Pregnant Dad-to-be

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"I hope it's human". www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/parenting/pregnancy/expecting/108554713/pregnant-kiwi-dadtobe-getting-ready-to-welcome-first-child-around-christmas?cid=app-iPhone

Apologies for the ridiculously long link (hope it works), I'm on my phone.

Maybe it's the fact I'm 39 weeks pregnant myself but the phrase "chest-feeding" does make me feel a little ill.

Interesting that apparently in NZ Scout can be put down as the Father on the birth certificate, and since a sperm donor was used, completely eliminates the concept of "mother"

But the point is that it is already possible to put two same sexual parents on a birth certificate, nobody cares if the second parent has any genetic relationship to the child and there has never been a need to put a father in a birt certificate despite rarity if immaculate conceptions.

I don’t think a man can give birth, but given that birth certificates already have little to do with biology, I’m pretty laid back about this.

Which isn't the same as rocking up with your best mate

Nobody checked my relationship with my partner when we registered our son’s birth. I could have just met him on the street outside.

Same sex parents.

Lying about the parentage of your child is one thing, and obviously fairly questionable as it is. Claiming to be the child's father when you are actually the mother and doing it legally is several steps beyond that.

Claiming to be the child's father when you are actually the mother and doing it legally is several steps beyond that.

Unless they plan to conceal the fact that they are trans or want to make up a pretend mother, isn’t it more likely that they will just tell the truth?

Someone choosing to lie on a birth certificate about being the father of the child is very different to the state allowing someone to say they’re the child’s father, when they’re actually the mother who gave birth to the child, merrymouse

X post with FloralBunting

Well, yes. It's all very well assuming that someone will be honest about the situation with their child in the fullness of time, but that's a pretty generous assumption when they are prepared to lie on a legal document which belongs to their child for the sake of their own identity issues.

Someone choosing to lie on a birth certificate about being the father of the child is very different to the state allowing someone to say they’re the child’s father

But it’s already legal to have two men or two women on a birth certificate. That’s not ‘lying’, it’s just how birth certificates work. Somebody can automatically become a legal parent by being married even if it’s a same sex marriage.

How can two men be on a birth certificate? A same sex female married couple, yes, because the mother and her legal partner are recorded. No lying involved there.

However deliberately recording the mother as the father and denying that there is a mother at all is a lie.

How can two men be on a birth certificate?

Proving that one of them has a genetic relationship with the child and getting a parental order. It’s the mechanism anybody uses if they use a surrogate mother.

They aren't on the original birth certificate though, getting a parental order means another certificate is issued, and the original kept on file. No one is pretending that the male same sex parents are the birth parents. There is a process, a parental order is submitted and a second birth certificate is issued.

Proving that one of them has a genetic relationship with the child and getting a parental order. It’s the mechanism anybody uses if they use a surrogate mother

No it isn't. In the case of a surrogate in the UK the woman who gave birth is registered as the mother.

Rules for 2 male parents

You must fill in a‘C51 application form for a parental order’and give this to afamily proceedings courtwithin 6 months of the child’s birth

You’ll need to provide the child’s full birth certificate and will also be charged a court fee of £215

The court will then set a date for the hearing and issue you with a ‘C52 acknowledgement form’ that you must give to the child’s legal parent, ie your surrogate

The birth mother and anyone else who’s a parent of the child must agree to the parental orderin writing

You cannot apply for a parental order once the child is older than 6 months

jezebels I asked you a good few posts back, do you tell your child they have a father and two mothers?

OkPedro no, we tell her she has two mothers and when she is old enough to understand we will explain she was conceived with the help of a donor; a kind man we don't know who helped us have her. She can meet him one day if she wants.

The donor is not her father, it is important for her to understand the difference.

I imagine Scout will do something similar.

They aren't on the original birth certificate though

Yes and no. The second legal parent can be an intended parent if the surrogate mother is unmarried.

The point is that birth certificates are concerned with legal responsibility, not biology.

When identifying the first parents the law starts with the birth mother and then asks whether they are married, not whether they have a genetic relationship with that child or whether the person to whom they are married could possibly have been involved in the conception.

I don’t know about NZ, but it follows that if the person in the article gave birth in the U.K. they would be on the birth certificate because they are a woman who gave birth to a child, what ever the law allowed them to be called, and there would be no parental order and the mechanism of the law would make it clear that they weren’t biologically male.

I think ‘man’ gives birth stories are always a bit strange because they always just come back to a woman bearing a child. It’s just that some women believe they have a male gender. I might have all sorts of problems with the concept of gender and the idea it’s possible to change sex, but I also believe that gender dysphoria exists.

I still don’t believe that somebody would appear in a newspaper article that clearly explains that they are trans if they were going to create an elaborate subterfuge to pretend that they are actually a man. How would that work? Are they going to cut off all ties with friends and family and hope the internet stops working?

I don't think that a situation where two women in a lesbian relationship have a child with a donor father can be compared to the absolute fuckedupness of a woman, claiming to be a man herself, having penetrative vaginal sex with a man, getting pregnant and then calling themselves the child's father. The latter is a clear cut case of mental ill health.

The person in the article used a sperm donor.

I think in the overwhelming majority of cases I can think of that truth IS love when it comes to trying not to emotionally mess up your children. That goes for issues separate to parentage as well.

We don’t have closed (anonymised) adoption any more - and the names of the biological parents of adoptees are stated on their birth certificate which is intended to give the adopted person a way to know their birth family’s names and the BC also holds the full name that the child was registered with at birth.

With donor conception, we don’t explicitly record genetic info if children on birth certificates. Which I think is right and often protects children’s interests.
The UK removed anonymous sperm/egg or embryo donation. The child has a legal right to request their donor’s name and address at 18. They can request to know if they are donor conceived (from treatment in the UK) at age 16. UK charities like Donor conception Network offer info and resources to tell children in an age-appropriate way about their genetic origins.

This quote below is from someone whose legal case contributed to changing the law that removed donor anonymity in the UK- she is against donation per se as is the case for some donor conceived people who are given no legal opportunity to find their donor.. the objection seems to be substantially rooted in the reaction to the lying and the adverse effects that has on identity for the child:

‘Despite my sense of injustice, I love and am loyal to my family. But it is still a very sensitive and prickly issue, and relationships can feel deeply strained at times. My mum and dad - who are now divorced - have made massive efforts to understand how I feel, but it can still be very difficult. I think that like many people who go through donor insemination, they were naive and deeply focused on themselves and their infertility.’ She continues:

One of the most upsetting things for me about the way I was brought into the world is the blatant double standard involved. My mother's need to have a genetic link to her child was valued, while my need to know, love and understand the father with whom I have a genetic link was not.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/nov/14/family-genetics

I think there are obvious parallels.

Live how you want, but you shouldn’t have the right to force your own identity preference on to others including your kids via the medium of their legal identity documents.

but you shouldn’t have the right to force your own identity preference on to others including your kids via the medium of their legal identity documents.

Hasn’t that ship sailed if you have a GRC?

To be clear I disagree with Scout on a lot of things. I think ‘mother’ carries no more baggage than ‘Blood type O negative’. Scout is like me because we both have female reproductive systems. The thing that makes me not a man is not my gender. Like it or not, the word that describes Scout and me is ‘woman’.

However if birth certificates were a medical document they would apparently allow for the possibility of virgin births and assume that the marriage ceremony is a fertility rite that creates pregnancies.

They have always provided limited information.

In the context of NZ law, Scout is not lying.

I think ppl underestimate children's ability to understand and accept these type of things. It takes one convo:

Scout: you need a female egg and a male sperm to make a baby. I provided the female egg to make you and a male donor provided the sperm.

Kid: but you are my Papa, how did you make a female egg?

Scout: remember I told you I was born with the body of a Mummy even though I am a daddy? That's how I made the female egg.

Kid: oh yes that

Scout: do you have any questions?

Kid: can I go and play now

That's right, kids just stay at the stage of wanting to go out and play forever. The consequences others have talked about relating to being misleading information or incomplete information about background never crop up as long as they stay cute like buttons who only care about toys and playgrounds.

What's your solution Floral?

Trans people don't have kids at all?

Trans people do have children but don't be trans?