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This is the argument that I circle back to over and over again as an adopted child, and like with your comment, people mostly choose not to engage with it or ju

This is the argument that I circle back to over and over again as an adopted child, and like with your comment, people mostly choose not to engage with it or just flatly assert “that’s different and you know it.” But it’s not different. All of the same arguments apply. One could argue that “father” has a deep-rooted, unambiguous, biological meaning. One could argue that the use of “father” to describe an adoptive guardian is distorting this fundamental biological truth. One could assert their right to never refer to your adoptive guardian as your “father” because it’s just untrue. But nobody does that because obviously that would be extremely hurtful and rude to adopted children and adoptive parents. I have never once seen a screed like “Their birth certificate might say you’re their father, and you might play catch with them and celebrate Father’s Day, but at the end of the day, that doesn’t change the fact that at the genetic level, this child is simply not yours. They are someone else’s.” Few people will see an adoptive mother at a class for new mothers and say “This is really uncomfortable for me. Why is she here? She did not give birth to this child. She’s not even lactating at all. What made her choose to spend her time hanging around us real mothers? I’d rather be with a group of only birth-giving mothers. I would feel safer sharing my experiences.”

cluedos 4y ago
Here's a well-argued critical analysis of this analogy to adoption: https://hollylawford-smith.org/the-adoption-analogy-revisited https://hollylawford-smith.org/the-adoption-analogy-revisite... In summary: "There are several crucial differences between biological and adoptive parents, on the one hand, and transwomen and women, on the other hand. These include: - that both biological and adoptive parents actually parent, whereas it’s not at all clear what transwomen and women have in common that is supposed to play this same role; - that there is no historical power relationship between biological and adoptive parents, whereas there is between male and female people; - that calling adoptive parents parents doesn’t undermine our understanding of what it is to be a parent because what is core to parenting — raising children — is done by both, whereas what is core to being a woman is being female, and that is not done by both; - there is no established history of adoptive parental violence against biological parents, whereas there is an established history of male violence against women; - that adoptive parents do have ‘similar enough concerns and interests’ to biological parents, but transwomen do not have these to women (especially considering the heterogeneity among transwomen); - that there is no ‘oppressive ideological agenda of parenthood’ but there is of being a woman (namely being feminine); and finally, - that there are many ways to be a bad parent, which we can probably agree on, but there are no ways to be a bad woman."

cluedos 4y ago

Here's a well-argued critical analysis of this analogy to adoption: https://hollylawford-smith.org/the-adoption-analogy-revisited https://hollylawford-smith.org/the-adoption-analogy-revisite... In summary: "There are several crucial differences between biological and adoptive parents, on the one hand, and transwomen and women, on the other hand. These include: - that both biological and adoptive parents actually parent, whereas it’s not at all clear what transwomen and women have in common that is supposed to play this same role; - that there is no historical power relationship between biological and adoptive parents, whereas there is between male and female people; - that calling adoptive parents parents doesn’t undermine our understanding of what it is to be a parent because what is core to parenting — raising children — is done by both, whereas what is core to being a woman is being female, and that is not done by both; - there is no established history of adoptive parental violence against biological parents, whereas there is an established history of male violence against women; - that adoptive parents do have ‘similar enough concerns and interests’ to biological parents, but transwomen do not have these to women (especially considering the heterogeneity among transwomen); - that there is no ‘oppressive ideological agenda of parenthood’ but there is of being a woman (namely being feminine); and finally, - that there are many ways to be a bad parent, which we can probably agree on, but there are no ways to be a bad woman."