Student midwives at a Scottish university taught that men can give birth

[Clymene]

Look at this absolute nonsense:

According to the workbook, students were advised: “It is important to note that while most times the birthing person will have female genitalia, you may be caring for a pregnant or birthing person who is transitioning from male to female and may still have external male genitalia.”
https://reduxx.info/exclusive-midwifery-students-taught-how-to-care-for-males-giving-birth/

In a teaching workbook for midwifery students.

I just can't deal with so much stupid.

I have only skim read the thread, so maybe this has been said: aren't student midwives required to keep a log of the number of births they have attended, and presumably the type - vaginal, CS, ventouse/forceps? How many are going to be able to record - penile delivery?

Re the 10% of true believers/ fanatics being able to influence the majority, it's because they're committed to a single issue while the rest of us sit there thinking, 'Well, they only want this little change and I can see the justification for that so it's okay' or 'Nah, anyone who says they want that must be nuts, because nobody can really want that...' or 'That's junk science, it will never fly, it's obviously biased and inaccurate' or 'It will never happen, I'll ignore it and it will go away'.

Meanwhile the single-issue puritans install themselves on committees, and in trusts and charities, and quietly start flexing their new-found muscle.

And so we saunter on only to find that they really do want it, more than anything else, and we've let ourselves be herded along ('be kind', 'here's your pronoun badge', 'well, our policy states that...' and 'oh, those things just don't happen!') to the point where we have to struggle to return to sanity.

We're there now with this batshittery. In past year a lot more people have woken up and the tide does seem to be turning, but it should never have been allowed - by us the wider population, by our institutions - to have reached this point in the first place.

Couple of glaring errors in that article. I don't think 'many people who transition have previously given birth', in fact, I can't think of one such person.

I think this bit is bonkers as well:

Assuming a natal woman who transitions but retains internal female reproductive organs as well as acquiring external male genitalia does become pregnant

Unless I've misunderstood!

Assuming a natal woman who transitions but retains internal female reproductive organs as well as acquiring external male genitalia does become pregnant

How, though? How do you get the sperm into the internal organs?

More muddle, I expect. As has often been noted, the people transitioning in middle age after becoming parents are almost all male, and the people transitioning very early in life, before becoming parents, are overwhelmingly female. Fortunately, hardly anybody in either group is having surgery on the genital area, as it's major surgery with a high infection risk and poor outcomes.

The number of cases where a pregnant mother was previously on testosterone and medication to suppress production of oestrogen and progesterone has to be tiny, and most of them will be very recent. I don't suppose there's much evidence yet of how, if at all, it affects the baby's health and whether it makes the pregnancy and delivery higher risk. Gussy Gripper pointed out recently that one of the effects of the hormone 'therapy' is vaginal atrophy, which affects older women going through the menopause without HRT. She thought that would possibly cause issues in pregnancy.

It would be great to see health care professionals and researchers speak out about the need for research in this area, and also urging caution over the treatments, given how little is known about this whole area.

Culturally children are still classed as special property if one is not in posession of said property why would one have an obligation to pay for it?
Add in that women can control their reproductive capacity and now work in recognised paid employment so having a baby is a lifestyle choice but growing a baby is "not work" so why should the man pay for the growing bit.

Sexual reporduction is asymmetrical, it always was and always will be, hiding that with crap like people need abortions and birthing people is about as anti-feminist as anybody can get.

Some men always denied they had a responsibility to their children. In simple terms it was just that extended family networks and the wider community forced that the ones who lived in the community to step up; otherwise without the abilty to earn a living the mother and child would starving to death within the community.

Getting out of the kitchen and having money to pay for shoes was the "easy" bit.

Working out how to deal with pregnancy and training of children is the next problem society have to decide on how to organise.

A truth and reconciliation' not likely to happen. It will be swept under the carpet in as much as possible.

I suspect the students would have to trust the Admin not to engage in retaliatory actions against them, when the students know that speaking up is to put themselves on the "acceptable target for harrassment" list

People with penises don't have babies
So why are our student midwives being taught this?
Milli Hill
Apr 28
22

It’s not my job to have the answers to these questions, or to create midwifery modules to teach a future generation of health care providers. But it is the job of midwifery lecturers to fully understand all this and deliver training that, whilst it is inclusive of people with different gender identities who give birth, still remains grounded in biological reality and does not confuse or misinform.
One of the midwives on this training course has spoken to me about the almost ‘desperation’ of the trainers to push ‘inclusivity’, without any real understanding or underpinning of what that might actually mean. As she wrote to me, “One of our lecturers has told us about how "it's impossible to be a midwife without being a feminist" on at least three occasions. She makes a point in telling us that pregnancy is inclusive, she's inclusive and we all need to be inclusive in our care. That's in every single lecture. Again, not a single word about what that entails and ultimately how we can care for trans people, apart than change the way we refer to women in lectures.

The words inclusivity and feminist stood out as being very inappropriate words to use in nursing. IMO it should be professional and ethical.

Sometimes the duty of the nurse is to provide professional care to the worst type of patient (whom ever that is or for reason they qualify as the worst). There will be times when the life choices of the mothers (and fathers) will have to be judged, that's why there are assessments and DV screening carried out. The nurse should react not by being inclusive or a feminist but by being an advocate for what's best (short term and long term) for the mother and also once born for the child.

—The traditional way. (The vagina might atrophy but it doesn't seal unless someone has severe adhesions and that should be rectified as it would be hellaciously uncomfortable.)
—Assisted fertility techniques (whether DIY with a turkey baster or via a healthcare facility).

A number of TM mistakenly think that they can't conceive if they take cross-sex hormones despite what they were probably told by an HCP.

Some may wish to have a family so stop the cross-sex hormones for a while in order to conceive.

It would be unusual for someone who had had a phalloplasty to also retain their reproductive organs but it's not unknown.

EmbarrassingHadrosaurus
In the example given the person would have internal female organs but external "male" ones - so no entry pathway. Or exit. That's what was puzzling me.

I am truly confused here (and I am a doctor). Surely: For someone with a penis to give birth they have to have first got pregnant and then had a phalloplasty while pregnant. Or have had a phalloplasty before getting pregnant but retained the vagina as well. Or had a phalloplasty before getting pregnant but retained the internal female genitals and then had IVF and then had the embryo planted into the retained uterus (with the knowledge that they would have to have a caesarean as they have no vagina).

Has any of these scenarios ever happened? (I am not being rhetorical, I genuinely do not know, and would love to know). Even if any of them has, it must be unbelievably rare and would require highly specialised care surely? Not something undergrad midwifery students would need to know how to do themselves, any more then a general surgical registrar is going to need to know how to perform liver transplants on their own.

This is so mad.

I have no idea if any of that has happened. I hope not. What has happened is that at least one female has been granted a Gender Recognition Certificate, used it get a revised birth certificate saying M, not F, and then hotfooted it to a fertility clinic for help getting pregnant. Two children and counting now, and along the way a failed attempt to change the law so that the parent who gave birth to the children would be recorded on their birth certificates as 'father', not 'mother'. I feel pretty certain that when Parliament passed the GRA in 2004 this is not what they were expecting to follow. Odd sort of gender dysphoria that necessitates a new birth certificate and all other documentation, but isn't triggered by doing the most female thing it's possible to do.

But they haven't had phalloplasty.
They haven't "acquired external male [style] genitalia."
They still have a handy opening to inert donor sperm and IVF embryos.
So not an example who can help us understand HOW the hypothetical example could get pregnant, but need to be catherised like a male.

[quote"FromOurHatsToOurFeet"]
"Assuming a natal woman who transitions but retains internal female reproductive organs as well as acquiring external male genitalia does become pregnant

How, though? How do you get the sperm into the internal organs?" []

To insert *donor sperm (not inert)

No, oddly , that's one bit of medical treatment they haven't had.

So a person supposedly undergoes psychological therapy before deciding on such drastic life altering surgery. A penis is formed from their arm and sewn on to their genitals. Would they not at the same time have their uterus and ovaries removed as surely they would want no female trace remaining? What is a person with phalloplasty doing in a midwifery text book? Surely pregnancy is not on their radar. This is the stuff of frankenstein.

If you are pregnant and have had a phalloplasty (again, I would love to know if any such cases have been described), I don't imagine you are going to be catheterised by a midwife with a basic undergrad training.

Maybe their shiny new cock has a suck function as well as blow! 😉

I'm unclear what you are proposing happens to the vagina in trans men (I'm setting aside the needs of NBs for this) depending on the level of medical or even surgical intervention.

In the scenario outlined, it's plausible for a woman

—to take cross-sex hormones
—to retain the female reproductive organs and have a phalloplasty (iirc, healthcare systems in countries like Japan insist on the removal of the reproductive organs but other other healthcare systems don't) (second consideration is that phalloplasty can occur but the 'replumbing of the urethra' can take place in a separate, later surgery, if it happens at all because some may be content with the aesthetics of the neophallus and it is accepted that the urethral hookup is associated with a number of complications to an estimate of 50% or more).

Then, either a natural conception happens (not uncommon) or it happens after pausing the cross sex hormones (intentionally or not).

Conception might happen naturally or in an assisted manner as I outlined above which may be DIY 'turkey baster' or PV sex because the vagina etc. still exists even if the vagina may have some degree of atrophy. (Prof Susan Bewley highlighted that it would have been useful for the workbook in the OP to have discussed the feasibility of vaginal birth if the vagina is atrophied because it may not be capable of sufficient dilation and may tear badly. Presumably, if the conception is planned, there would need to be extensive shared decision-making around the elective Caesarean if necessary. If the conception is unplanned, then much might depend upon how much prenatal care has happened to be able to prepare someone for what may happen.)

Depending upon the personal circumstances or the level of need, the assisted conception may be via a clinical intervention.

Notwithstanding all of the above, I should think that the number of people presenting to a midwife with internal female reproductive organs plus a phalloplasty with urethral hookup will be very low but I may be very wrong.

Notwithstanding all of the above, I should think that the number of people presenting to a midwife with internal female reproductive organs plus a phalloplasty with urethral hookup will be very low but I may be very wrong.

They won't have a prostate though and the nerve system will be totally different, so would the method of catheterization even be totally the same?

"Maybe their shiny new cock has a suck function as well as blow! 😉"

That would really come in handy around the house and garden!

I think this is among the points that Susan Bewley was effectively making. There is a need for accurate information about transmen and natal female NBs who need midwifery services.

tbh, despite the correction of the initial gross error, many errors seem to remain and it is spreading misinformation (or even disinformation) to discuss them as it seems impossible to do in the fog of confusion caused by the errors of anatomy, physiology etc. alongside the language.

To be clear, prostates have no place in a midwifery skills workbook.

As I understand it not all phalloplasties involve a rerouting of the urethra so catheterisation wouldn't necessarily involve the faux penis. Let alone the non existent prostate.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus OK, that is helpful for info, thanks. So basically the person could have both a phalloplasty and a vagina via which they could have conceived. Alright, so potentially a midwife could come across a pregnant person with a "penis". That is interesting. But it must be unbelievably rare. (Leaving aside the complete nonsense about a prostate!).

I think too many people watched the film ‘Junior’ in which Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character became pregnant and thought it was a documentary instead of a comedy.

This is why critical thinking is a valuable skill that needs to be taught before RSE in schools.

Unbelievably rare to the point I would bet my house has never happened in the UK. So is a hypothetical issue that no midwife needs to learn about. At all.