Transgender Couple with Children making me rethink

[IloveHolby]

This link was in Glinner's twitter this morning www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11190271/Meet-mum-dad-whove-swapped-gender-just-second-child.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email#reader-comments

Seem like a lovely couple, I'm still trying to square a circle in my head - I absolutely think Self-ID opens up women to risk from men who have paraphilias and that sex does matter, but I have empathy for transpeople who just want to get on with their lives.

A few things came up for me in this article - the hospital ward; why would
Hannah Graf need to be on a ward when Hannah was not the one who gave birth? Probably not really relevant but I'm curious about that. I know that Debbie Hayton has said she (has GRC so I'm using she) is given a private room, and I'm pretty sure Debbie has had SRS but doesn't feel she should be on female ward.

Sport - Hannah says Hannah doesn't feel comfortable going to play sports because of the current furore - this raises my anger actually, along with the TWAW, TMAM t-shirts - they are public figures as transgender, they acknowledge they are different in this respect. Why can't people be proud of their difference and their transgender status? Hannah went through male puberty, are there are non-competitive sports Hannah could participate in without having to come out as transgender?

At the same time I think which changing rooms and toilets should they use when they appear male (but bio female) and female (but bio male)? I watch Blaire White and have read /seen interviews with Debbie Hayton and Miranda Yardley but haven't seen anything where they discuss this. Which do they use?

Then of course there is the issue of using a surrogate - not something I'd ever thought deeply about before the thread on here about it, but that's a separate issue. This post is really to ask for help to square the circle - it really doesn't seem we can differentiate between people with a GRC who do 'pass' and those with paraphilias but it seems unfair to the transgender people who do just want to get on with their lives.

at a lesbian, sorry. Not 'as'.

Both their children were born to Laura near her home in the UK. I believe Laura lives near to, but not in, Belfast (all common knowledge). So not the Republic of Ireland.

I follow them on Instagram and their children are beautiful. Millie their eldest has been snapped up for lots of paid partnership content including Pampers Ireland, Nickelodean Jnr, Dennico (children's clothes), Disney, Peter Rabbit, Lovesakurabloom (baby carriers), Walkerbooks. And the surrogacy company they went through have obviously received lots of publicity through their story.

They very much are the poster couple for transgender life. I think their own very particular circumstances (and the fact that Jake is an actor/director and born self-publicist) blind them to the more inconvenient details such as concerns about puberty blockers, the upsurge in young women identifying as trans, the unfairness of transwomen participating in women's sport, transwomen being sent to women's prisons etc... Any talk of this is just seen as bigotry. They were horrified when people suggested that their thespian pal Eddie Redmayne was defending JKR.

This refusal to acknowledge any of the above strikes me as an act of self-preservation. Like many, they prefer to view the world through their own very particular lens.

pays for a baby, has said baby earning money via modelling and promotions by toddlerhood…

how is this not trafficking?

I'm also actually fine with Hannah and trans women using women's toilets. Yes she's still biologically male, but she's also just quietly going about her business. For decades we've muddled along just fine on this front, genuine trans people were using the toilet that they preferred and there were zero issues.

But there were issues, Waffle. Many women were offended, disturbed or intimidated by transwomen in women’s toilets and changing rooms. Most of us didn’t complain, out of embarrassment or stress. We just had to shut up and put up.

Some good background there. Thanks. Always someone here who comes along with context and background to a story.

There is a narrative at play here and they don’t deviate from the script. For me anyone who has links to mermaids has accepted childhood transition unquestionably without any concern for the long term welfare of the children. Puff pieces are a tactic used to sweep genuine concerns under the carpet.

I suggest watching some video footage of Hannah.

A woman who finds males/male-bodied people triggering is quite likely to have an involuntary reaction to encountering Hannah in a confined space.

Hairstyle and clothing doesn't alter voice, build, height and movement.

Nobody cares if Hannah prefers to wear certain clothes or their hair in a certain way.

But I will not accept that women's fear, anxiety, or principles are lesser to Hannah's fear, anxiety, or principles.

So when they said Ireland, they didn't actually mean Ireland. They meant the UK. FFS.

I have no doubt that every word of article was carefully chosen. And they didn’t want it to be obvious it was UK.

I suggest watching some video footage of Hannah.

here’s a link:

Hannah - Channel 4 Documentary clip on youtube

“I know I’m a transgender woman, I know I’ve got masculine features, I know I’m tall, I know I’ve got big feet, I know I’ve got a deep voice, but they’re my big feet, it’s my deep voice and it’s my identity. And I’m happy with that.'

www.ft.com/content/5af4d0e0-a747-11e6-8b69-02899e8bd9d1

I'm happy Hannah's happy.

So long as Hannah respects womens' rights to have a space free of male bodied or masculine people, I wish Hannah well.

If this couple could spare a drop of concern for, say, rape victims or religious women, beyond their much explored self concern, I'd be delighted.

For decades women were under the impression that "genuine trans people" (this phrase has no meaning now, thanks to Stonewall et Al) were a) homosexual males and b) removed their penises because they experienced such a strong dysphoria.

And actually the transwoman I knew decades ago who fit that bill didn't use women's spaces.

And actually the numbers of transexuals were tiny so you wouldn't hear about it often, but you cannot know whether women never minded sharing spaces. Women are socialised to put male's needs first. Women usually implicitly know when it's not safe to object. Women with ptsd often freeze.

Gosh, watching the video of Hannah was an eye opener. From the photos I assumed Hannah was someone who might pass sort of. But Hannah is clearly a biological male, with everything that comes with it. Hannah could potentially be very intimidating if Hannah were in female spaces.

The fact that the toddler is physically good looking and being signed up to do paid modelling is neither here nor there. It doesn’t make the situation any better, it simply increases the sense of the child being a commodity to suit adult desires.

The entire set up, including the ghastly stereotyping makes my teeth itch. I remember one interview before the first baby (so much for quietly getting on with life) where Jake said “Hannah’s going to be a great mum” which gave me the rage. Not only because it was factually incorrect but it was so patriarchal and damn patronising.

There’s more to being a great mum than paying a woman to birth a baby, putting on a flowery dress/womanface, simpering for the camera and bringing a bunch of innocent children into a very messed up situation.

I attended one of Jake and Hannah's sessions.

They do come off as lovely, but their stories have clearly been polished by repeated telling and I have learned in my life to pay less attention to what people say and more to what they do. As other posters have mentioned, their portrayal of themselves as "just another family", albeit one that took a few odd turns to become the happy man and woman they are, is at odds with their actual roles as activists and propagandists. I think it's very very unlikely they would disclose any personal experiences that do not support their activist aims.

Now and then the act slipped a bit. For example, there was an impassioned plea to support UK trans people against the attacks on their rights, which Jake claimed are driven by the US far right. Now, I accept a passionate young trans person or ally, getting their info mainly via trans-focussed sources on Twitter, Reddit etc, could genuinely believe that, but an adult who is actively involved in high profile campaigning is going to be aware of Maya, Bailey, Stock etc so I felt Jake was being dishonest in his portrayal of where support for single-sex provision is coming from.

Jake also shared a childhood memory of a family event and being expected to do something boring (I think it may have been tidying up) with the "other" girls and how unfair it had felt to the small Jake to be included with the girls instead of doing fun stuff with the boys. I thought it was very telling that Jake didn't seem to think it was unfair that girls got stuck with the boring stuff, or to have considered that other girls might have rather been playing with the boys, just that it was unfair for Jake as a boy to get stuck with this girls' stuff. In short, no problem with gender roles for everyone else, only for Jake.

And the children are going to have a wonderful time getting their heads round this.

I havent rtft but I stopped in the article, which states they used a surrogate and Jake’s eggs (nothing whether it was Hannah’s sperm), and then says «it has been two weeks after the birth and Hannah, radiant but exhausted …»

I just could not read the rest, as to me that pretends Hannah actually did anything Prior to the birth - when in fact Hannah did nothing and was sort of just handed a ready made infant.
I’m sure they are quite Nice, but that there is just - not very nice.

Their book is due out in June…

I shall respect their privacy by not purchasing a copy.

Hannah ‘exhausted but radiant’ - with a body that isn’t recovering from childbirth while also trying to produce milk and dealing with cluster feeding. I’m sure Hannah’s a lovely person, but it’s not quite like being a biological mother…

Because if we let one make into female spaces, however “lovely” they are, we let loin? Where do you draw the line? Who judges on loveliness? You realise if you let Hannah GrF use female spaces, 1, they are no longer female spaces and 2, you have to let Isla, Karen and Katie use them. Either TWAW and anyone saying they are a woman uses female spaces or TWANW and all males use male spaces.

Hannah is a bloke in a dress, good for him, who parents his wife’s child.

Who parents the children of a woman called Laura who is a single mother of two on benefits in Belfast and the genetic child of Jake, who provided the eggs to make at least one of the children. Laura has now given birth to four children.

(I am unsure of how the second child was conceived, there was an ectopic pregnancy which lost Laura a fallopian tube in between the Millie and Teddy so I think there was an attempt with her own eggs at some point. The sperm donor was chosen because he looks like Hannah.)

And no …tw are not women and tm are not men. Wearing this on their T shirts does not make it so. And yes women will be uncomfortable with men in their facilities, but don’t see why this man was allocated a room on the labour ward at all…after all he did not give birth.