Jane Fae
Feminist and writer on issues of political and sexual liberty
Men Giving Birth: Media Nonsense, Or an Opportunity to Raise Awareness of Trans Issues?
Posted: 03/28/2012 3:32 pm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-fae/men-giving-birth_b_1378268.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-fae/men-giving-birth_b_1378268.html)
Two for the price of one! That might be highly desirable when it comes to grocery shopping, but slightly less so when it comes to offending minorities, as Peter Martindale appears to have done in a blog on HuffPost U.K. I am impressed, but not in a good way.
His central thesis was that recent froth in U.K. media about a transgender man having a baby was just that: froth. The man was really a woman; move along, nothing to see here. I guess this gives something to aim at: a pretty basic piece of biological essentialism.
Let's start with the intersex insult. He says that a trans man giving birth is nothing special, and that a "hermaphrodite" doing so would be more interesting, more newsworthy. Really?