parent. An adoption order means that a previous biological parent is no longer a parent. So parenthood is not exclusively biological at all. It is based on a variety of factors and is sometimes merely a presumption which could be disproved with evidence.

Biological female is not a legal construct. It is a material reality.

Adoptive, not adopted parent. Sorry- am on my phone and brain somewhat overheated.

CRAP ANALOGIES

For a bit of light relief, above are some poor analogies. My own favourite:

"The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant".

I really don’t get this idea that “woman” needs broadening or enlarging, that women gain anything by having “our” understanding of what it means to be a woman extended

Why is it not enough that woman means adult human female? Why do so many people seem to believe that a good word is being wasted if that is all it means.

I really don’t get this idea that “woman” needs broadening or enlarging, that women gain anything by having “our” understanding of what it means to be a woman extended

I don't think women do gain anything. It isn't about us.

How is it a legal fiction?

The new birth certificate an adoptee gets is a legal fiction and is analogous to the new birth certificate that someone gets when they have a GRC.

That is the only similarity between the two things. This argument gets trotted out a lot by TRA and it's hugely insulting to adoptive parents and adoptees.

Adoptive parents are real parents; because they are cuddling away nightmares, changing bums and wiping up vomit. We have always described these people as parents, whether they donated some genes or not. Being a parent is an act of love- not a right.

There might be occasions where someone is a parent but (for whatever reason) they can't get parental responsibility- they are still a parent. Nobody things the dickhead who gets a lass pregnant and then abandons all responsibility is a real dad, even if he's given that title for convenience/politeness.

The author of this article clearly has no clue what adoption involves, as evidenced by the following rubbish:

An adoptive parent is someone who desperately wants to be a parent but can’t be one in the normal biological sense.

plenty of adoptive parents report an abiding regret that they aren’t biological parents

If the arguments the author is making have value, then they can stand on their own. If they only have value by shoehorning them into a parasitic comparison to adoption then they are weak arguments. Either way, I wish this lots would piss off and leave adopters alone.

donquixote The new birth certificate an adoptee gets is a legal fiction and is analogous to the new birth certificate that someone gets when they have a GRC.
That is the only similarity between the two things.

No! The adoptee doesn't get a new birth certificate with any legal fiction. They get a birth certificate without any parents named, and a certificate that is similar to a long form birth certificate but is clearly marked as 'adoption register entry'.

So no similarity at all.

In some cases adding things into a category doesn't extend them, it dilutes them and makes the category less precise. I'm not a philosopher or a linguistician but I agree that 'woman' as an adult human female is a category that doesn't need extending. A woman who has transitioned remains for me in the category of woman, and having a higher testosterone level and facial hair doesn't make her a man (or I would be one - I usually shave my face twice a day and I'm a woman). Categories may or may not have importance in different situations but they do exist. Babies just born are noted to be alive, then more or less healthy, then male or female. That's how fundamental those categories are. If those categories cause distress later in life then that's a cultural and social issues which shouldn't be ignored but it doesn't mean the categories are wrong.

Adoptive parents go through a lengthy and stressful bureaucratic process, adopt a child, build a relationship, commit to and love that child and embark on the immense, exhausting, life-changing, decades-long task of parenting.

This argument effectively conflates all that lifelong work and love with the act of declaring oneself a parent in the absence of any child and insisting that everyone pretend to believe in the declaration.

I'm not an adoptive parent myself but I'm genuinely offended on behalf of those who are.

@TeenTimesTwo

Good point. The old short form ones were identical to other birth certificates, that's why adoption certs were always used as an example of legal fiction, but you are right- that hasn't been the case for many years.

Whereas (I understand) that even the long form certificate is retroactively changed when someone has a GRC.

So there is absolutely no similarity between the two processes, legal or otherwise.

Oh dear god. I just tried reading the article to find out what I was rolling my eyes about this time but I couldnt make it through the first few paragraphs.

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

If it extended our understanding of what it is to be a man, I think we could all get on board with that.

yy PeakPants, there were, in the past, many instances of lying. Not any more, or at least not government collusion in such lies .

Adoption has been completely "cleaned up" in that there is no longer any way of lying about it or covering it up an any way. Lyingg about adoption would be illegal and would be the quickest way to have your children taken from you, if you were to persist in insisting that they were biologically yours, or hide their background from them. Illegal adoptions are just that, illegal. For example paying money or influencing biological parents would nullify any subsequent adoption order.

The reason adoption works, for the most part, is that there are onerous, intrusive and time consuming checks and balances. Something that the trans movement are trying to get rid of.