Monday, January 11, 2016
Womanhood Does Not Equal To Childbirth Alone
While I was surfing the Net last night ran across a Facebook conversation on a trans girlfriend's page in which a cis woman threw the shady comment that trans women were 'men' because we can't conceive or give birth to children.
Of course y'all knew I couldn't let that stand, and shot a comment back at the transphobic sistah would it be okay for trans women when she hits menopause to call her a man? I pointed out that since in her mind womanhood = ability to procreate, once she no longer had that ability to do so for whatever reason, by her own narrow definition, she would be a 'man'.
As for her reaction to the clapback comment I laid on her, she had none.
One of the things that I and my trans sisters are tired of is TERF's and elements of the cisfeminine community throwing that ignorant insult around to either make themselves feel superior to trans women or piss us off.
Just an FYI for some of you who were asleep in biology class, there are some cis women who can't bear children because they have MRKH Syndrome, a rare condition that affects one in every 5000 women in which they are born without a uterus.
Some may have a uterus, but it doesn't function because of fertility or other issues, or the baby making parts work but the cis woman in question chooses not to have children.
Since 2000, medical science has been perfecting the ability to transplant a uterus. The medical technology for that procedure has advanced to the point in which a cis woman in Sweden who received a uterine transplant in 2014 gave birth to a child via Caesarian section.
Now the technology has also advanced to the point that the donor uterus can not only be grown in the lab with stem cells, the lab grown uterus is less susceptible to rejection by the patient it is implanted in.
So as this uterine transplant procedure becomes routine over the next decade, how long will it be before trans women who wish to have children are able to not only have a uterine transplant, but bear children? Once that happens, it eliminates the ability for TERF's and cis women to weaponize as an insult they shadily throw at trans women their ability to procreate.
As philosopher Simone de Beauvoir once stated, 'Women are made, not born,' There are many elements that go into womanhood including living culturally as one, and trans and cis women need to realize we have far more in common than they have differences.
We cis and trans women have to do a better job of building sisterhood between us, and discuss the issues that negatively impact that happening. This is one of those irritant issues for trans women.
Basing womanhood on ability to procreate is also insulting to cis women who can't bear children for whatever reason or choose not to.,
If you claim that femininity and gender roles are artificial constructs that have nothing to do with the body or other biological characteristics, then that applies to trans women as well.
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