#transmasc and childfree

[genderqueerpositivity]

(ID: eight images with pastel rainbow backgrounds, there are black curved lines bordering each corner and black text in the center of every image; the text reads 1) "transgender and pro-choice", 2) "include trans people in your abortion rights advocacy", 3) "pro-choice and childfree without apology", 4) "bodily autonomy is a human right", 5) "this isn't gods will you're just an asshole", 6) "not subject to the rules of your religion", 7) "my body my life my future my choice", 8) "forced pregnancy is torture".)

#pro choice #pro abortion #abortion rights are queer rights #abortion rights are trans rights #abortion #rights #reproductive justice #op #q #genderqueerpositivity #pregnancy tw #forced pregnancy tw #religion tw #transmasc and childfree #childfree

[nezoriy]

“from my empty womb, the flowers will bloom”

yes, it’s transmasc art, but it’s also feminist, pro-choice, childfree, and all other kinds of arts.

if you know what book cover i’m referencing here with the main image, congrats, you’re trans, activist, terminally online on leftist youtube, or all of the above (me? all of it)

#my art #stas in kyiv #queer art #trans art #trans #transmasc #queer #украрт #укртумбочка #укртамблер

[olderthannetfic]

There are plenty of us that are childfree but also not by choice. We live the lifestyle. They have our mental gymnastics to make it less of a constant pain. We have the things we use to cope and take comfort... but for a lot of us, it wasn't by choice.

Obviously, medical infertility is what everyone is familiar with. But there is another form of infertility: social infertility.

How many of us heard over and over again, "If you can't afford to have children, then don't have them"? Well, we can't have them.

So many, but not all, of us have convinced ourselves to hate children. We made ourselves repulsed by children, by pregnancy, but all of that... because it somehow makes the pain less sharp. A lot of us aren't that great in handling children because so few of our peers can have them. We didn't get the practice.

I was once telling a story for a fanfic scene idea of a young little child being handed a very previous personal object of his father to signal the father has died and won't be returning.

Someone in the echo chamber said, "Yeah, I don't care. I hate kids."

Then, when I said, "Hi. I am that child. I was that child. My father didn't come back," then they were fucking silent. It hurt so much, and I haven't entirely forgiven them for it.

It has become so permissive to hate children, to hate the choices others make with their bodies, that you are either so pro-child you are covered in them or you are a cruel caricature of a spinster.

The right to reproductive autonomy is supposed to be an inalienable one. The desire to reproduce is built into us in one form or another, though it is also understandable why some people don't want anything to do with that.

That inalienable right to reproductive autonomy is also supposed to go both ways. But in so many ways, our society lays traps. They are on the right, they are on the left, and the rest is... wilderness.

Although I was already a little familiar with some of the surface-level issues, a large writing project I am working that features a man becoming pregnant has given me good reason to really dive into the subject of transmaternity. It has become a passion of mine.

Transmasc individuals who become pregnant are boxed out on either side. They are consistently isolated by other transmasc for not being masc enough. They are men, thus, they don't belong in social or medical spaces. Many have lost partners and friends who were a part of the LGBTQ+ community, often trans because what they went through with their body made other people dysphoric... even though it isn't their body.

I read too many accounts of their own life-partners telling them maybe they aren't so trans after all. Maybe they are 'just NB.'

Once again, someone is making what he does with his body after themselves.

Some of these men went to great lengths to advocate for C-sections and were denied. Some had to trick the system into alloying it. Others searched high and low for doctors who understood that a channel birth could be dysphoric for them and allowed them to schedule them preemptively. Some of these went on to have a channel birth and found that it was affirming to them because the experience clarified it for them that they were still men. Some required incredible support from the people in their lives to recover from the resulting dysphoria, only to be told "I told you so" by cis and trans alike.

Finding affirming and supportive medical care is a challenge, often with obstacles, and sometimes they have to make do with a hostile OBGYN/Neo-Natal medical care complex because no matter what, they want to do this.

Transmaternity is complicated and personal because ultimately, it is about a person's body...

It makes me furious with grief every time someone makes the idea of a transman being pregnant about themselves.

"It makes me dysphoric." Great, it isn't about anyone's body, but the owner of said body. It is about no one else.

"It makes me uncomfortable to see them pregnant." Since it is their body, and only they are in it, the only person who comforted or discomforted by it is... that person.

In the same way that no trans parson's existence could cater to whether a cis person feels comfortable when they look at them, are around them, it needs to exist within that community, too.

Some of these men to be called Mom. Some choose to be called Dad.

Some have had top surgery, others delay until after the entrance of their child. Some never feel a need to it and get a measure of joy from not having to face one more obstacle.

Maternity is incredibly gendered, and members of the trans community that go through it are still feeling their way around.

But so many members of the trans community show their internalized transphobia just as loudly as the cis community the moment pregnancy comes to it.

While Roe vs Wade has frighteningly complicated matters... it is these experienced transmen who know a bit more about these medical systems that are trying to help their others. They know how to find OGBYN's who are supportive of transmasc reproductive health issues. They are often the elders. Sadly, too many of them feel driven out of the community because other people make what he does with his body about how it makes others feel.

But it hurts so much... it hurts SO much... to have wanted to be a parent since I was a kid, and there is no way I can be. To have gone through my own painful childhood, and people feel free to show a complete lack of empathy to children because they don't like children.

Man... they are little people. They are just little people. They need their own spaces. They should be cared for by people who want them. Those who don't want them shouldn't be forced or guilted into having them. But they are JUST LITTLE PEOPLE.

Sorry for going off. There's a lot of pain.

--

[entity9silvergen]

Them: Are you sure you don’t want biological kids?

Me (asexual, aromantic, transgender, diagnosed with gender dysphoria, about to start t, has not frozen eggs, sex repulsed, repulsed by pregnancy, afraid of responsibility and commitment, child of divorce, may carry gene for inheritable disease, hates children, has never wanted children): idk man

#lgbt #asepc #aromantic #asexual #childfree #transgender #nonbinary #tran #enby #transmasc #ftm transguy #cw: pregnancy #I don't want kids but I'm afraid I'll regret not freezing my eggs

[genderqueerpositivity]

(two transmasculine pride flags with text that says 1) "proud to be trans childfree" and 2) "proud to be transmasc and childfree")

#trans and childfree #transmasc and childfree #childfree #international childfree day #op #q #genderqueerpositivity

[genderqueerpositivity]

(Image description: six square images with purple backgrounds and white borders, every image has bold white text in the center. All together this text reads: "I don't care if testosterone therapy makes me sterile. I am allowed to live a life that does not revolve around childbearing or parenthood. I do not have to prioritize childbearing or parenthood in my life. My bodily autonomy and freedom of choice are worth more than potential fertility. I don't give a fuck what you believe my "biological purpose" is. This body is mine to do with as I will.")

Possibly controversial, but I don't care if testosterone therapy makes me sterile.

I'm allowed to live a life that does not revolve around possible future childbearing or parenthood. My own bodily autonomy and freedom of choice are worth more than potential fertility.

I don't care what anyone believes my "biological purpose" is. My body is not your "earthen vessel". I am not here to "be fruitful and multiply". I don't want to join your womban only arts and crafts circle and finger-paint with period blood. I don't have to find any kind of special meaning or spiritual significance in the reproductive organs that I was born with.

The only reason I am here right now with this body that is mine is to do whatever I want with it.

I'm allowed to not want pregnancy and childbirth, or the possibility of them. I'm allowed to not want parenthood in any form. I don't have to prioritize those things in my life.

The potential loss of my fertility on testosterone is not a loss for me, it is a benefit. For more than half of my life now I've known that I never want to experience pregnancy or childbirth, and yet I am clearly expected to value my potential ability to do those things above my own actual wants and needs? No chance.

No trans person should be required to delay medically transitioning because of concerns about future fertility, if the trans person themselves isn't concerned with the ability to have biological children.

I resent the notion that medically transitioning is harmful because we're--allegedly--choosing to sterilize ourselves*. Choosing sterilization is not harmful. The ability to choose sterilization should be the right of every person, regardless of gender, who is of an age capable of reproducing.

(*Contrary to popular belief, testosterone therapy is not a contraceptive and does not always result in a person being sterile; it is entirely possible for a person to become pregnant while using testosterone therapy or after stopping it.)

#transmasculine #transmasc #trans #testosterone therapy #ftm hrt #childfree #transmasc and childfree #pregnancy tw #childbirth tw #transphobia tw #menstruation tw #blood tw #q #op #genderqueerpositivity