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

This is the clearest demonstration I’ve seen that gender identification and/or presentation are simply aspects of a personality. Same as your favourite colour, or what football team you support.

Absolutely fine for people to express their preferences. But no reason at all for anyone else to be forced to agree, let alone treat this person as the opposite sex.

There are several strands running on this thread, but I think the one about the shift from TWAW to 'Of course I know I'm not actually a woman, I've changed my gender and present as a woman' is very important, because it is a remarkable shifting of the goalposts by TRAs.

Unfortunately for them, the internet never forgets, and there's lots of evidence of the former '100% woman just like any other woman' - thank you to DrJump for linking to that 2019 article, and to BundleBoogie for the other examples.

DrU is a different case though - he doesn't belong to the 'I'm a transwomen but of course I don't think I've actually changed sex - where did you get that idea?'🙄
He claims [I was going to wrote 'believes', but who can tell?] he has somehow actually changed his sex, and is now a 'biological woman', so he is still in TWAW mode.

I would hope that most would at least mitigate it by telling their children that, yes, they are their mother, but they like everybody else to think that they're a man.

However, I remain highly sceptical - especially in the case of somebody who has fought a prominent public battle to be allowed to be called her baby's father on the birth certificate.

I think the need for validation and 'passing' is so deeply ingrained in many of them that they simply couldn't possibly bring themselves to admit the actual truth, especially to an unquestioning tabula rasa tiny child - who, of course, would then doubtless blurt out to everybody else what the true situation is, as has been admitted by their mummy-who-isn't-a-mummy.

A lot of this seems to revolve around a significant syllogistic fallacy:

1. Your female biological parent is your Mum - this is true;
2. Your male biological parent is your Dad - this is true;
3. Your female biological parent identifies as a man, ergo that makes her/him your Dad - this is categorically and very obviously false.

Yes, your Dad IS a man, but he is a very specific man and he is the only person who ever can, biologically speaking, be your Dad. Just as no other male in the world could ever possibly become your biological dad, equally, no female in the world could ever possibly become your biological dad either - not even your Mum.

In the U.K. ‘Mother’ is the legal term that describes the parent who gave birth. It is gender neutral.

Why not use it?

“giving birth is the easy part and not really something that should be given status”

Like it ir not, being a mother does have legal status because it confers parenting rights and responsibilities as a default when any baby is born.

So (by omission) you and your partner have told your son the biggest lie - that he has no mother - for 10 years and you can’t see an issue with that?

Are you aware of the emotional fallout for adopted kids who find the foundations of their world rocked when finding out too late or by chance that they are adopted?

When were you planning your tell him this fundamental truth?

From your unnecessarily unpleasant posts on here to complete strangers it seems like you might not have lots of Emotional Intelligence which could hamper your ability to understand the emotional needs of your child. You might want to rethink your career choices.

I do agree with you re the birth certificate, that is wrong, and your comments have given me food for thought, thank you. Has there been a result in that case, out of interest?
The situation is incredibly complicated for the child and so I think even more so that trans men need all the help and support they can get so that they can deal with it in the best and most honest way for the child. If one of those supports is Tommy's then great.

Edit to add, this is in reply to @IfYouPutASausageInItItsNotAViennetta quote didn't work

This post I referred to above

If he ever asks who gave birth to him he will be told the truth. He has a friend at synagogue whos dad gave birth to him. Children aren't born with with the prejudices adults seem to love to obtain and project onto others...

To him he has two loving parents who provide for his needs, right now he's content with that if that changes we'll discuss as a family as we always do.

Ask yourselves do you have extra special place in your children's lives because you gave birth, an event tgey won't remember, or because you have to do the vast majority of the nurturing care because of patriarchy and the assumption only a mother can do it

This is the Freddy McConnell judgement. Freddy was not granted the right to be namedas 'father' on the birth certificate, since Freddy was the parent that gave birth ie the mother.

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/McConnell-and-YY-judgment-Final.pdf

Edit for typos

Out of interest, since Judaism is generally understood to be matrilineal, how does this work for children who have 'no mother'?

Are they still considered Jewish?

"Ask yourselves do you have extra special place in your children's lives because you gave birth, an event tgey won't remember, or because you have to do the vast majority of the nurturing care because of patriarchy and the assumption only a mother can do it"

You are attaching gendered expectations to the word mother. Most of the people on the thread aren't doing that.

Thank you

That is the traditional halachic view which orthodox jews go by but even then it isn't that simple a gay orthodox couple who adopted from a non jewish mother could have their child converted.

Other streams of Judaism recognise patrilineal jews and other situations as lone as children are raised Jewish. If they aren't then they would have to convert.

I am surprised that a gay couple would be accepted within Orthodox Judaism at all - that's very interesting.

Ask yourselves do you have extra special place in your children's lives because you gave birth,

I don’t know, because my only experience is of parenting children to whom I have given birth.

It is obvious that the act of giving birth won’t transform somebody’s personality and there are plenty of threads on MN about toxic mothers.

I look at a cat with kittens and a duck with ducklings and assume that some kind of instinct must be impelling them to feed and protect their young (the father being long gone) so it would make sense if female humans have the same instinct, particularly as babies are helpless at birth - but we have also evolved to ensure that babies stay alive if the mother dies, so who knows?

Pregnancy and child birth were certainly the only times that I truly risked my life and health for another human being, although I had very little control over how any of it proceeded. I certainly didn’t identify with any of it. It was a biological process and my body took over. I can’t think of anything that has less to do with gendered expectations of femininity than pregnancy, child birth and the post partum period.

Giving birth will always be one of the most profound experiences of my life. The only similar experience I have is watching a very close relative die.

That is why I am very protective of the word ‘mother’ and am so resistant to it being attached to gender.

Thank you. That's interesting.

I am shocked a 10 year old hasn't already asked this questions. My three children all delight in hearing their birth stories. As do many of my friends children.
Children like knowing details.
Could there be a reason your 10 year doesn't ask these questions?

I find that surprising, too.

Could it be that the 10 year old already knows the truth, but also knows it's not to be talked about?

It seems very strange that a 10 year old would never ask about their mother, unless they already know, or have been told a lie.

Yes, judging by how nastily PP speaks to complete strangers, there may not be much space for deep questions from children in that household.

Not as surprising as there being two children in the same synagogue with a trans dad!
What are the chances?

It sounds like the child's probably knows who gave birth to then, but knows enough that that person likes to be labelled 'dad' rather than 'mum'.

So essentially taking a well understood word and making then use it to mean something else.

How are kids raised like this supposed to understand how reproduction works?

Why would that be surprising? We are a large liberal community in London

The only way to make sense of it is that humans are like any other animal, and everyone has a sex, but that there is a right and wrong way to live as that sex.

This kind of thinking is fundamental to many religions, so maybe it's not that much of a leap to believing that if you want to do x/y/z you have to 'live as' a man.

If you are a feminist it sounds very regressive, but it's not unusual for religions to sound regressive to a feminist.

Yikes you sound very uniformed. Many of my colleagues are women and proud feminists. There are programmes that women rabbis have created to further knowledge of the matriarchs and how we can connect to them.

As for how my son will learn about reproduction he knows the age appropriate facts now. He has witnessed his aunty be pregnant and have tge baby, perhaps he does instinctively know I gave birth to him, perhaps he's wracked with confusion and questions he feels so terrified to ask incase an army of trans people show up or may be he just doesn't care. But given everyone comments on how happy and confident he is think we'll be fine. Plus our dog breast fed our kittens so perhaps he's just used to unusual family situations.