The Dad who gave Birth 'Seahorse' Documentary

[OtepotiLilliane42]

McConnell, 32, started taking testosterone at 25 and had “top surgery” to remove breast tissue a year later. He considered a hysterectomy, but never went through with it – partly because he had not ruled out the possibility of having children. In the film, we see how discombobulated McConnell becomes when he stops taking testosterone as he tries to conceive, using a sperm donor, and his body, in effect, goes into reverse. He starts having periods again (“I don’t like the idea that I’ve got tampons in my bag,” he winces); his facial hair gets wispier, his hips broaden, his tummy softens and he starts to speak less from his chest and more from his throat. “Every time I think about it, I think, ‘What the fuck am I doing?’” he says. At one point, a tearful McConnell sobs into the camera in the middle of the night: “I feel like a fucking alien.

Throughout, he is encouraged by his mother, Esme, who tells him: “I loved being pregnant. Everybody should experience it – especially men.” McConnell tells me she used to say this to him when he was a child, long before she had any idea that her son was trans. On screen, his mother supports him with a mixture of tender loving care and the odd no-nonsense kick up the arse. Occasionally, when he’s feeling sorry for himself, she loses patience: “Why are you making such a fuss? It’s what you wanted.” Then she relents. “But, actually, it’s not as simple as that. It’s such a brave and amazing thing to do. I’m in awe of him, basically

This such a dishonest piece of reporting - Freddy may be a transman, but he is not the father of his baby, and shouldn't be reported as such, any more than the other transmen who have given birth over the past few years. I could say more, but it honestly it gets really tedious reading stories like this. (And 'brave and amazing - why? There seem to be so many psychological issues here, yet we are expected to view it all as the new norm.) The Guardian really should stop writing such drivel.

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/20/the-dad-who-gave-birth-pregnant-trans-freddy-mcconnell

@GrumpyGran8 - thanks for the questions.

1. The filmmaker mentioned that she didn't want transition to be the focus of the film - that is handled in the first few minutes so the story could be about life after transition (in this case, starting a family). But Freddy's mother is a major character and she comes across as loving and supportive and mostly concerned with Freddy's happiness. Freddy's father, rather tragically, only appears via some home movies and mostly unsupportive emails. There is an excellent scene with aunts and cousins and an awkward conversation over tea that includes some of the themes of this thread. The style of the film isn't really "talking head" interviews, so the dialogue mostly comes from the filmmaker following the characters and talking to them as they go about their lives.

1. They did not go into the surgery at all in the film.

1. I hadn't noticed the choice of words in the film - it wasn't explored.

1. The narrative of the film follows the pregnancy from beginning to end. But really it is all an exploration of gender and identity. When he comes off testosterone, rather than simply reverting back to how he was before transition, Freddy is completely at sea. And what was approached mainly as a practical solution becomes an incredibly physically and emotionally exhausting process (as if pregnancy wasn't already physically and emotionally exhausting enough). I also think one of the major insights of the film - and the lines that got the biggest laughs in the screening - are when he talks about how if all men had to experience pregnancy it would be taken so much more seriously in society (or at least they'd never stop banging on about it).

Anyhow, I'm off to the rest of the film festival now....

I guess what I'm confused by is the emphasis in this conversation on biological motherhood or fatherhood. If this was an article about foster or step-parents, or sperm donation, or someone not in a relationship getting IVF, I'm just not sure there would be almost 50 posts of people saying what that parent is or isn't. Somehow when trans identity is involved it elicits much stronger reactions from people.

I guess you haven't read the surrogacy threads then? Another very current and pertinent topic.

My question is who benefits from disconnecting the concept of motherhood from women, from their bodies and reproductive processes?

It sure isn't women and children.

I guess what I'm confused by is the emphasis in this conversation on biological motherhood or fatherhood. If this was an article about foster or step-parents, or sperm donation, or someone not in a relationship getting IVF, I'm just not sure there would be almost 50 posts of people saying what that parent is or isn't.
Because, in all those cases that you mention, the biology of the parents are clear and don't need clarification.

This is about biology; only biological women can conceive and give birth. People can have any gender identity that they want; they can change their gender five times a day if that makes them happy. I (and I'm sure most of Mumsnet) have no problem with that. But they cannot change their sex.
The problem here is much wider than "pregnant men". A large part of the problem that we "bigots" are fighting and debating is that the language around biology and sex is being changed, without our consent.

Women around the world are oppressed because of their biology. They suffer FGM, rape, forced marriage, prostitution; they risk being outcast if they cannot produce a male child but only "useless" daughters; they are used as breeding machines. All because they are women; they cannot identify their way out of it.
When words become their opposite ("War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery" "men can be mothers; women can have penises" etc) people lose the power to name their oppression. To give two examples, women cannot point out they they have little power when there are men identifying as women in positions of power (ie, taking positions on all-women shortlists). And women cannot point out the fact that men commit the greatest amount of violence against both men and women, when some of those violent men identify as women and are listed in crime statistics as women.

and some feminists, who argue that biology is destiny and therefore trans women are not really women and trans men are not really men.

Well, durr. They're not.

Freddy is the baby's dad. He also was pregnant.

Women get pregnant. Not men.

He is NOT the baby's biological father. Freddy did not provide the sperm. Freddy is the child's biological mother, and no amount of hand-wringing will change that.

There is, as we know, a motherhood pay penalty that affects only women.

If transmen fathers suffer this same penalty, then it has nothing to do with women, does it?

And so institutionalised sexism is erased.

Court says no to changing status from Mother to Father on birth certificate.

"Being a 'mother', whilst hitherto always associated with being female, is the status afforded to a person who undergoes the physical and biological process of carrying a pregnancy and giving birth."

Fucking good

Hurrah! Our law courts are doing a sterling job this week

www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/TT-and-YY-APPROVED-Substantive-Judgment-McF-23.9.19.pdf

Judgement

Findings:

a) At common law a person whose egg is inseminated in their womb and who then becomes pregnant and gives birth to a child is that child’s ‘mother’;
b) The status of being a ‘mother’ arises from the role that a person has undertaken in the biological process of conception, pregnancy and birth;
c) Being a ‘mother’ or a ‘father’ with respect to the conception, pregnancy and birth of a child is not necessarily gender specific, although until recent decades it invariably was so. It is now possible, and recognised by the law, for a ‘mother’ to have an acquired gender of male, and for a ‘father’ to have an acquired gender of female;
d) GRA 2004, s 12 may be both retrospective and prospective. If that is so then the status of a person as the father or mother of a child is not affected by the acquisition of gender under the Act, even where the relevant birth has taken place after the issue of a GR certificate.

...In other words, sex is not gender and gender is not sex.

Big sigh of relief. It's crazy how grateful I feel about someone displaying common sense.

Thank you, the court. Woman is an actual thing defined in law.

Slightly scary that I am grateful for this.

Biology rules! Thank goodness.

Let’s shout it loud. Only women get pregnant. Only women are mothers. Only women breast feed.

Pleased to hear this. The role in conception, pregnancy and birth is mother.

Sex = Female
Acquired gender = Male.

Fabulous. What does twitter say?

One day the child will read this and wonder what the fuck they are doing on this earth

Another one here thinking how ridiculous a situation we're in to be so relieved about this (fucking obvious) decision.

Am wondering if this will have wider implications re: the legal definition of woman being based on biological fact?

Another one here thinking how ridiculous a situation we're in to be so relieved about this (fucking obvious) decision

Add another one to that!!

Well that's a relief.

I was quite surprised by this "Finally, those acting for the child applied under the Family Law Act 1986 for a declaration that McConnell was his father."

Who are these people? Social services or the child's GP?

I'm astounded that anyone would think that telling a child that this person is your father wouldn't cause major trauma when at an older age they discover that they are actually their biological mother. This isn't even a trans issue, look at Kat "you ain't my muvva!" on Eastenders, or every person who discovers the people they were told were their parents aren't. Or adopted kids desperately trying to track down birth parents.

It isn't rocket science that everyone wants to know the truth of where they come from, and adults rights shouldn't trump those of children.

Thank goodness

What the hell the person who wanted to do this was thinking I’ll never know

"In the same period that TT (McConnell) declared to the GR panel that he intended to continue to live as a male until his death, he suspended the programme of testosterone therapy that he had adhered to since 2013 in order to reinvigorate his reproductive system and he actively engaged in arranging for IUI treatment in order to achieve a viable pregnancy by the artificial insemination of one or more of his ova with donor sperm".

The judgment asks the question whether this is fraud, but does not pursue it.

Also:

"It is of note, therefore, that HFEA legislation only permits the HFEA to
license a clinic to provide services to assist ‘women to carry children’". And yet the clinic recorded McConnell's sex as male. McConnell will probably sue the clinic now.

The judge is the same one who lifted the anonymity order previously since McConnell was filming a documentary at the same time.

Seems like McConnell has a habit of claiming one thing while doing the exact opposite.

So McConnell is a claiming to be a man and live as such forever, while simultaneously stopping testosterone and trying to get pregnant.

Equally, McConnell claims to need anonymity, while simultaneously recording a tell-all documentary that identifies them and the child.

I'm glad this person has been found out.

I see Sally Hines was an expert witness for McConnell.

adults rights shouldn't trump those of children

This in letters a mile high

How can it be ok to entangle your child in your fantasies?

And let’s be clear, the idea that this female person who conceived, gestated and gave birth to the child is anyone other than their mother is pure fantasy

Can we now please get back to maternity services being for mothers and mothers to be, not pregnant ‘people’?

I see Sally Hines was an expert witness for McConnell

The professor of bantz and feels? Which area of her expertise did she treat the court to I wonder?

Can we now please get back to maternity services being for mothers and mothers to be, not pregnant ‘people’?

Hear, hear.

Also Breast-feeding Mothers.