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Sure. But how does one mentally justify getting pregnant while identifying as a trans man? Like, what's the point of identifying as a man if you are going to ge

Sure. But how does one mentally justify getting pregnant while identifying as a trans man? Like, what's the point of identifying as a man if you are going to get pregnant?

jfengel 5y ago
Most women spend only a tiny fraction of their lives pregnant, but they still identify as women the entire time. Pregnancy is not the only thing that makes a woman feel like a woman. And not-getting-pregnant not the only thing that makes a man feel like a man. They identify as men because they feel like men. They often have beards, dress in men's clothes, participate in men's sports, relate to other men and women as men do. Most of the trans men I've met are better guys than I am. That is, I don't do a lot of the things classically associated with men. So it doesn't surprise me that a few of these men also want to have children of their own and go about it in the way that their bodies allow. I wouldn't want to, but then, I don't particularly want children either, so in some ways I find the urge to get pregnant at all more baffling than the urge to do so as a man. I think it's great that they can just make up their own gender roles as they go along. I feel very cis and very straight, but I have no idea who I would have been if I were growing up today rather than in the 70s and 80s.
- Minor49er 5y ago
  > Most women spend only a tiny fraction of their lives pregnant, but they still identify as women the entire time After giving birth, women are also mothers for the rest of their lives. Even in the picture of the article you cited, the trans man is breastfeeding the baby because the trans man is the mother. Taking hormones to grow facial hair and playing sports doesn't change the mom into a dad.
  - jfengel 5y ago
    You can be a dad even if you are completely unrelated to the child. Daddy is the one who plays catch with them or does the cooking when fire is involved or kills spiders or whatever other roles get assigned to men in their family. If you're also breastfeeding, sure, you can be mom as well. Though there's a long history of wet nurses feeding babies, and they don't become mom, either. If the child ends up learning some different language than I got to describe it when I grew up, I'm sure they'll manage. I was a child in the 70s, when divorce and step-parenting became a lot more common, and we all dealt with it. They also learned to deal with it a few decades later when their classmates said that they had two mommies or two daddies. When some child comes to school with two mommies and one daddy (who is also one of the mommies), fantastic. I'm sure it'll cause problems for the first one, because kids are awful. The second one will have less problems, and the third will have less, because the kids will find some new reason to pick on somebody. The kids themselves will have happy home lives because they don't give a rat's ass what's between their parents' legs or what they do with them behind closed doors. They live happy lives because they have parents who love them and care for them and demonstrate the ways that they can live in the world -- including their performance of gender.
    - Minor49er 5y ago
      You're looking at a picture of a woman who gave birth to a child and saying that because the woman has a mustache and plays baseball, that she's a man. Would you also say that a man who stabbed an innocent victim to death isn't a murderer because he volunteers at a soup kitchen, is well-groomed, and identifies as virtuous?
- variantloki 5y ago
  Keeping in mind that you might understand this better than me, I thought I’d ask. Isn’t the notion of “things conventionally associated with men” the exact evil of gender based stereotypes that we’ve all been fighting against? Is there still room for men who like to wear skirts or make up or perhaps some other female stereotype? And if there is, what is the difference created by identifying as a woman besides reinforcing harmful gender based stereotypes?

Sure. But how does one mentally justify getting pregnant while identifying as a trans man? Like, what's the point of identifying as a man if you are going to get pregnant?

jfengel 5y ago

Most women spend only a tiny fraction of their lives pregnant, but they still identify as women the entire time. Pregnancy is not the only thing that makes a woman feel like a woman. And not-getting-pregnant not the only thing that makes a man feel like a man. They identify as men because they feel like men. They often have beards, dress in men's clothes, participate in men's sports, relate to other men and women as men do. Most of the trans men I've met are better guys than I am. That is, I don't do a lot of the things classically associated with men. So it doesn't surprise me that a few of these men also want to have children of their own and go about it in the way that their bodies allow. I wouldn't want to, but then, I don't particularly want children either, so in some ways I find the urge to get pregnant at all more baffling than the urge to do so as a man. I think it's great that they can just make up their own gender roles as they go along. I feel very cis and very straight, but I have no idea who I would have been if I were growing up today rather than in the 70s and 80s.

Minor49er 5y ago
> Most women spend only a tiny fraction of their lives pregnant, but they still identify as women the entire time After giving birth, women are also mothers for the rest of their lives. Even in the picture of the article you cited, the trans man is breastfeeding the baby because the trans man is the mother. Taking hormones to grow facial hair and playing sports doesn't change the mom into a dad.
- jfengel 5y ago
  You can be a dad even if you are completely unrelated to the child. Daddy is the one who plays catch with them or does the cooking when fire is involved or kills spiders or whatever other roles get assigned to men in their family. If you're also breastfeeding, sure, you can be mom as well. Though there's a long history of wet nurses feeding babies, and they don't become mom, either. If the child ends up learning some different language than I got to describe it when I grew up, I'm sure they'll manage. I was a child in the 70s, when divorce and step-parenting became a lot more common, and we all dealt with it. They also learned to deal with it a few decades later when their classmates said that they had two mommies or two daddies. When some child comes to school with two mommies and one daddy (who is also one of the mommies), fantastic. I'm sure it'll cause problems for the first one, because kids are awful. The second one will have less problems, and the third will have less, because the kids will find some new reason to pick on somebody. The kids themselves will have happy home lives because they don't give a rat's ass what's between their parents' legs or what they do with them behind closed doors. They live happy lives because they have parents who love them and care for them and demonstrate the ways that they can live in the world -- including their performance of gender.
  - Minor49er 5y ago
    You're looking at a picture of a woman who gave birth to a child and saying that because the woman has a mustache and plays baseball, that she's a man. Would you also say that a man who stabbed an innocent victim to death isn't a murderer because he volunteers at a soup kitchen, is well-groomed, and identifies as virtuous?
variantloki 5y ago
Keeping in mind that you might understand this better than me, I thought I’d ask. Isn’t the notion of “things conventionally associated with men” the exact evil of gender based stereotypes that we’ve all been fighting against? Is there still room for men who like to wear skirts or make up or perhaps some other female stereotype? And if there is, what is the difference created by identifying as a woman besides reinforcing harmful gender based stereotypes?