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.

In order to even be considered to be suitable as an adopter you have to go through a rigorous, intrusive, lengthy process.

Months of one to one sessions with an assessor (including full life and relationship history)
3 references
Full medical check and medical history
DBS checks
Proof of financial ability to support a child

This process is very intrusive and takes a considerable amount of time.

Then you have to go before a multi-professional panel, all of whom have to agree on your suitability. The panel has access to all the above information that has been gathered about you. At that panel a decision may be made to send you off for further training/counselling before you are considered suitable. Or you may be turned down altogether if the panel does not think you suitable to adopt.

If/when you are finally approved to adopt, matched with a child and have it placed with you, you are subject to numerous social work visits and multi-agency reviews.

If you then decide to proceed with adoption you are, these days, expected to pay the Court fees to submit the Adoption application. If there is a contest by birth parents and you wish to have legal representation in the Court proceedings you have to pay for that yourself.

This is what you have to do to adopt. It is lengthy, intrusive, costs money. At the end of the process of assessment and going to panel you are not even guaranteed to have a child placed with you.

And this is how it should be.

The adoption analogy is definitely flawed for all the the reasons already given.

A more accurate analogy in my opinion is national identity.

That one doesn't work either. National identity is to a very large degree culturally and historically determined. National borders are pretty arbitrary. There's no inherent reason why the border between England and Scotland is where it is - it's a result of war and negotiation and politics etc.

So compared to the differences between men and women, the differences between Scottish and English people, for example are much less clear cut. And I can see how it could be perfectly reasonable for an English person who has, say, lived in Scotland for years, to claim Scottishness, or a type of it.

And it's also much easier to see how someone could have multiple national identities (the English person in Scotland could reasonably feel both English and Scottish) that could happily coexist. This doesn't work in the same way when talking about sex.

Not sure why the face maryz....

There are indeed legal fictions with parentage, such as a birth certificate which has two women on it (following IVF treatment) with no legal father. You could argue that is lying and indeed state collusion in a lie. It bears no relation to biology.

The subject matter of the thread is still a rubbish analogy though because woman is not a legal construct in the way that parent is. Parent does not by itself have anything to do with biology, although most of the time, parents will be those biologically related to the child.

The face was relating to government collusion in lies - such as the pretence that transpeople have actually changed sex, and that their change of sex should be backdated to the day they were born.

I believe birth certs should be accurate, so it does trouble me that two women (or men) would be listed as parents on a birth cert, especially if the actual biological parent is known. This is nothing to do with parents being gay - I have similar concerns about children who are the result of surrogacy and sperm donation; I think the birth cert is the property of the child and should reflect their biological parentage, as far as it can.

But that's a whole other thread.

Having said that I know that if I had got pregnant as the result of sperm donation I would have put dh down as the father on the birth certificate. It bothers me that I know I would do it, because from the child's point of view and the legal point of view it's not accurate.

I'm not desperate to adopt men as my 'sisters' or fellow women though. Im happy to accept feminine men, well they can do what they want really, aside from infiltrating women's safe spaces and causing harm to others. Adopting is nothing like this at all. Will the trans brigade stop at nothing to further their cause

I've posted before about being an adoptive parent and how this attempt to draw a parallel really pisses me off.

DD and I would love nothing more for her to have been born from me - if you met us on the street, you wouldn't think for a second that she hadn't been. We don't tell people that she is adopted unless there is a real need to know (school teachers, for example). Getting her a passport means that, along with the short birth certificate, she has decent ID that satisfies most situations that she needs to produce something to confirm her identity, but occasionally (visa applications, for example) we have to share the long certificate which I hate doing, because it also shares some of her most personal information. But, it's necessary and we have yet to encounter any problems as a result.

But if the state won't pretend that DD is actually my biological child, why on earth should it pretend that it's possible to change sex? And why should it be possible to get what is in effect a falsified document with minimal checks and cost?

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

No. Just fuck off with this ignorant nonsense. There are plenty of adopters out there, like me, who are also bio parents.

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

I think it extends our understanding of what it is to be a man.
Men are whatever men say they are and women are whatever men say they are.
It is obedience training.
Adoption is just the latest forced teaming that transgender advocates are using to make their case for submission to their beliefs.
Intersex people said no to the forced teaming with transgenderists, and Black women said no to the forced teaming with transgenderists, to no avail.
Faithful Followers of Genderism do not take no for an answer. Not ever.

it’s a difficult one. I know what you mean re sperm donation. I just cannot see someone who donates bodily material to another person whom they do not know and without knowledge of whether their material will even be used, as a parent. So I am not that ethically troubled by putting down the factual parent.

With trans birth certificates I am obviously concerned about rewriting history. It’s not merely inaccurate but it erases a moment that was recorder years ago and pretends it never happened. That troubles me far more than two women on a birth certificate. I am trying to work out why they allowed it in the first place. It just seems so unnecessary and also potentially dangerous.

Since when does being an adoptive parent require a birth parent to give up their rights to safety and security?

Parent a role that we chose.
So anyone fulfilling the role can be a parent.

Being a woman, a fact of biology made worse by the attitude of society. Not role play. Not a game.

I’m an adoptive parent and I say this is bollocks when you think about changes to self ID.

I identified as a mother but biology didn’t agree with me. However I didn’t fill in a form online that said I identified as a mother and get handed kid the next week. For us it was a gruelling three-year process having my background, emotional, financial, physical, mental strength and readiness assessed. We went on courses, volunteered with kids, hours and hours of paperwork and assessment meetings, went to 2 panels (approval and matching), our friends, family, previous counsellors and employers were interviewed and had to give references to say they thought we would be suitable, even now nearly a year after placement we still have monthly social worker visits checking it’s all ok, oh and three court hearings to get through before it’s finalised.

And you know what, for all my friends who got frustrated on my behalf and questioned why it took so long, it should take a long time. You should be pushed and tested to see if you’re resilient and robust, it should be hard. It’s a major life change with profound implications if it goes wrong and you’ve got to understand the issues you’ll face. If you can’t hack the process, you won’t hack the reality if you’re New life.

So TRA can fuck off coopting me into their argument. Legal gender change should be difficult, lengthy etc. It’s not like putting on a blue vest instead of a red one. It really matters and people should be given all the resources to make sure it’s the right choice and how to come to terms with that.

Oh and that “identified as a mother” is tongue in cheek. I wanted to be a mother but couldn’t sustain a pregnancy.

I knew I wasn’t a mother, I know now I didn’t birth my daughter. We’re very open about the fact we’re a family by adoption.

I am a birth mum and a parent by adoption. Neither of. these are things I identified into.

The process to be a birth mum took a couple of years plus, and fertility treatment.

Being an adoptive patent took a six month wait then a 20 month process. so both longer than getting a GRC would, as far as I am aware it is 2 years.

The adoption process involves a medical, lots of meetings and lots of checks that I was safe to be a mum to an adopted child. Even though I already had a child - checks I felt were always rightly needed.

The only area where one of my children differs from the other is that of biology. It means all the things mentioned before on this thread, like not being able to be a donor for my younger child and not knowing the medical history.

I think a trans woman is never going to biologically be female (and vice versa) and so areas where biology matters - like single sex services and sports etc that is where the difference lies and should not be muddled in with being female.

Self-id is a terrible idea, almost like adoption with no checks at all.

Stonewall including cross dressers in the definition of trans is a bat shit idea that will hurt genuine dysphoric people.

Both longer meaning both becoming a birth parent and a parent by adoption.

Yy, Strings and Italian

I confess that when I read about the complaints regarding the current GRC system (that it's intrusive, that it's decided by a panel who don't know you, it involves medics deciding what is best for you etc etc), I could almost cry if I compare it to the pre-adoption process.

Particular highlights experienced by DH and me and friends we met during prep include:

• being asked how often we masterbate
• being required to lose weight (size 20 woman too fat to be a mother, of course)
• being told that drinking a glass of wine every night would make us a bad parent
• being told that it was a major red flag that an incident mentioned by a father (as part of taking up references) had not come up during home study, despite it happening 25 years ago and it genuinely meaning nothing (SS decided that it was a sign of repressed anger towards the parent, so therapy to resolve the issue was needed before assessment could re-start)
• detailed discussion about contraception - with a social worker
• being told that our expectations were too high and we should be prepared to have to parent a child who would not achieve well at school

And, of course, having to scrub the house ahead of every SW visit and decide what sodding biscuits to serve

being asked how often we masterbate

WTF? That is not a normal part of the approval process. That's surely a sacking offence for a SW.

being told that drinking a glass of wine every night would make us a bad parent

Being a parent is what makes me do this.

I think in this one area of biology verses non-biology, or genetics to be more precise, there are some similarities.

However, in the UK being adopted is all about the issues with birth parents, and availability of adoptive parents/a.

Birth parents either cannot look after children, or in rare cases choose not to, or in even rarer cases may not be alive.

I am sure trans people would say their situation is all about themselves not external forces. But for adopted children it is almost exclusively the situation of the birth parents and availability (willingness suitability) of adoptive parent/s.

So the comparison breaks down.

I wonder how much the author knows about trans issues or adoption?

Oleanna

There are so many hoops to jump with adoptions. Until fairly recently, for a step-parent to adopt their spouse's children, the spouse had to adopt them too. Yes, their own, biological children. That was barmy.

Adoption really isn't a good comparison when the point is that self-ID should be accepted...

I wonder how much the author knows about trans issues or adoption?

The author is a transwoman. I'm pretty sure she knows bugger all about adoption from the article.

@Maryzsnewaccount you mentioned donors. As an aside. we had donor egg treatment over a number of years (none successful).

If it had been I knew we would always tell the child the truth because it is better for them.

The risk of not knowing until later in life and feeling betrayed/lied to is too big.

Current thinking on donor treatment now is it is better to tell early (like adoption) but on the birth certificate who carries the child and her partner/husband are legal parents (it protects the child).

So I would have used my name but told the child. slightly more complicated than sperm donor as I would have been the biological parent but not the genetic one!

being asked how often we masterbate

WTF? That is not a normal part of the approval process. That's surely a sacking offence for a SW.

Apparently it was part of establishing whether the couple in question had a healthy and strong relationship I've heard of a few people being asked similar, rather intrusive questions during the assessment, all from different parts of the country

being told that drinking a glass of wine every night would make us a bad parent

Being a parent is what makes me do this

Well, quite!

@ OlennasWimple

Apart from the masterbation question, (which is massively intrusive) I can relate to your post. I met someone who went through a different council who was asked about masterbation and I was shocked then too.

I had rude remarks made to me at approval panel about my weight.
We had to pause the process for a few months counselling to deal with “unresolved issues” (they weren’t unresolved and not issues). Contraception conversations, being told not to expect our child to succeed academically.

I do get why they do that. But it is intrusive.
I think they make it deliberately hard to see who stays the course.
We were told when we came back after counselling that not many couples do. They get offended and give up.

Anyway it is tough and rightly so. And while I have every sympathy for people who feel like they want to change gender, I still think that should be a tough process too.

I’m assuming though that administering tough processes cost money.
How much cheaper for the government to say let’s go to self ID and save $$$. I wonder if it goes through, how many lawsuits down the line it will take before there’s a cost benefit to bringing back tougher controls for GRC.

How much cheaper for the government to say let’s go to self ID and save $$$

The small numbers who apply for a GRC probably mean that the overall cost to government isn't really that high. A few hundred a year (partly offset by the £140 application fee) can't put that big a hole in the coffers.

If the government succeed in implying being trans is not a medical issue then how long before they end up denying people counselling or medical treatment on the NHS.