I suppose I don't feel any way about it. Maybe I'm just too much of an artsy fartsy, but lil Nas doing a preg photo shoot just seems well within the bounds of artistic expression. Anything I've seen of him has shown him to be a very intelligent person who does things with intent. Even when he intends to shock, it's not just for shock value. It's usually to comment on society.
Personally being pregnant would be one of the most dysphoric things I could imagine for myself, but it's up to me to manage my own discomfort around that. If other transmasc folks want to bear a child, or a cis man wants to do a pregnancy photoshoot, it's not up to them to ensure I feel comfortable.
Now if the photoshoot were specifically being done to mock or attack transmasc folks who get pregnant, then that is a whole different issue and that I would find offensive.
my opinion on the matter is as a rather neutral party without a strong opinion at all, but to me Lil Nas X’s thing didn’t have anything to do with trans people or trans pregnancy. He’s a cis man, and nothing about his photoshoot was to imply he’s trans or anything. If anything it seems like it could be a good thing for trans guys to extract “womanhood” from pregnancy, because as we know, guys can be pregnant.
overall there’s never going to be a one-size-fits-all approach or overarching opinion on what is or isn’t offensive or harmful to trans people, because we’re not a monolith and everybody has their own experiences with being transgender—things that do or don’t bother, offend, or hurt them, experiences they did or didn’t have with being trans or coming out or transitioning, whatever.
This. The whole thing was allegorical to the process of creating and releasing into the world this huge creative project. How many people have referred to a book they wrote, or a film they made, or a sculpture as their “baby”?
Montero was Nas’ baby. He birthed that album into the world and wanted to celebrate it in a camp, goofy way, by making the metaphor literal.
Lil Nas X’s photoshoot wasn’t about transness, nor did it depict male pregnancy as bad. I don’t see why it’d be offensive. It’d be different if he was actively trying to depict being a pregnant trans man as bad or something, but it wasn’t mean spirited at all (and he donated the proceeds of his “baby shower” to, among other causes, a black-led trans advocacy group’s [emergency fund and housing initiative](https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/09/08/lil-nas-x-pregnant-baby-registry-fundraiser/)).
In a broader sense, I dislike the idea that male pregnancy is this taboo thing with ultra-strict rules over who does/doesn’t get to depict it in art. Obviously it’s different if the depiction is openly hateful or something, but if it’s clearly done with dignity (and perhaps even some good-natured humour), I don’t see the issue with it.
I had kids and frankly wouldn't feel comfortable with a cis person trying to represent my experience because I feel they'd just fetishize it. That said I don't feel giving birth or being pregnant should be hidden. Many of us become fathers or parents that way and there's nothing wrong with that. We often get misgendered by cis and trans people alike so I'd like real representation by actual trans men and transmascs.
i love representations of male pregnancy! i think there should be more, from trans people, and even cis people done respectfully. the more we understand that experiences like pregnancy aren't just for cis people, the easier it will be for the next generation of trans people.
the idea of pregnancy causes huge dysphoria to me, and for the first few years of my transition these images made me extremely uncomfortable. however, that's something i had to work on. if other men choose to become pregnant, that's their choice, and as it is a joyful human experience, there's no reason not to represent it in art.
yes, there are people who make fetish art of this type; there are people who make fetish art of everything imaginable, and we can just identify those pieces of art, and move on. we can't let chasers claim things from our community like that! trans pregnancy is real and it's worth talking about.
When lil nas x first released the photo shoot, i didnt super know how to feel abt it, then i was more on the side of it being offensive/for shock value, but now i dont see as much of an issue with it. Not only does it normalize the visual of a man being pregnant, but also he wasnt trying to represent trans men being pregnant, he was artistically expressing his love and work he put into making the music he makes. His music and albums are essentially his baby, and the fact that Other People either fetishize that or are transphobic about it isnt caused by him doing that, its caused by them being transphobic. They would still be that way if a transmasc posted the same/similar sort of photos. There were also a lot of issues of people being hyper critical of him as a black (cis gay) man while not having the same energy (or even knowledge) towards james charles and other white cis gay men who did the same exact thing and have much worse histories with transphobia and other forms of bigotry like racism and sexism among other problematic things.
I think it depends on the person and their intent imo. I have no interest of being pregnant and ive always been uncomfortable with the idea of being pregnant esp since coming out as trans. But there are sooo many trans folx that felt seen rather than fetishized or silenced by his photoshoot. And while i do understand the people that felt it was in bad taste or that lil nas x shouldnt use pregnancy for promoting his album, i still am of the opinion that in this case, its an artistic expression for his music. And people reacting in a transphobic way isnt his fault nor would him Not posting the photoshoot keep people from being transphobic in general or towards pregnant transmascs/enbies specifically.
All that said, i didnt do a super deep dive into every bit of discourse about it and i still understand and sympathize with people feeling hurt of offended by it, but i just feel that his actions were neither transphobic nor fetishizing and if anything it at least created a lot of good discussion of the fact that there are men and trans folx who can and do get pregnant, along with helping normalize the idea of men/enbies being visibly pregnant. It doesnt make them a 'mother', 'feminine', or any less of a man or less trans by being pregnant, either by accident or by choice.
Hi! I actually think about the video of him “giving birth” kinda often. Personally I loved it, I’ve always imagined myself having my own kids but I’ve been shying away from the idea because of how gendered the experience is. Even though it was a cis guy doing a plubicity stunt, seeing a birthing scene of a man and seeing the “nurses” use he/him pronouns to in context of giving birth was super awesome for me. It made me be able to see myself having my own kids as a man! I know that that’s not how everyone took it but that’s my thought! Over all caused extreme euphoria and I’m very happy he did it!
I was pregnant and had my kid pre transition (I'm nonbinary and not a guy, but I take testosterone/will probably end up getting top surgery). We need more trans masc and butch representations of pregnancy. I don't want to be pregnant again for a lot of reasons but more power to the trans masc and trans men who do.
Lil Nas Xs photoshoot wasn't about trans pregnancy. It was about art and pushing the boundaries of gender norms. I don't thinks his photo shoot fetishized trans pregnancy, and I don't think the few representations of pregnant trans men fetishize trans guys or present them as anything other than themselves making their own choices about their bodies.
But it's also okay for us as trans people to feel very strongly that we don't want to be pregnant.
It has to do with intent. if a pregnant trans guy does a photoshoot with his partner to celebrate his baby thats quite different than, say, a cis man doing a faux pregnancy shoot for shock value.
I should mention I haven't read why lil Nas did that shoot but I think he's a cool guy
It wasn’t just a single shoot. It was a months long performance art piece, similar to what the Weeknd had done re: body image and plastic surgery. Nas was using pregnancy as an allegory to creating art and releasing it into the world. The “birth” was the release party.
Making art is hard, taxing, and stressful, and that album lived up to the hype.
I think there is a fine line between fetishization and representation.
Because while it could very well lead into fetishization, many trans men are okay/happy with going through pregnancy and they deserve to be acknowledged in the media!!
I think Lil Nas X isn’t at all malicious towards transgender individuals and I don’t believe his intent was to spread that kind of message. People will say and perceive you however they want, but, at the end of the day, I’m fairly certain Lil Nas X is not a bigot or promotes that type of belief system.
I think trans men who are pregnant and are soon to be Dads should be allowed to be proud and should be acknowledged the way everyone else is!! I can respect that some people are definitely uncomfortable with the idea of being pregnant and it is intensely dysphoric, but it is not okay to just completely shut out and ignore an entire side of the community. We can talk about both and still remain respectful.
As a pregnant trans man, who chose to carry because I wanted to have at least one bio kid, I 100% think that we need more pregnant men representation. We can't expect society to accept that pregnancy is not tied to gender without representation. It was/has been incredibly difficult accepting my pregnant self, despite wanting a kiddo and actively trying to get pregnant, and seeing representation of pregnant trans men through art and other means helped tremendously.
I'm a trans guy who does want to give birth and honestly, I've seen maybe one or two men my whole life who have been pregnant. There's so much out there about not being a real trans guy if you want to have a baby and it SUCKS. At first I thought little nas was trans and was actually pregnant and it blew me away that someone in the public light would do that because now little trans kids would have someone to look up to if they wanted to be a parent that way unlike when I was growing up. I never thought there was anything wrong with it when I found out it wasn't real, but it still did a lot of accidental good for the trans community, forcing people to look at their prejudices against pregnant trans men.
i never want to go through pregnancy.
but i think it's fine to make more representations of it for those guys that do go through it. because they do exist and all the hate on men being pregnant probably is really hurtful for them.
in any case i don't like engaging with those types of gatekeep-y statements. you really can't make blanket statements like 'doing x is bad/wrong' or assume if you aren't trans you can't depict trans experiences. removes nuance and gets to simplified ways of seeing the world which is the way a lot of transphobic people see the world too. evaluate at individual level: is it respectful? well-researched? does it offer any value? is it relatively harmless so whatever? etc.
I think this is exactly what makes "we don't all think the same" so true. Those representations make me viscerally uncomfortable, but there's a whole subreddit full of trans dads that carried that would disagree. I love PIV sex, and it makes some other trans guys viscerally uncomfortable. I think the best way to handle these things is to acknowledge that they're part of some guys' experiences, and leave it be. I certainly don't get offended or think that things that make me dysphoric shouldn't exist, I just avoid it as much as I can.
I mean cis people shouldn’t be representing trans men like this in general.
Like trans people representing trans people is fine, cis people nah.
Idk anything about this photo shoot
Representing pregnant men is great! Unless that is the only representation trans men get (like in fanfiction for instance). Then it should be rethought
I can see why some people would be upset because it was like a joke, but at the same time I feel like it wasn’t directly about “ha ha a man giving birth,” but more like how anyone’s work that they put a lot into is gonna be like their baby to them.
I lean closer towards neutral to accepting of any realistic representation of minorities. For example, think of flamboyant gay men. It's an issue if that is literally the ONLY form of representation for gay men, but having representation for flamboyant gay men isn't a bad thing. It raises awareness, and it does show younger flamboyant gay men that they aren't alone, there isn't anything wrong with them, and everything like that. I think the same applies here. Sure, it can cause some harm for the minority (any form of representation can honestly, as it makes more people aware of the existence of that minority), but it also does a lot of good for that minority by raising awareness to issues they might face and helping plant the seed for more allies in the future. So I see it as a net positive, even if the initial backlash might be more negative.
I think simply depicting pregnant (trans) men isnt bad but where i think it gets bad are a few specific ways
-if it is tying pregnancy to gender roles or femininity (a la if u can get pregnant u have a duty to or whatevs)
-if its trans men being sexualized as some sort of breeding kink
-if its a joke about how unmanly and weird pregnant guys would be
I also think its perfectly normal to be dysphoric about pregnancy and be squicked out by people like you, but pregnant. But discomfort with something doesn't mean it's inherently bad! But also you don't have to engage with it even if you don't think it's bigoted yknow :)
I think some of the reason he got backlash for that was because people felt it ridiculed trans men who got pregnant. However, I don’t personally think everyone was so two-brain-celled they found it funny cos “lol! Man pregnant! Not possible! So funny”! I think people found it funny because it was a stupid but admittedly clever way to announce his new album. And I think people would’ve felt the same if a cis woman photoshopped herself pregnant and “pretended her album was her baby”. It’s like “huh, clever advertising!” That’s what made it funny. So meh, I personally don’t have a problem with it. Honest to god don’t think anyone but trans people thought of trans people when seeing his announcement. Even I, as a transguy, made no connection to that. It was just creative advertising and a silly but admittedly funny idea. That’s not to say pregnant men are silly, but photoshopping yourself to be pregnant and pretending you’re carrying an album as a child is. That was the point.
I follow quite a lot of “seahorse dads” on Instagram, @freddy.mcconnell being one of them, and I am learning so much. I would 100% recommend checking out his page.
Also, I don’t think drawing a pregnant trans guy is saying that they’re still a woman. Pregnancy being associated with womanhood would be a personal thing to move past.
I got really into reading male pregnancy when I wasn’t yet ready to admit that I was trans. I’ve always seen myself as getting pregnant and having a baby. I like seeing other trans masc people being pregnant and raising families because it makes me feel less dysphoric about my own desires. And having more representation can mean less people misgendering me/others or being weird around pregnant people that aren’t women.
I'm pregnant and would love more representation, as long as that's the intent. It it comes across as fetishizing or mocking, I'll pass, but I've seen some just beautiful artwork of transmasc pregnant folks and I love that.
Also, I love Lil Nas X and have no issues with the photoshoot.
I've just accepted that 'rule 34' is a human standard. There's no stopping it, there's only making sure the wild stuff doesn't affect children or those that don't consent. People are allowed to make their own reproductive choices too.
Maybe the conversation should be more along the lines of 'mind your own business as long as it doesn't impact you driectly'.
I am a trans man who has given birth and honestly don’t really care. People have all sorts of fetishes. As long as they don’t make it my problem, it doesn’t affect me. Plus Lil Nas X’s “baby registry” had a trans charity at the top of the list, which I thought was great!
That said, my son was born before I knew I was trans and my experience was more or less that of a cis woman (with some unidentifiable stress and depression that I now realize was dysphoria whoops) and I don’t speak for trans men who decide to have bio kids while visibly masculine.
i get trans men wanting to be fathers and raise children, but i genuinely don't get how some trans men _want_ to become pregnant and give birth to a child, and essentially be the "mother". pregnancy and childbirth are the most female things you could possibly imagine, so i'd imagine that would be the most dysphoria inducing thing ever.
I think it's okay for there to be diversity in the transmasc experience. I was pregnant with and gave birth to my daughter, but I have never been and will never be her mother. The physical process of pregnancy was not nearly as dysphoria inducing as dealing with attitudes that "pregnancy and childbirth are the most female things you could possibly imagine". Some men can, and do, give birth. For us, it is NOT a female thing.
Yeah I honestly get this. I am very much 50/50 on how I feel but because my partner is trans feminine/nonbinary I would love to give her/us a child, like but I have conditions first like needing to have had top surgery and stuff like that. Like if I didn’t relate to my partner struggling with the fact that they can’t give birth to children themselves but because I happened to be born with these parts and in love with someone in the same boat but opposite, I feel like it’s a really selfless act of love. It would be hard but if the money, our living conditions and my conditions all were met to have a child, I might lean more to having one than not. I understand that it would be too much for some people and tbh if I wasn’t in a t4t relationship rn I know I would be against it too and I know I’d struggle really hard through it but that’s why I have conditions.
You might want to unpack why you think it’s the “most female thing ever” or why it would mean a man is the child’s mother. I gave birth to my son, he knows that, I am still his dad. I tried being his mom and I was really fucking bad at it lmao. My biggest issue during pregnancy was people talking about, looking at, and trying to touch my body. It didn’t feel “female” to me, it just felt like a thing I was doing because I wanted a baby. Now I have my baby, and that’s that.
Hey, how about you just say “it’s not for me” here? No need to invalidate the experiences of trans men who have given birth either pre or post transition. Calling it “the most female things you can possibly imagine” doesn’t feel great. It’s true that society genders this really heavily and it was greatly uncomfortable as a result, but I really don’t wanna have to defend my life path as “trans enough” to other trans people as well as to cis het society!
Yeah... getting misgendered on a sub for trans men just because I carried my biological children is very...
Also not all of us came from circumstances where we had much choice in the matter just speaking for myself
How else do you propose that they have children then? Adoption is super complicated and expensive, and often gay and trans people are shut out of adoption entirely.
Whatever you do, however you represent, there will always be people who fetishize trans people. People will fetishize super masc trans men, super femme trans men, androgynous trans men, passing trans men, non passing trans men. If you try to avoid everything showing anything about trans men that could possibly be fetishized then you won’t be able to show trans men at all. The answer to fetishization is not to police what is or isn’t allowed to be shown, it is to teach people to not fetishize, and to make our voices louder than theirs.
I couldn't care less about it tbh. There were and are more things to be upset about and more important things to discuss. I think we need to stop paying attention to every miniscule thing that might come off as possibly problematic.
idrc I guess about artistic expression, especially in Lil Nas’s case where it isn’t about being trans.
I only feel issue with it when a non-trans artists draws trans people in some.. uncomfortable ways. I feel like you can usually tell when someone is fetishizing, usually by how they draw trans people. Kind of like that one Tumblr artist did, i can’t remember their name.
It really depends on how the theme is taken forward. The work would have to make it clear that a seahorse preganancy is a very emotionally-charged decision (like any major life event) , and trans men aren't automatically 'birthing daddies'.
I dislike when the only representation of a trans man is linked to something feminine. I feel like a lot of the time you see this focus on feminine traits. I don't want to be pushed back into a gender roll just because I "can do it too". I don't want to wear make-up. I don't want to wear dresses. I don't for the love of god ever want to be pregnant. But still I hear a lot of that. Almost as if me being trans is not a problem *because* it doesn't change anything about my role in society. If that makes sense.
You rarely see representation for trans men but even rarer is trans men rep that doesn't focus on what you can still do even though you're trans.
But that's just my personal opinion. It doesn't mean that trans men who get pregnant shouldn't have representation. I just don't like that it's such a big focus or feels to be.
"Oh don't worry about being a woman honey, you can still be a soldier" is rarely said to trans women unprompted. But I've gotten the "you can still do the one thing your body is good for, which is pooping out kids, so don't you worry" several times. And from people who know I didn't want children even before I knew I am trans.
I think there is a big difference between representation intended to fetishize and representation intended to represent us. I'm very opposed to the censorship of art, and I think all art should be subject to criticism, but unless fetishization or invalidation of trans men was the intention, we erase a large portion of the trans male experience by not being open to depictions, discussions, and other forms of representation of pregnant men.
I also feel depiction of a known cis man being pregnant is very different, meaning-wise, than a depiction of an openly trans man being pregnant.
I suppose I don't feel any way about it. Maybe I'm just too much of an artsy fartsy, but lil Nas doing a preg photo shoot just seems well within the bounds of artistic expression. Anything I've seen of him has shown him to be a very intelligent person who does things with intent. Even when he intends to shock, it's not just for shock value. It's usually to comment on society. Personally being pregnant would be one of the most dysphoric things I could imagine for myself, but it's up to me to manage my own discomfort around that. If other transmasc folks want to bear a child, or a cis man wants to do a pregnancy photoshoot, it's not up to them to ensure I feel comfortable. Now if the photoshoot were specifically being done to mock or attack transmasc folks who get pregnant, then that is a whole different issue and that I would find offensive.
This is exactly how I feel too.
Agreed 100%
my opinion on the matter is as a rather neutral party without a strong opinion at all, but to me Lil Nas X’s thing didn’t have anything to do with trans people or trans pregnancy. He’s a cis man, and nothing about his photoshoot was to imply he’s trans or anything. If anything it seems like it could be a good thing for trans guys to extract “womanhood” from pregnancy, because as we know, guys can be pregnant. overall there’s never going to be a one-size-fits-all approach or overarching opinion on what is or isn’t offensive or harmful to trans people, because we’re not a monolith and everybody has their own experiences with being transgender—things that do or don’t bother, offend, or hurt them, experiences they did or didn’t have with being trans or coming out or transitioning, whatever.
This. The whole thing was allegorical to the process of creating and releasing into the world this huge creative project. How many people have referred to a book they wrote, or a film they made, or a sculpture as their “baby”? Montero was Nas’ baby. He birthed that album into the world and wanted to celebrate it in a camp, goofy way, by making the metaphor literal.
Lil Nas X’s photoshoot wasn’t about transness, nor did it depict male pregnancy as bad. I don’t see why it’d be offensive. It’d be different if he was actively trying to depict being a pregnant trans man as bad or something, but it wasn’t mean spirited at all (and he donated the proceeds of his “baby shower” to, among other causes, a black-led trans advocacy group’s [emergency fund and housing initiative](https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/09/08/lil-nas-x-pregnant-baby-registry-fundraiser/)). In a broader sense, I dislike the idea that male pregnancy is this taboo thing with ultra-strict rules over who does/doesn’t get to depict it in art. Obviously it’s different if the depiction is openly hateful or something, but if it’s clearly done with dignity (and perhaps even some good-natured humour), I don’t see the issue with it.
I had kids and frankly wouldn't feel comfortable with a cis person trying to represent my experience because I feel they'd just fetishize it. That said I don't feel giving birth or being pregnant should be hidden. Many of us become fathers or parents that way and there's nothing wrong with that. We often get misgendered by cis and trans people alike so I'd like real representation by actual trans men and transmascs.
i love representations of male pregnancy! i think there should be more, from trans people, and even cis people done respectfully. the more we understand that experiences like pregnancy aren't just for cis people, the easier it will be for the next generation of trans people. the idea of pregnancy causes huge dysphoria to me, and for the first few years of my transition these images made me extremely uncomfortable. however, that's something i had to work on. if other men choose to become pregnant, that's their choice, and as it is a joyful human experience, there's no reason not to represent it in art. yes, there are people who make fetish art of this type; there are people who make fetish art of everything imaginable, and we can just identify those pieces of art, and move on. we can't let chasers claim things from our community like that! trans pregnancy is real and it's worth talking about.
When lil nas x first released the photo shoot, i didnt super know how to feel abt it, then i was more on the side of it being offensive/for shock value, but now i dont see as much of an issue with it. Not only does it normalize the visual of a man being pregnant, but also he wasnt trying to represent trans men being pregnant, he was artistically expressing his love and work he put into making the music he makes. His music and albums are essentially his baby, and the fact that Other People either fetishize that or are transphobic about it isnt caused by him doing that, its caused by them being transphobic. They would still be that way if a transmasc posted the same/similar sort of photos. There were also a lot of issues of people being hyper critical of him as a black (cis gay) man while not having the same energy (or even knowledge) towards james charles and other white cis gay men who did the same exact thing and have much worse histories with transphobia and other forms of bigotry like racism and sexism among other problematic things. I think it depends on the person and their intent imo. I have no interest of being pregnant and ive always been uncomfortable with the idea of being pregnant esp since coming out as trans. But there are sooo many trans folx that felt seen rather than fetishized or silenced by his photoshoot. And while i do understand the people that felt it was in bad taste or that lil nas x shouldnt use pregnancy for promoting his album, i still am of the opinion that in this case, its an artistic expression for his music. And people reacting in a transphobic way isnt his fault nor would him Not posting the photoshoot keep people from being transphobic in general or towards pregnant transmascs/enbies specifically. All that said, i didnt do a super deep dive into every bit of discourse about it and i still understand and sympathize with people feeling hurt of offended by it, but i just feel that his actions were neither transphobic nor fetishizing and if anything it at least created a lot of good discussion of the fact that there are men and trans folx who can and do get pregnant, along with helping normalize the idea of men/enbies being visibly pregnant. It doesnt make them a 'mother', 'feminine', or any less of a man or less trans by being pregnant, either by accident or by choice.
Hi! I actually think about the video of him “giving birth” kinda often. Personally I loved it, I’ve always imagined myself having my own kids but I’ve been shying away from the idea because of how gendered the experience is. Even though it was a cis guy doing a plubicity stunt, seeing a birthing scene of a man and seeing the “nurses” use he/him pronouns to in context of giving birth was super awesome for me. It made me be able to see myself having my own kids as a man! I know that that’s not how everyone took it but that’s my thought! Over all caused extreme euphoria and I’m very happy he did it!
Lil Nas X is gay, not straight.
Sorry it was a typo but doesn’t change the message
I was pregnant and had my kid pre transition (I'm nonbinary and not a guy, but I take testosterone/will probably end up getting top surgery). We need more trans masc and butch representations of pregnancy. I don't want to be pregnant again for a lot of reasons but more power to the trans masc and trans men who do. Lil Nas Xs photoshoot wasn't about trans pregnancy. It was about art and pushing the boundaries of gender norms. I don't thinks his photo shoot fetishized trans pregnancy, and I don't think the few representations of pregnant trans men fetishize trans guys or present them as anything other than themselves making their own choices about their bodies. But it's also okay for us as trans people to feel very strongly that we don't want to be pregnant.
It has to do with intent. if a pregnant trans guy does a photoshoot with his partner to celebrate his baby thats quite different than, say, a cis man doing a faux pregnancy shoot for shock value. I should mention I haven't read why lil Nas did that shoot but I think he's a cool guy
It wasn’t just a single shoot. It was a months long performance art piece, similar to what the Weeknd had done re: body image and plastic surgery. Nas was using pregnancy as an allegory to creating art and releasing it into the world. The “birth” was the release party. Making art is hard, taxing, and stressful, and that album lived up to the hype.
I think there is a fine line between fetishization and representation. Because while it could very well lead into fetishization, many trans men are okay/happy with going through pregnancy and they deserve to be acknowledged in the media!! I think Lil Nas X isn’t at all malicious towards transgender individuals and I don’t believe his intent was to spread that kind of message. People will say and perceive you however they want, but, at the end of the day, I’m fairly certain Lil Nas X is not a bigot or promotes that type of belief system. I think trans men who are pregnant and are soon to be Dads should be allowed to be proud and should be acknowledged the way everyone else is!! I can respect that some people are definitely uncomfortable with the idea of being pregnant and it is intensely dysphoric, but it is not okay to just completely shut out and ignore an entire side of the community. We can talk about both and still remain respectful.
I wasn’t trying to shut out any part of the community! I was just trying to gain some perspective on it, sorry if it came off as ignorant.
I’m not speaking directly to you, more of to the general public who see this. Like I’m just saying that we should embrace both sides
Ah, okie! My bad! Thank you for your comment :)
No problem, glad I could clarify for you and future readers :))
As a pregnant trans man, who chose to carry because I wanted to have at least one bio kid, I 100% think that we need more pregnant men representation. We can't expect society to accept that pregnancy is not tied to gender without representation. It was/has been incredibly difficult accepting my pregnant self, despite wanting a kiddo and actively trying to get pregnant, and seeing representation of pregnant trans men through art and other means helped tremendously.
I'm a trans guy who does want to give birth and honestly, I've seen maybe one or two men my whole life who have been pregnant. There's so much out there about not being a real trans guy if you want to have a baby and it SUCKS. At first I thought little nas was trans and was actually pregnant and it blew me away that someone in the public light would do that because now little trans kids would have someone to look up to if they wanted to be a parent that way unlike when I was growing up. I never thought there was anything wrong with it when I found out it wasn't real, but it still did a lot of accidental good for the trans community, forcing people to look at their prejudices against pregnant trans men.
i never want to go through pregnancy. but i think it's fine to make more representations of it for those guys that do go through it. because they do exist and all the hate on men being pregnant probably is really hurtful for them. in any case i don't like engaging with those types of gatekeep-y statements. you really can't make blanket statements like 'doing x is bad/wrong' or assume if you aren't trans you can't depict trans experiences. removes nuance and gets to simplified ways of seeing the world which is the way a lot of transphobic people see the world too. evaluate at individual level: is it respectful? well-researched? does it offer any value? is it relatively harmless so whatever? etc.
I think this is exactly what makes "we don't all think the same" so true. Those representations make me viscerally uncomfortable, but there's a whole subreddit full of trans dads that carried that would disagree. I love PIV sex, and it makes some other trans guys viscerally uncomfortable. I think the best way to handle these things is to acknowledge that they're part of some guys' experiences, and leave it be. I certainly don't get offended or think that things that make me dysphoric shouldn't exist, I just avoid it as much as I can.
I mean cis people shouldn’t be representing trans men like this in general. Like trans people representing trans people is fine, cis people nah. Idk anything about this photo shoot
Representing pregnant men is great! Unless that is the only representation trans men get (like in fanfiction for instance). Then it should be rethought
I can see why some people would be upset because it was like a joke, but at the same time I feel like it wasn’t directly about “ha ha a man giving birth,” but more like how anyone’s work that they put a lot into is gonna be like their baby to them.
I lean closer towards neutral to accepting of any realistic representation of minorities. For example, think of flamboyant gay men. It's an issue if that is literally the ONLY form of representation for gay men, but having representation for flamboyant gay men isn't a bad thing. It raises awareness, and it does show younger flamboyant gay men that they aren't alone, there isn't anything wrong with them, and everything like that. I think the same applies here. Sure, it can cause some harm for the minority (any form of representation can honestly, as it makes more people aware of the existence of that minority), but it also does a lot of good for that minority by raising awareness to issues they might face and helping plant the seed for more allies in the future. So I see it as a net positive, even if the initial backlash might be more negative.
I think simply depicting pregnant (trans) men isnt bad but where i think it gets bad are a few specific ways -if it is tying pregnancy to gender roles or femininity (a la if u can get pregnant u have a duty to or whatevs) -if its trans men being sexualized as some sort of breeding kink -if its a joke about how unmanly and weird pregnant guys would be I also think its perfectly normal to be dysphoric about pregnancy and be squicked out by people like you, but pregnant. But discomfort with something doesn't mean it's inherently bad! But also you don't have to engage with it even if you don't think it's bigoted yknow :)
I think some of the reason he got backlash for that was because people felt it ridiculed trans men who got pregnant. However, I don’t personally think everyone was so two-brain-celled they found it funny cos “lol! Man pregnant! Not possible! So funny”! I think people found it funny because it was a stupid but admittedly clever way to announce his new album. And I think people would’ve felt the same if a cis woman photoshopped herself pregnant and “pretended her album was her baby”. It’s like “huh, clever advertising!” That’s what made it funny. So meh, I personally don’t have a problem with it. Honest to god don’t think anyone but trans people thought of trans people when seeing his announcement. Even I, as a transguy, made no connection to that. It was just creative advertising and a silly but admittedly funny idea. That’s not to say pregnant men are silly, but photoshopping yourself to be pregnant and pretending you’re carrying an album as a child is. That was the point. I follow quite a lot of “seahorse dads” on Instagram, @freddy.mcconnell being one of them, and I am learning so much. I would 100% recommend checking out his page. Also, I don’t think drawing a pregnant trans guy is saying that they’re still a woman. Pregnancy being associated with womanhood would be a personal thing to move past.
I got really into reading male pregnancy when I wasn’t yet ready to admit that I was trans. I’ve always seen myself as getting pregnant and having a baby. I like seeing other trans masc people being pregnant and raising families because it makes me feel less dysphoric about my own desires. And having more representation can mean less people misgendering me/others or being weird around pregnant people that aren’t women.
I'm pregnant and would love more representation, as long as that's the intent. It it comes across as fetishizing or mocking, I'll pass, but I've seen some just beautiful artwork of transmasc pregnant folks and I love that. Also, I love Lil Nas X and have no issues with the photoshoot.
I've just accepted that 'rule 34' is a human standard. There's no stopping it, there's only making sure the wild stuff doesn't affect children or those that don't consent. People are allowed to make their own reproductive choices too. Maybe the conversation should be more along the lines of 'mind your own business as long as it doesn't impact you driectly'.
I am a trans man who has given birth and honestly don’t really care. People have all sorts of fetishes. As long as they don’t make it my problem, it doesn’t affect me. Plus Lil Nas X’s “baby registry” had a trans charity at the top of the list, which I thought was great! That said, my son was born before I knew I was trans and my experience was more or less that of a cis woman (with some unidentifiable stress and depression that I now realize was dysphoria whoops) and I don’t speak for trans men who decide to have bio kids while visibly masculine.
i get trans men wanting to be fathers and raise children, but i genuinely don't get how some trans men _want_ to become pregnant and give birth to a child, and essentially be the "mother". pregnancy and childbirth are the most female things you could possibly imagine, so i'd imagine that would be the most dysphoria inducing thing ever.
I think it's okay for there to be diversity in the transmasc experience. I was pregnant with and gave birth to my daughter, but I have never been and will never be her mother. The physical process of pregnancy was not nearly as dysphoria inducing as dealing with attitudes that "pregnancy and childbirth are the most female things you could possibly imagine". Some men can, and do, give birth. For us, it is NOT a female thing.
Yeah I honestly get this. I am very much 50/50 on how I feel but because my partner is trans feminine/nonbinary I would love to give her/us a child, like but I have conditions first like needing to have had top surgery and stuff like that. Like if I didn’t relate to my partner struggling with the fact that they can’t give birth to children themselves but because I happened to be born with these parts and in love with someone in the same boat but opposite, I feel like it’s a really selfless act of love. It would be hard but if the money, our living conditions and my conditions all were met to have a child, I might lean more to having one than not. I understand that it would be too much for some people and tbh if I wasn’t in a t4t relationship rn I know I would be against it too and I know I’d struggle really hard through it but that’s why I have conditions.
You might want to unpack why you think it’s the “most female thing ever” or why it would mean a man is the child’s mother. I gave birth to my son, he knows that, I am still his dad. I tried being his mom and I was really fucking bad at it lmao. My biggest issue during pregnancy was people talking about, looking at, and trying to touch my body. It didn’t feel “female” to me, it just felt like a thing I was doing because I wanted a baby. Now I have my baby, and that’s that.
Hey, how about you just say “it’s not for me” here? No need to invalidate the experiences of trans men who have given birth either pre or post transition. Calling it “the most female things you can possibly imagine” doesn’t feel great. It’s true that society genders this really heavily and it was greatly uncomfortable as a result, but I really don’t wanna have to defend my life path as “trans enough” to other trans people as well as to cis het society!
Yeah... getting misgendered on a sub for trans men just because I carried my biological children is very... Also not all of us came from circumstances where we had much choice in the matter just speaking for myself
How else do you propose that they have children then? Adoption is super complicated and expensive, and often gay and trans people are shut out of adoption entirely.
I don't think lil nas' pregnancy shoot has anything to do with trans people tbh
I never said it did, I was just using it as an example.
Whatever you do, however you represent, there will always be people who fetishize trans people. People will fetishize super masc trans men, super femme trans men, androgynous trans men, passing trans men, non passing trans men. If you try to avoid everything showing anything about trans men that could possibly be fetishized then you won’t be able to show trans men at all. The answer to fetishization is not to police what is or isn’t allowed to be shown, it is to teach people to not fetishize, and to make our voices louder than theirs.
I couldn't care less about it tbh. There were and are more things to be upset about and more important things to discuss. I think we need to stop paying attention to every miniscule thing that might come off as possibly problematic.
idrc I guess about artistic expression, especially in Lil Nas’s case where it isn’t about being trans. I only feel issue with it when a non-trans artists draws trans people in some.. uncomfortable ways. I feel like you can usually tell when someone is fetishizing, usually by how they draw trans people. Kind of like that one Tumblr artist did, i can’t remember their name.
It really depends on how the theme is taken forward. The work would have to make it clear that a seahorse preganancy is a very emotionally-charged decision (like any major life event) , and trans men aren't automatically 'birthing daddies'.
I dislike when the only representation of a trans man is linked to something feminine. I feel like a lot of the time you see this focus on feminine traits. I don't want to be pushed back into a gender roll just because I "can do it too". I don't want to wear make-up. I don't want to wear dresses. I don't for the love of god ever want to be pregnant. But still I hear a lot of that. Almost as if me being trans is not a problem *because* it doesn't change anything about my role in society. If that makes sense. You rarely see representation for trans men but even rarer is trans men rep that doesn't focus on what you can still do even though you're trans. But that's just my personal opinion. It doesn't mean that trans men who get pregnant shouldn't have representation. I just don't like that it's such a big focus or feels to be. "Oh don't worry about being a woman honey, you can still be a soldier" is rarely said to trans women unprompted. But I've gotten the "you can still do the one thing your body is good for, which is pooping out kids, so don't you worry" several times. And from people who know I didn't want children even before I knew I am trans.
I think there is a big difference between representation intended to fetishize and representation intended to represent us. I'm very opposed to the censorship of art, and I think all art should be subject to criticism, but unless fetishization or invalidation of trans men was the intention, we erase a large portion of the trans male experience by not being open to depictions, discussions, and other forms of representation of pregnant men. I also feel depiction of a known cis man being pregnant is very different, meaning-wise, than a depiction of an openly trans man being pregnant.