Pregnancy

[Cismyfatarse]

This article appeared on my Facebook (shared but not a group I follow) and it made me very uncomfortable.

nurturingbirth.co.uk/yuval-trans-man-birth/?fbclid=IwAR3qZBG2SRUIazxNHdMsS7qxADA7AC2ylM4B_wtrqr7085XOhBQ86I4BEXw

I can't articulate why it bothers me so much as it is clearly a loving family who are very open about the challenges of being different.

I have 2 adult children but childbirth is such a female experience that it makes me sad that it all has to be relabelled.

Despite their claims of being a "man" if they managed to birth a child they clearly haven't fully transitioned. I can't pretend to understand it myself.

Are hundreds of transmen getting pregnant all of a sudden?

I wonder if this is about wanting to be female and doing female things but to do it while dissociated from internal baggage to do with femaleness and so using more comfortable language, and living in a style perceived as stereotypically male. It's like the confusion over how someone male can describe the importance of their transition but have no intention of separating from their male sexuality and organs, and certainly don't see themselves as sharing in or joining female people in the grottier realities and experiences of being female. There appears to be a wish to be male while having the selected parts of womanhood that matter to them, and the power to choose. It is more a male's idea of how a woman looks, feels and acts. Somewhat like Alex Drummond's expressed belief that they are 'increasing the bandwidth of what it means to be a woman' when in reality Drummond is increasing the bandwidth of how male people express themselves and identify.

It is very confusing to try to understand based on what has been stated and explained about sex not existing/ body dysphoria/ gender dysphoria and a lot of information much of which conflicts, where what is explained is often not what is seen in the actions of many who have transitioned.

It reminds me somewhat of slashfic online with male preg storylines, written by women where the characters are written as males but are much more typically female. There seems to be a kind of escapism in it, where women get to be women but to have power and respect and none of the crap that comes with womanhood. In this day and age who can blame them?

@LockdownLump

Are hundreds of transmen getting pregnant all of a sudden?

I dunno, but I do think it's notable that trans men get in the papers for having babies, while trans women get in the papers for winning Women in Business awards, etc.

Same old sexist shit, now wearing lipstick and heels.

From the article:

For instance, the lab rejected my blood tests a number of times as my medical record has me recorded as male, and the lab tests were for pregnancy related conditions.

Imagine if a lab was in this situation, carried on regardless and sent back the test results. But, it turned out they were sent the wrong blood sample and a pregnant woman and/or baby died as a result?

This isn't the only example of trans people expecting their medical records to be factually incorrect, while still expecting to somehow receive the correct care.

Or even worse, that example of the transman being told to have their blood donations recorded as from a male, which could potentially kill the transfusion recipient.

Just a propos of transmen having babies. I remember there was an article a while ago in some online newspaper about a man who had a baby. It was something along the lines of it being miraculous. Read it out to hubby. It had been about someone female, just didn't 'identify' as such. He said "so, it was a woman then".

"Just a propos of transmen having babies"

I first read that as "... transmen being babies".

It did not seem out of place.

Israelis are blunt and to the point. They ask questions and expect people to be assertive. Israeli bureaucracy is tough to manage at the best of times, and a complete nightmare if you are in any way different. The language is very strongly gendered.

Israel is also the only Middle East country where homosexuality is not illegal, where people are able to be openly homosexual. It hosts the largest Pride outside the West, and the only Pride in the Middle East.

Israel, like any country, has many flaws. It's not perfect.

I'll bet that if you asked Yuval whether it was acceptable to turf women off flights or busses, or prevent them from carrying the Torah at the Western Wall, in order to defer to someone else's belief system, Yuval would say that was wrong. Even the fact that the objectors' belief is very strong and they live their lives by it in every way, would not justify to Yuval that anyone must defer to someone else's belief.

So why does Yuval think everyone should defer to Yuval's belief?