Tommy's charity - utterly captured

[Callmejudith]

Received an email from Tommy's today promoting their new pregnancy advice for transgender and non binary parents - absolute drivel https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information/being-pregnant/pregnancy-trans-and-non-binary-parents?utmcampaign=Pregnancy%20for%20trans%20and%20non-binary%20parents%20-%20Not%20clicked&utmmcontent=transnonnbinarypregginfotexttlink&utmterm=&utmmmedium=email&utmsource=adestra

I suspect they've been captured for a while but I am so upset, I've raised thousands of pounds for them over the years

I think you are the one that needs debating lessons seeing as how you are the one throwing insults around. The post you quoted is perfectly reasonable and makes a valid point that rather than answer you have have attempted to insult. Why don’t YOU come back when you have learned some manners.

This is a really basic question, and it relates to the slippery to-ing and fro-ing that TRAs have engaged in.

Originally it was TWA100%W and you are a transphobic bigot if you say that a transwoman is in any way less a woman than a natal woman.

So women, transwomen, all one big happy female sex.
And since transwomen are 100% women, they must of course use the spaces designated for women. Because they belong to the female sex.

Now the discourse seems to have switched to 'We know we haven't actually changed sex'[which they must have belatedly accepted as impossible] we acknowledge that we are still male [female in the case of transmen] we have just changed our gender, and how we present ourselves.'

The problem with that is that facilities are segregated on the basis of biological sex not gender, so, as FranticSemantics asks, what is the rationale for transpeople declining to use the facilities and services designated for people of the sex that they acknowledge they belong to?

ps Thanks buffyajp, that egregious and unwarranted tirade from Ymiryboo was directed at me. But don't worry, I can take it, I know who it reflects worst on, and it's not me

my post was in response to this.

I agree with the people who think OP is being unreasonable. The usual brigade have come in to straw man and ad hominem all over your post, but Tommy's was just giving advice and support to prospective parents. Some trans men get pregnant, whether you think you should exist or should identify as men is irrelevant. It's a fact. It's not about you, you think everything is about you.

There is also plenty of advice for women who are not trans on the charity's website. Get a grip. This is a wedge issue and most people could not care less.

Some trans men get pregnant, whether you think you should exist or should identify as men is irrelevant.

Now who is going massively into strawman territory?

Nobody whatsoever is saying that women who identify as transmen 'shouldn't exist'. Is this the same as the 'literal violence' when somebody uses a biological-based pronoun for you - even when they don't actually know that you identify as trans?

Getting pregnant and giving birth is an exclusively female activity - and has been since humanity began. Why do you think a woman would be so definite that she wants to be regarded as a man, and then choose to get pregnant and give birth, thus making her actual female identity unmistakably clear and beyond any dispute whatsoever?

It makes as much 'sense' as a self-identified 'vegan' asking the Vegan Society for advice and support with recipes for a 'vegan' diet centred around meat.

But the NHS WAS offering surgery and hormones to children, it was only thanks to the work of people wishing to safeguard children that they stopped.

The trans orgs are demanding they start again.

Do keep up.

Yes. I’m still wondering why the GRC of a certain mother of two still hasn’t been revoked even though she twice deliberately got pregnant AFTER swearing solemnly to ‘live as a man’ forever. Men definitely don’t get pregnant.

At least her legal action wasn’t successful and the babies actually have a mother on their birth certs. ‘Mother’ is a very important legal role that has primary responsibility for the child. If you deprive them of that - who do they have?

It really isn't any more difficult than how gay and lesbian couples have to explain why their child has two mummies or two daddies. They won't always know the donor parent so a child with two daddies wouldn't have a mum either. At least in this case the two parents are actually the biological parents..

If we're talking about the person I think we are, it's utterly disgusting and so extremely self-indulgent - not to mention abusive - to fight to falsify your child's birth certificate (it's not yours).

I'm very glad that the courts stood firm on their ruling that the person who gave birth to you is obviously your mother, and could never, be definition, be your father. Why is this in any way controversial?

Can you even have a BC without your mother's name shown on it? I suppose, if you were a foundling, it might be possible in theory; but who would actually choose to deprive their child of that, just to validate their feelings - that, by their actions, they clearly don't take remotely seriously anyway?

Freddy McConnell wrote a blog post about giving birth as a trans-identified woman for Tommy’s in 2020.

https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information/news-and-blogs/my-experience-becoming-dad-through-fertility-treatment-and-pregnancy

No child was ever given surgery. Nor will they ever be.

The child wouldn't always know who their birth parents are just like lots of adopted kids don't know who their birth parents

Mothers are pregnant, the advice is for mothers. Not parents. The female of the species need specific services no matter how they identify. And that service excludes only the male of the species.

And a child knows it has birth parents even if it doesn't know who they are.

This just sounds like trying to convince a child that it's the product of immaculate conception.

It's completely different.

I don't know any lesbian couples who have lied to their kids. The kids know their dads/ that a sperm donor was used.

They don't erase the father from the child's life.

Edit for typo

Who says the child is going to be lied to ?! That's quite an assumption to make. There's no reason why the parents won't explain things just like gay and lesbian couples do.

I assume you mean gender affirming surgery, as obviously children have surgery every day.

16 and 17 year old girls can get elective mastectomies privately in the UK.

Although the NHS doesn't provide affirming surgeries for under 18s, 18 is still really young to decide to have risky elective surgery that will adversely affect future sexual function.

13 year olds can have gender surgery in some US states.

This is what people concerned about safeguarding are worried about and campaigning against.

But at least the adopted kids know they have a birth mother and many manage to find them.

This is entirely different - it is erasing the mother from existence. The child grows up with no mother whether present or distant. It is utterly cruel and centres the feelings of the mother (however much she denies her status) over the child.

How do you tell your kid that they were not birthed by their mother and that their ‘not mother’ is actually their dad without there being some lies in there somewhere?

I thought we were discussing couples who were insistent that the one who gave birth to them is actually their father? And that they don't have a mother?

Obviously not all trans parents, there are ways of explaining it.

But that's what I and others were objecting to - the insistence that the other parent doesn't exist. That's got to be confusing for a little kid. (Yes, I do know a trans parent, and yes they do lie to the children that they have no father, which i find abhorrent).

Precisely

So you know they were given hormones that will stunt their genitals, growth and adversely affect IQ (according to what limited research has squeaked through the TRA embargo on research)?

And at least 51 girls under 18 were referred for surgery from Scotland to England on the NHS. Are you going to split hairs that while it’s not ok to remove the healthy breasts of a 17 yr old, it is absolutely fine to chop them off a girl 18 + 1 day?

Why do you imagine that the NHS refuses hysterectomy to women under 30? It’s because they can’t be sure they won’t change their mind about having children even if the medical need for surgery is pressing. Yet they happily allow children and vulnerable young adults to make irreversible changes that often preclude future fertility and damage their health significantly.

Slight derail: I agree with you re explaining paternal roles to children, however I do feel compelled to challenge this point which has touched a nerve:

'Mother’ is a very important legal role that has primary responsibility for the child

I often see this assertion bandied about on MN and it makes me really cross because some women try to use it to restrict their child from having contact with the child's father. A mother has no more rights in law than a father (in the UK) - both have parental responsibility. The mother is not 'primary parent'. I have seen this asserted in family court and it did not play well with the Judge.

Sorry for the detail, it felt important.

Yes, I think it’s a very specific legal term that was discussed in the outcome of Freddie McConnells court case. I’m not very good at explaining the ins and outs but if you get a chance to look at the FM judgement it explains quite well. I think it’s primarily to protect the baby.

Nobody is saying that the father isn't also very important, though - but great as fathers are in many ways, they can never physically give birth to you.

That's not to say that the mother is better; but she has certain very distinct roles, as well as there being many general parenting roles that can be shared between them.

Both parents are extremely important.

@BundleBoogie @IfYouPutASausageInItItsNotAViennetta

I think i explained myself poorly.

I did read the judgement at the time and found it interesting (and pleasing) that mother could be a legally recognised role like that. I think that will have important ramifications for other cases eg re surrogacy.

What i specifically was challenging was the assertion that mothers have a right in law to be the primary parent, with extra powers that that would grant. They don't.

Edit to add, father and mother are different but equal roles in law.