Let’s have a little respect for family life around here
There’s something missing in this story…I can’t quite put my finger on it…
A transgender man who has given birth to a child has begun an appeal to be legally registered as the “father” or “parent”, rather than the “mother”.
Freddy McConnell is fighting a decision made by a High Court judge last year that a person who carries and gives birth to a baby is legally a mother.
Mr McConnell, a single parent from Kent, lives as a man following surgery, having been assigned female at birth.
What is it, what is it…what is being left out…oh yes, I get it!
This shithead is suing to ensure that her child will have no mother.
Not “no mother” as in the mother died or left, but no mother as in there never was any mother.
Is shithead thinking at all about the child? At all about what the child might want as it grows up?
Notice also that the BBC used the fatuous “assigned at birth” for the reality of what sex McConell was born as and remains.
Mr McConnell has said the High Court’s decision breached his human right to respect for private and family life. If the appeal succeeds his son would become the first person born in England and Wales to not legally have a mother.
And is that a good thing? Is that a first that anyone aspires to for a child? Is McConnell really showing more respect for family life than the judge is?
I would question whether this person is fit to be a parent at all, not everyone is.
After watching the video, this child looks as if he will be well cared for and loved, which is the main thing. How his parent identifies probably won’t be a problem in the short term.
@twiliter;
I wouldn’t go that far. Absent any other information, someone who has been able to either conquer dysphoria or go against ‘gender identity’ probably wants the baby very much. I’ll then grant the family is likely going to be appropriately loving and nurturing.
I’m more disturbed by the creeping elimination of the biological category of woman. This Trans-Identified Female loses nothing if they recognize they’re a TIF, but there’s a cascading series of problems when it’s otherwise.
Yes Sastra, cross post. I started thinking about the gay and lesbian parents I have known, and they were all pretty great at it. :)
Sastra, while I agree with your overall point, I cannot agree that wanting the baby very much necessarily equals appropriately loving and nurturing. Those things may go together, but I have known many cases where they did not. I knew a woman who wanted babies very much, to complete herself as a woman. When she got her wish, she was far, far from appropriately loving and nurturing.
And some people who didn’t want the baby at all – oops, it was an accident, but I’m going to have the child anyway – may actually be very loving and nurturing parents even though it wasn’t what they wanted.
Not saying any of this applies to the deluded individual in the post; I don’t know on that count which of many categories they fall under.
That can’t be right, surely. Babies are abandoned and sometimes we never find the mother, so legally they don’t have one.
I really have trouble with this on another level. TRA’s often accuse feminists of confusing sex and gender. But isn’t that what’s happening here? Regardless of the gender identity of McConnell, biologically he is female. If he wasn’t he couldn’t give birth.
And how does getting pregnant in the first place square with gender dysphoria? Surely pregnancy would be the ultimate inducer of that dysphoria.
Final question – what does a pregnant trans-man do about the hormones they have taken to transition? I see McConnell has a crappy beard which suggests it is grown rather than a fake one, and his face has taken on that more masculine look which suggests he has taken hormones.
As someone who does research into maternal and neonatal health, this concerns me. What effect did this have on his child? Note that he had a boy. Would it have been possible for him to have a girl? I suspect not. And the timing of testosterone release in utero is really important. How would excessive testosterone exposure during early development affect the child? We know excess testosterone can cause intrauterine growth restriction (and therefore low birth weight). LBW is associated with a huge list of adult diseases and disorders. This is a horror show.
@iknklast;
You’re right, but I wasn’t actually drawing a conclusion so much as eliminating a possibility. The odds of a TIF under the circumstances being unpleasantly surprised with an unwelcome pregnancy is very low. While some (or even most) women so surprised eventually make fine mothers, it’s one reason why some mothers aren’t fine mothers. That’s the only information I had (since I wasn’t being good like twiliter who took the time to watch the video.)
Absent any negative information, then, I’d start out assuming the default: normal family relationships. One point +.
It appears in the video that McConnell went off testosterone in order to conceive, but I’m sure all the hormone manipulation has wreaked havoc with his/her body chemistry. I think I was initially concerned about the mental health aspects, I mean even after conception, gestation, and childbirth, to deny one’s biological sex shows there are some psychological issues to consider. There’s really not enough information in the article to make any guesses.
So she had a son? How does she know how the kid identifies?
That aside, having raised boys and girls, I predict that boy’s rebellion years are going to be epic as he tells his Mom that she is a woman and he is now bigger and stronger than her so he will do what he wants. And the questions about who his father is will come up.
SW, I was thinking that too. Even the grade school years might be tough, having a father who gave him birth could be challenging for the kid. Also, there’s nothing in the video about where the sperm came from, so there might be an actual biological father somewhere. I’m not sure how that works — if IVF donors can be anonymous or not, but I don’t believe in immaculate conception (and I’m not so sure most bible thumpers actually believe it either). I hope McConnell doesn’t try to convince the kid that he/she was able to do both, but in the current TWAW/TMAM environment, I wouldn’t be too surprised.
Yes, the kids will be tough on the youngster, too. My son went through it in school because his father came out of the closet when he was about sixish, so the kids constantly harassed him about his “two daddies”. I can attest to the fact that he had only one father; I was the one there at the time, so yeah…the other man was not, never was, his father, and did not adopt him, either. If he wanted to, he would not have received my permission because he was abusive to my child (though he claimed he could adopt him any time even without my permission – no).
So yes, having a father who is female is definitely going to be hard on that kid.
@twiliter Kids conceived through donor sperm have the right to the identifying information recorded about their biological father at age 18. It put a serious cramp on sperm donation when the law first came in. I’m not so sure how it affects donation now, I’ve not lived in the UK for over ten years.