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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Transgender man becomes pregnant after IVF wants baby to be declared motherless on Birth certificate

137 replies

OtepotiLilliane42 · 13/02/2019 03:33

This is also covered in the Telegraph but I cannot access their article.
We have a similiar case in NZ, and I've put the links below. Scout had a baby girl just before Christmas. I am glad that everything went well for Scout and their daughter, but the denial of biological reality by Scout (especially in the Spinoff article) and the transgender parent in the Mail article is really sad. The media in NZ hasn't helped either by its decision to report Scout's story on Scout's own terms. In real life Dads don't get pregnant and have babies, at least human ones don't.
Other transgender parents in the UK have recorded themselves as the mother apparently, so it will be interesting to see where this goes.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6698303/Transgender-man-pregnant-IVF-battles-child-declared-motherless.html

thespinoff.co.nz/parenting/04-07-2018/im-pregnant-and-im-going-to-be-a-dad/

www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/parenting/baby/109558179/kiwi-dad-scout-barbourevans-gives-birth-to-daughter

OP posts:
OtepotiLilliane42 · 16/02/2019 23:53

I saw that too yeah and a couple of others on the same topic, one from 2011, which is the Daily Mail article on passports, and the Iona Institute article from September 2018 to do with assisted human reproduction.

Very interesting observation from Mr Wells in the extract below about Stonewall's grip on the administration, albeit it is about gay parents, rather than transgender issues.

The Home Office ‘Diversity Strategy’ states: ‘IPS [the Identity and Passport Service] is working with Stonewall in response to an issue about having to name a “mother” and “father” on the passport application form.’

Mr Wells added: ‘Like the Labour administration before it, the Coalition seems to be in Stonewall’s grip.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2044491/PC-passport-Goodbye-mother-father-Now-Parent-1-2-appear-form.html

Extract from the Iona article:

The forthcoming legislation on assisted human reproduction is set to build on the extremely radical approach to family relationships put in place by the Children and Family Relationships Act from 2015, a law that greatly demotes the importance of the biological ties between parents and children. In an article published in the current issue of the Law Society Gazette, a number of legal experts criticised the proposed legislation.

The author of the piece, Mary Hallissey, sums up the approach nicely when she says that “births certs will now sidestep the truth of a child’s origins in favour of naming commissioning parents, who have used donor material [eggs and/or sperm] to conceive.”

The approach of the Government is so radical that it looks set to allows the words ‘mother’ and father’ to be replaced on births certificates by ‘parent one’ and ‘parent two’, which is a total denial of biological reality.

ionainstitute.ie/mother-and-father-to-be-replaced-by-parent-1-and-parent-2/

OP posts:
ChattyLion · 17/02/2019 10:35

Apparently we are not allowed a birth certificate with the names of our legal parents ( like everyone else ! ) as this would be a legal fiction. I guess our feelz are not important enough.

Wh1spers I’m sorry that you aren’t able to have privacy about this aspect of your life. I can understand that you don’t want to always have to disclose it in such impersonal situations. There are other issues that BCs reveal too, like lack of a father or illegitimacy which can be hard to have to disclose in certain circumstances. I totally get that.

I think BC for adoptees is a specifically sensitive area after generations of adoptees not being able to see their BCs at all and I am not sure what a better way of organising things would be.
I just wanted to say that I’m not sure that self ID will necessarily be helpful in what you’d be looking for from a BC.

You said: So once self ID comes in I’m looking forward to self ID as a man, getting a new birth certificate and then changing back to a woman.

I don’t know you meant that tongue in cheek or not, but I don’t think anyone really knows at this point how self ID will actually be set up to work in practice if it comes in. I think it’s a bit like Brexit..

(Hopefully other posters who know more might be able to comment on any proposals there may have been around self ID and birth certificates..?)

WH1SPERS · 17/02/2019 11:22

It was indeed a bit tongue in cheek. It’s just a bit ironic that I have to use a legal document that discloses all my private business. But Self ID trans people will be able to get a new Bc immediately to keep their confidentiality.

Apparently they have a special section at the passport office and HMRC to deal with their .

So I don’t see why I can’t get one. Of course I don’t have the right of confidentiality as an adoptee , but I will once I am special .

ChattyLion · 17/02/2019 12:14

Wh1spers yup, we are absolutely swing that some groups are allowed to be more special, more heard than other groups.

Your privacy points are applicable widely. I can also imagine in the example of this particular legal case that it will be intrusive in future for the child in question if the case succeeds.

If the person has to show their birth certificate and it has no mother listed on it, someone will first automatically assume a mistake was made on the bc and their application or whatever will be rejected. Next the person will be asked intrusive questions to account for what is on the form- if they were untraceably abandoned at birth or their mother died untraceably in some highly unusual way.

Then the holder of that BC may feel they have to get into the details- that the person who gave birth to them did bring them up but preferred to be listed as ‘father’ and so on. Again, intrusive.

I feel (..in addition to the fundamental social and legal implications for wider society if the ‘mother’ field were to be removed from birth certificates..) that it would be kinder to a child in these specific circumstance to just fill out the ‘mother’ box and then have age appropriate conversations starting from a young age, about how uncomfortable the mother or woman label makes their parent feel and that they have chosen to organise their life differently because of that feeling.

Ie not telling the child that a man gave birth to them because that isn’t the truth. Not telling the child that women can literally change into men. I don’t think that asserting otherwise can do anything to build trust between parent and child. The child will discover a very different version of events at school and outside the home.

ChattyLion · 17/02/2019 12:15

*seeing, not ‘swing’

Blueblueyellow · 17/02/2019 21:33

Ote The Iona institute peddle a lot of misinformation,they are an anti abortion, conservative Catholic group and they aren't a trustworthy organisation to take information from whatever they say will be very biased. Just wanted to let you know and to anyone who reads that Ioan link.

OtepotiLilliane42 · 18/02/2019 04:23

Thanks for the heads up Blueblueyellow about the Iona Institute. I realised they were a Catholic organisation, so figured they would be on the conservative side, but other than that didn't know much about them. Should have done more research before I posted the link, so thanks again.

OP posts:
butteryellow · 18/02/2019 07:52

I think the answer I got back when asking about the possibility of changing my child's surname on their birth certificate does the job with this story:

birth certificates issued in England and Wales are not nor do they purport to be current identity documents.

Trying to use a birth certificate to validate your own issues is a blatant mis-use of the registry system.

Horsewithnom · 18/02/2019 08:12

Then the birth certificate could have parent one and parent 2 (optional).

Sperm-parent and egg-parent?

JellySlice · 18/02/2019 08:31

Sperm-parent and egg-parent?

Sperm-parent and host-parent?

Parent and gestator?

🤮

Under His Eye

ChattyLion · 18/02/2019 09:16

butter that is an interesting response - so they must know that we do often think of them as current identity documents in practice, in a social or emotional sense. I get it that it makes sense to try to think of BCs as more like just a snapshot in time or a bit like the census but just taken at the time of birth... but the social context in which we are often asked to use our BCs does work against that formal more administrative view of a BC I think.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 18/02/2019 10:58

Surely, looking at the welsh one that has pregnant person & biological father

The correct approach is

  1. Father
  2. Gestator

Long live patriarchy!

NothingOnTellyAgain · 18/02/2019 11:00

Does the gestator need to be named at all?
They have very little to do with the process after all.

Do marriage certs in england still only list father?
As is correct when ownership of a potential gestator is handed from one actual person to another.

Yeahnahyeah · 18/02/2019 11:11

nothingonthetelly I was really hoping the photo posted by half-blood princess was a hoax. (Her pregnancy notes book showing 'pregnant person and 'biological father. Please tell me it's a hoax. Sad

Bowlofbabelfish · 18/02/2019 11:34

Parent and gestator?

Spunker and bunker.

nevernotstruggling · 18/02/2019 11:38

I agree @butteryellow. Clue is in the name surely!

HalfBloodPrincess · 18/02/2019 11:50

@yeahnahyeah I wish it were a hoax. New pic for authenticity

Transgender man becomes pregnant after IVF wants baby to be declared motherless on Birth certificate
JellySlice · 18/02/2019 13:33

Spunker and bunker.

PMSL!

WH1SPERS · 18/02/2019 15:03

So good to know that although the role of mother is now gone , men still get to be “ father”.

Under His eye indeed.

Knicknackpaddyflak · 18/02/2019 15:42

Ok, if legal documentation can now be filled in with any imaginary lies the person wants, why should the general public as whole continue to waste their time on completing it? It's pointless. Works of fiction.

Public data by Hans Christian Anderson. The king is in the altogether, the altogether, the altogether, it's altogether the very least the king has ever worn....

LangCleg · 18/02/2019 16:42

Spunker and bunker.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Rufusthebewilderedreindeer · 18/02/2019 17:39

@yeahnahyeah I wish it were a hoax. New pic for authenticity

Fucking hell

Fucking scum sucking dirt eating shitheads

How the actual FUCK is that bullshit getting through on official documents

Could someone possibly point me in the direction of whichever disease ridden fuckwit came up with that pile of shite

I may be a smidge annoyed

Rufusthebewilderedreindeer · 18/02/2019 17:41

And the worst thing is parent 1 and parent 2 im a bit meh about

Pregnant PERSON? And biological fucking father

Get knotted

Rufusthebewilderedreindeer · 18/02/2019 17:42

I like the hello bit though princess

Nice touch

NothingOnTellyAgain · 18/02/2019 17:50

Esp as while you can be pretty damn sure who the mother of a baby is, father is a bit less certain, hence millenia of oppressive patriarchal control.

The fact they write 'biological father' in that space is REALLY interesting.

The NHS in Wales seems to have patriarchal male perspective of women, men, parentage, etc very much at the forefront when it writes policy!

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