I dont know why, but I feel like it'd be absolutely horrifying to be pregnant. I guess maybe its part of being a guy but I think that particularly is something I would not enjoy.
I cant imagine myself that way at all. I dont want to have what is essentially a parasite in my body, causing my belly to expand and limiting my physical activity for months on end, looking like a swollen balloon. I get this really uneasy feeling thinking about it.
I have absolutely no interest in bearing children, if I did get children they would probably be by adopting.
The weird thing is when your relatives expect babies/grandchildren from you and its just ahhhh...nope. Sorry. Not happening.
I think the last time a question similar to this was posted, it turned quite nasty.
So speaking only for myself on the topic of myself getting pregnant, which is currently anatomically impossible, I will say yes I find it very uncomfortable.
I literally dreamed last night that I was pregnant and was completely devastated in my dream because it meant halting my HRT.
Anyway I birthed 3 children before accepting that I am trans and had no problem with it then, but now, super uncomfortable with the thought of it, but that's just me.
I'm really not sure how I would feel about pregnancy had I not experienced it pre transition already.
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Quote from: FTMax on February 19, 2017, 09:02:36 PM
I think the last time a question similar to this was posted, it turned quite nasty.
^ This.
This is a polarising issue, and
every time this subject is raised it eventually turns nasty.
There are some trans guys who are very uncomfortable with the idea of pregnancy - and that's perfectly fine. But there are many others who are not only OK with it, we've actually done it... and that's perfectly fine too. Heck, I know a guy IRL who's currently expecting his 7th child.
What we do with our reproductive rights is very much a personal choice, and we should be supporting each others' right to choose the best path for ourselves. So please, let's not have this thread descend into yet another battle between guys who think pregnancy is unmanly vs. guys who are prepared to go through with it.
Quote from: WolfNightV4X1 on February 19, 2017, 08:59:40 PM
I guess maybe its part of being a guy
Why?
Quote from: FTMDiaries on February 20, 2017, 06:43:33 AM
Why?
So this is where it probably turns for the worse in these discussions so I'm going to try to tread lightly here. First off I'm pro trans people doing whatever the heck we want to do with out bodies and making decisions such as this on our own terms. To be able to have biological children is beautiful and if I could've gone off to a remote island somewhere for 9 months before my hysto I would've totally had a baby.
Having said that. I don't always understand why some of us don't get why other transguys see giving birth as something that men don't do. The answer to why is simply that men do not get pregnant and give birth. So as a man I am not comfortable with it. Now you can run off a litany of additional things that men can't do that transguys do, but the act of giving life in that manner is fundamentally that of a female bodied person. Hence why some of us are not okay with it for ourselves. It is probably one of the main markers of female and womanhood.
I would never want the world to see me pregnant as a man. I'd feel like an oddity. But again I support any transguy that does get pregnant.
It is the most terrifying thing I can imagine.
Quote from: CMD042414 on February 20, 2017, 07:50:20 AM
To be able to have biological children is beautiful and if I could've gone off to a remote island somewhere for 9 months before my hysto I would've totally had a baby.
I hope you take this in the spirit in which it is intended, but I find this very sad. It makes it sound as if you felt unable to exercise your reproductive rights because you felt other people might make this difficult for you. I felt the same way, and that's why I chose to delay my transition until after I'd had kids.
Quote from: CMD042414 on February 20, 2017, 07:50:20 AM
I don't always understand why some of us don't get why other transguys see giving birth as something that men don't do. The answer to why is simply that men do not get pregnant and give birth. So as a man I am not comfortable with it.
Who says that men do not get pregnant? Thousands of us have done so already and I daresay that's only going to increase in the future as more of us transition. Bear in mind that FtM transition has only been possible for a couple of decades; there hasn't yet been time for society to get used to the fact that men can and do fall pregnant. But we can, and we do... and society will catch up eventually.
So no, it's not true that men don't get pregnant. Rather, we're
told that men don't get pregnant. We're taught that there's only one way of being a man, and one way of being a woman... and anything else is unacceptable. And that sort of indoctrination is what leads to homophobia, transphobia, racism, ageism, heightism (and all sorts of other 'ism's that I don't need to go into here). And it makes people's lives hell if we don't fit the mould, as I'm sure you'll agree.
Quote from: CMD042414 on February 20, 2017, 07:50:20 AM
Now you can run off a litany of additional things that men can't do that transguys do, but the act of giving life in that manner is fundamentally that of a female bodied person.
I know you didn't mean it like that, but there is not a single thing that men can't do that transguys can do, because transguys
are men... so anything that a transguy can do is something that men can do... including this. Again, we only believe that pregnancy is a woman-only thing because that's what we're told from early childhood: we're taught that only females can give birth, and that a body that is capable of giving birth belongs to a woman. These assumptions need to be challenged, and we're challenging them.
Quote from: CMD042414 on February 20, 2017, 07:50:20 AM
It is probably one of the main markers of female and womanhood.
Only because society dictates that it should be so. Most of us here grew up in Western societies that strongly reinforce a set of stereotypes about male and female... and that severely punish any transgressions from 'the norm'. Pregnancy and childbirth are possibilities for people who own uteruses and ovaries. That's not just cis women: that's us too, but society tends to lionise the role of women in childbearing whilst completely sidelining us. Why should they hog all the glory when we're just as valid? And if these definitions of manhood & womanhood hurt us, imagine what they're doing to our trans sisters, many of whom feel less valid as women because they're unable to do what society considers to be the most important thing a woman can do. :(
Quote from: CMD042414 on February 20, 2017, 07:50:20 AM
I would never want the world to see me pregnant as a man. I'd feel like an oddity.
I hear you and I feel the same way. I hate being made to feel like a freak simply because of other people's ignorance; it's dehumanising. But the problem doesn't lie with us: it lies with other people. Are any of us brave enough to put our heads above the parapet and go public with a post-transition pregnancy? I wouldn't go public, that's for sure. Doesn't mean I wouldn't love to have another pregnancy anyway, though.
Quote from: WolfNightV4X1 on February 19, 2017, 08:59:40 PM
The weird thing is when your relatives expect babies/grandchildren from you and its just ahhhh...nope. Sorry. Not happening.
Mine quit bugging me about it after coming out to them. Whether it's them "understanding" or some fear I'd pass this on I don't know but at least they've shut up about it.
Ive always been very masculine since birth pretty much. I don't think anyone in my family ever expected me to get pregnant, so I've managed to side step that awkwardness. I also have always been upfront with my serious partners and friends that I was not going to be the one to Have the children. I date femme woman, so many of them have had no issue with that as they fell into female normatively. Alas, I am only 22 and children are far off for me and any future partners. I honestly am contemplating having children at all at this point.
Thinking of being pregnant has always been a very female, feminine characteristic in my mind so it never sat right in my head even before I started questioning my gender identity. It has always felt like a part of my body that I was not connected to in any kind of loving maternal way. marriage. sure. teaching my kids to throw a ball and build tree houses. yeah that sounds great. I've imagined that stuff all the time from an early age but actual birth has been imagined as the person to hold the pregnant ladies hand and buy them flowers. Not as the one in the bed.
I'm very much a 'live and let live' kind of guy. Whatever someone else wants and/or needs to do with their body is their business.
That being said, I'd completely lose my **** if I was forced into being pregnant. A long time ago when I was starting to come 'of age', I had distant relatives chomping at the bit to remind me that pumping out babies was (apparently) my prime directive in life. Those closer to me (mom, dad, grandparents, close aunts) knew better, but that didn't stop the others.
"You'll understand when you have children of your own..."
"Isn't that little baby cute?"
"Do you want to hold him?"
"One day you'll find a nice man and you'll have the prettiest babies..."
Nope. Honestly, I didn't even like other kids when I was a kid myself and I've never liked babies.
I knew that if anything ever happened to me against my will and I ended up getting pregnant that my first trip would've been to PP to fully exercise my right to choose. Thankfully, nothing ever did.
Most people have a hardwired biological drive to have children--trans and cis--and are able to put aside certain things and make sacrifices to have them.
Me? I still don't like kids or babies whatsoever. There's no way I'd put myself through that personal nightmare for something I don't even remotely want.
Different strokes.
The idea of it scares me
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Quote from: FTMax on February 19, 2017, 09:02:36 PM
I think the last time a question similar to this was posted, it turned quite nasty.
So speaking only for myself on the topic of myself getting pregnant, which is currently anatomically impossible, I will say yes I find it very uncomfortable.
Oh right...that was a long while ago I forgot about it.
I think I remember what you mean now, it was mainly because some men do wish to have the experience of pregnancy (or have had), so people bashing on pregnant men is kind of rude, I guess.
Its essentially a do what you will sort of deal, again I havent meant to go against anyone that enjoys the experience but its not for me
Quote from: FTMDiaries on February 20, 2017, 06:43:33 AM
^ This.
This is a polarising issue, and every time this subject is raised it eventually turns nasty.
There are some trans guys who are very uncomfortable with the idea of pregnancy - and that's perfectly fine. But there are many others who are not only OK with it, we've actually done it... and that's perfectly fine too. Heck, I know a guy IRL who's currently expecting his 7th child.
What we do with our reproductive rights is very much a personal choice, and we should be supporting each others' right to choose the best path for ourselves. So please, let's not have this thread descend into yet another battle between guys who think pregnancy is unmanly vs. guys who are prepared to go through with it.
Why?
Sorry, it has nothing to do with other guys, again. Just my opinion. I guess its just uncomfortable for a lot of guys, including myself. Not to say there arent some that wouldnt mind, though
I had two kids prior to figuring myself out. The one thing I discovered was that i had zero "maternal instinct" and mainly felt disconnected from the whole experience. I am glad that my kids are around even if we are estranged (not due to my transition) Trans or cis, having children is not for everyone and I am sure that many cis women feel that pregnancy is not for them either, and some crave it. Each of us has our own path
I know the whole experience would simply drive me over the edge.
If other people are strong enough for it, that's great. I'm not.
I had two kids before officially acknowledging being trans. I loved many things about being pregnant but there were definitely hard parts of being a pregnant non-feminine person. Being pregnant never made me feel womanly.
I find that parenting is more of a challenge because, since I haven't physically transitioned, people automatically treat me as "mom" when I'm out with my kids. Being treated as a "mom" by society is a particular form of torture for me and is ultimately what forced me to acknowledge being transgender. I pass about half the time if I'm out without my kids... a fact that highlights, for me, the differences between how society treats men and women.
That said, I know many people with uteruses who have no desire to be pregnant and I completely respect that choice. All I ask for is equivalent respect. I have always wanted kids (though I don't actually like other children) and birthing them was the way I got them. I don't regret it for a minute.
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Pregnancy was the only source of nightmares for me. That's why those damn reproductive organs were the first to go. Good riddance.
As for the debate about men (not) getting pregnant etc....I think this stems from the difference between sex and gender that most people are unaware of. Sex refers to biological differences between males and females, such as your genitals and chromosomes. Gender is the social construct of males and females in a society.
So, for mammals, males (as a sex) do not get pregnant. Simple as that. They do not have the hormones, organs etc to do so. But also, as humans, males (as a gender) can get pregnant, because gender is a social construct that says nothing about what equipment you may or may not have.
I hope this helps.
Quote from: arice on February 20, 2017, 07:45:05 PM
Being pregnant never made me feel womanly.
Ditto. In fact, this is one of the things that most surprised me about pregnancy: like most of us, I'd swallowed the line that pregnancy & childbirth are the most womanly thing you could do and I'd hoped it would make me feel like a woman. Kinda like the large numbers of trans women who join the military in a desperate attempt to 'man up', I got married & fell pregnant as a way of trying to 'woman up'. Well, I wanted my own biological kids anyway so I thought I could kill two birds with one stone and finally be happy in my own skin.
It didn't work. Quite the reverse.
Instead, I found that I felt even more alienated from the women around me, especially the pregnant ones. They were all bonding over a shared experience but I felt like an imposter, cleverly disguised as a woman but feeling desperately out-of-place in a female-only space doing something that society tells us is a woman-only thing. I felt like a secret agent who had infiltrated spaces that I shouldn't be able to access. It was a very weird feeling. But at the same time it was kinda cool: it occurred to me that I was experiencing one of the most amazing things a human being can experience, and this is something that most men aren't capable of experiencing. But by some bizarre stroke of luck I happened to have been born with the same male brain as other guys, but with the reproductive organs that enabled me to do something many men (and women, for that matter) wish they could do. It was thrilling, and an awesome privilege.
I learned that if your core identity is masculine then
nothing you do will change the core of who you are. A trans guy who happens to be pregnant is still 100% a guy no matter what anyone else may think. You don't magically transform into a woman just because you choose to use a bunch of organs.
Quote from: arice on February 20, 2017, 07:45:05 PM
Being treated as a "mom" by society is a particular form of torture for me
Same here, and for the reasons stated above. In my society (the UK) the role of 'Mum' is almost fetishised. The British get a bit weird about quite a few things, and the role of 'Mum' is one of them. For example, when taking my kids to hospital I've had triage nurses ask me "Are you Mum?" as a means of introduction, which is a very strange question for me. Because where I grew up, they'd ask for your actual name & then after that they'd ask for your relationship to the child. A subtle distinction, but a very important one: it shows that the role of 'Mum' is more respected and more valid in the UK than your own individual identity. Here, they don't care who you actually are... they only care about your identity in the context of your role as a caregiver to a child, as if that's more important than who you actually are. Very strange, and very uncomfortable.
Quote from: arice on February 20, 2017, 07:45:05 PM
That said, I know many people with uteruses who have no desire to be pregnant and I completely respect that choice. All I ask for is equivalent respect.
Me too. I have some heterosexual cisgender female friends who have never had children because they are horrified by the thought of pregnancy/childbirth and many actively dislike kids. In fact, one of my daughters feels this way, so I accept that there won't be any grandkids coming from her direction. Many people - irrespective of sex or gender - are grossed out by the idea of pregnancy and childbirth, and that's perfectly fine. I respect that 100% and agree with the way they choose to live their lives. They've made the right choices for themselves, and I'm making the right choices for me.
Quote from: arice on February 20, 2017, 07:45:05 PM
I have always wanted kids (though I don't actually like other children) and birthing them was the way I got them. I don't regret it for a minute.
Same here. And I
really dislike other people's snotty brats. But pregnancy was amazing; childbirth is a life-changing adventure; and parenthood is a lifelong journey in which you get the privilege to get to know someone brand-new whilst they're learning about themselves. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Quote from: FTMDiaries on February 21, 2017, 05:09:42 AM
Ditto. In fact, this is one of the things that most surprised me about pregnancy: like most of us, I'd swallowed the line that pregnancy & childbirth are the most womanly thing you could do and I'd hoped it would make me feel like a woman. Kinda like the large numbers of trans women who join the military in a desperate attempt to 'man up', I got married & fell pregnant as a way of trying to 'woman up'. Well, I wanted my own biological kids anyway so I thought I could kill two birds with one stone and finally be happy in my own skin.
It didn't work. Quite the reverse.
Instead, I found that I felt even more alienated from the women around me, especially the pregnant ones. They were all bonding over a shared experience but I felt like an imposter, cleverly disguised as a woman but feeling desperately out-of-place in a female-only space doing something that society tells us is a woman-only thing. I felt like a secret agent who had infiltrated spaces that I shouldn't be able to access. It was a very weird feeling. But at the same time it was kinda cool: it occurred to me that I was experiencing one of the most amazing things a human being can experience, and this is something that most men aren't capable of experiencing. But by some bizarre stroke of luck I happened to have been born with the same male brain as other guys, but with the reproductive organs that enabled me to do something many men (and women, for that matter) wish they could do. It was thrilling, and an awesome privilege.
I learned that if your core identity is masculine then nothing you do will change the core of who you are. A trans guy who happens to be pregnant is still 100% a guy no matter what anyone else may think. You don't magically transform into a woman just because you choose to use a bunch of organs.
Same here, and for the reasons stated above. In my society (the UK) the role of 'Mum' is almost fetishised. The British get a bit weird about quite a few things, and the role of 'Mum' is one of them. For example, when taking my kids to hospital I've had triage nurses ask me "Are you Mum?" as a means of introduction, which is a very strange question for me. Because where I grew up, they'd ask for your actual name & then after that they'd ask for your relationship to the child. A subtle distinction, but a very important one: it shows that the role of 'Mum' is more respected and more valid in the UK than your own individual identity. Here, they don't care who you actually are... they only care about your identity in the context of your role as a caregiver to a child, as if that's more important than who you actually are. Very strange, and very uncomfortable.
Me too. I have some heterosexual cisgender female friends who have never had children because they are horrified by the thought of pregnancy/childbirth and many actively dislike kids. In fact, one of my daughters feels this way, so I accept that there won't be any grandkids coming from her direction. Many people - irrespective of sex or gender - are grossed out by the idea of pregnancy and childbirth, and that's perfectly fine. I respect that 100% and agree with the way they choose to live their lives. They've made the right choices for themselves, and I'm making the right choices for me.
Same here. And I really dislike other people's snotty brats. But pregnancy was amazing; childbirth is a life-changing adventure; and parenthood is a lifelong journey in which you get the privilege to get to know someone brand-new whilst they're learning about themselves. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
I think that our experiences as pregnant and parenting guys have a great many similarities.
Sadly, I think my experiences have served to distance me from most people. I feel even less comfortable around women than I did before kids (when I was accepted as a "guy who happens to be female" by everyone who mattered to my life) but it also distanced me from the other men around me. On the other hand, I think the same thing often happens to cis men who take an active parenting role. The otherwise very liberal society around here still very much treats day to day parenting as "women's work" and seems to consider it impossible for a man to do. One of my closest friends has been a stay home dad since an injury forced him out of his very macho career and his sentiments echo mine almost exactly as do the experiences of the butch lesbian mom of my daughter's friend.
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I'd really prefer for it to never happen. I think I could accept it if it did but I'd rather it didn't. It always seems a freakish thing to imagine happening to me... but if I allow myself to be somewhat calm about it, perhaps in the future I could deal with it. If I wanted kids in the future, if I could just adopt or have a partner who will have a child, that would always be preferable.
I had my son before I understood myself, and I never thought that I would have kids at all. When I was going through pregnancy I never felt like one of the other expecting moms in the area that were in groups that I got talked into going to. I didn't feel right being there and I didn't have a similar experience. I've practically raised my son alone so I see myself as both mom and dad though I am FAR more Dad like. I felt very disconnected from pregnancy but not my son if that makes sense. Since I began transitioning a lot of things make more sense to me but I know that I wouldn't want to go through pregnancy again personally.
i would love to have a child of my own if it were possible, but as far as i'm concerned, it's not, because the thought of being pregnant is repulsive to me. i imagine it would give me a similar feeling to periods, in the sense of experiencing something strongly associated as female-only and being unable to do anything about it. it would feel very wrong for me.
I understand the feeling. I am mortified of the thought of ever being pregnant.
For me it's got nothing to do with females or that it's a "female only" activity for most people.
It's the fact something is growing inside you and you have no control. A lot could go wrong and you have no control. If nobody is around if something does go wrong you have no control and you could potentially die. And the whole birth thing is - by most accounts I heard - not a pleasant experience, humiliating with other people around (in a hospital), painful, etc.
The mental association I have with pregnancy is debilitation, helplessness and danger.
To a lesser degree I feel that way about menstruation also and handle that so well I ensured I haven't experienced that for about 9 years now, for good or ill. Cannot deal with it.
Then there's those other aspects of my personality that would prevent me from going through it - I have a feeling it would take a hell of a lot for me to feel attached to a kid I just gave birth to, I typically don't "like" anyone at first sight and it was the same according to my mother with me. She wasn't really attached. I know what it's like having a parent who is distant and it sucks. I wouldn't want to repeat that on someone else as I'm am absolutely certain it has profound effects on the kid to have a distant parent. I would be so conflicted and freaked by the whole thing I couldn't vouch for being the standard of parent I would expect.
Being a father, though. That sounds comparatively normal to me. That said I still fear repeating my parents' mistakes too much and I'm still dealing with my hatred for them. I don't think it would be wise for me to ever get myself in this situation.
Quote from: Kylo on March 03, 2017, 12:45:47 PM
Being a father, though. That sounds comparatively normal to me. That said I still fear repeating my parents' mistakes too much and I'm still dealing with my hatred for them. I don't think it would be wise for me to ever get myself in this situation.
Yeah, I feel the same. Though if it helps, I imagine the way to be a better parent is to make the mistakes of those before you, as in know your past and what you know harmed you as a child, and make a concise effort to never do the same and to make a change.
Not saying you have to be one, but just some thoughts in case it was a potential option.
Yeah, my sister does that... her kids are never away from her for too long, she spends a lot of time with them, spends a lot of money on them and making them happy compared to what we has when we were kids. I think they'll turn out ok, their parents don't fight in front of them or have meltdowns over money or get massively drunk and verbally abuse them, etc.
It's too late for me personally, but yeah, I don't know. It's the distance the abused tend to put between themselves and other people. While I don't consider myself directly abused, I've definitely been neglected and screwed with mentally, and my sister wasn't (she came 8 years after). It makes sense she doesn't have the same sort of problems I do.
Good advice for others, though, who might have the same fears.
Yeah pregnancy would be terrible.
I probably would end up incredibly suicidal and even more depressed since it is the most biologically female thing you can do. Thankfully that's never gonna happen.
Quote from: Stone Magnum on February 20, 2017, 02:33:58 PM
I'm very much a 'live and let live' kind of guy. Whatever someone else wants and/or needs to do with their body is their business.
That being said, I'd completely lose my **** if I was forced into being pregnant. A long time ago when I was starting to come 'of age', I had distant relatives chomping at the bit to remind me that pumping out babies was (apparently) my prime directive in life. Those closer to me (mom, dad, grandparents, close aunts) knew better, but that didn't stop the others.
"You'll understand when you have children of your own..."
"Isn't that little baby cute?"
"Do you want to hold him?"
"One day you'll find a nice man and you'll have the prettiest babies..."
Nope. Honestly, I didn't even like other kids when I was a kid myself and I've never liked babies.
I knew that if anything ever happened to me against my will and I ended up getting pregnant that my first trip would've been to PP to fully exercise my right to choose. Thankfully, nothing ever did.
Most people have a hardwired biological drive to have children--trans and cis--and are able to put aside certain things and make sacrifices to have them.
Me? I still don't like kids or babies whatsoever. There's no way I'd put myself through that personal nightmare for something I don't even remotely want.
Different strokes.
I feel exactly the same way, except at the same time as more distant relatives are telling me about all the kids I'm gonna have, I have to deal with my brother (four years younger than me, and I'm still in school) telling me I need to have kids while he says he won't be a dad himself. He says some hilarious things like this sometimes xD
But if someone wants to have kids, why should anyone else be against it? "How does it actually affect you?" is what I usually say in these kinds of situations, I had one last weekend actually when that same brother of mine started badmouthing people who play Pokémon. I think people could benefit from maybe being a bit more tolerant of these things; like, they might not agree with something or want to do it themselves but unless it's actually happening to them then there's no reason for them to get worked up about it. Just let people choose for themselves...