I have a new column up at UnHerd because it’s Pride month now and we’re in for a lot of this:
“Pregnant men” — like “transgender children” and “lesbians with penises” — are among the mysteries and marvels of this bold new faith, and June is the month set aside for public veneration.
But what is it like to actually find yourself in this situation? Glamour goes right to the source: a pregnant 27-year-old named Logan Brown. The reporter, Chloe Law, assumes the proper posture: when Brown frets over “giving ‘good’ answers and jokingly asks if people do this a lot in interviews. I reassure him, honestly, that his answers aren’t just good; they’re powerful.”
Reporter and subject alike treat Brown’s pregnancy as a kind of miracle, rather than the predictable outcome of heterosexual sex: “I’m never gonna get this opportunity again to — as a queer couple — have a baby that’s biologically both ours,” Brown says. “Which is really special to me and, eventually, something just clicked.” When it comes to reproduction, identity role play doesn’t count for much. A “he” and “they” can still make a baby. On the cover of the magazine, Brown sports a shirt and tie painted flatly over a swollen womb.
…
Stories like Brown’s have an uncertain quality. There’s something reminiscent of the feast days of old that drew peasants from the countryside to pay tribute to the immaculate corpses of long-dead saints and other sacred mysteries beyond all comprehending. But these stories also bring to mind the faits divers of the tabloid press and the dark enclosure of circus tents, with vendors squatting at the threshold, selling tickets to anyone who wants to gawk, for any reason.
And Pride Month is just beginning.
It breaks my heart to see women reject their own Nature. It makes sense, I suppose, that a girl might prefer to be a boy in a patriarchal system, but you can't identify out of oppression and identifying with your oppressor is Stockholm Syndrome. This is an extreme expression of the patriarchal disdain for Nature, seeing it as something to be controlled, remade and exploited for personal gain. True inclusivity would be taking delight in the body you're born in, whatever shape it might take, being proud of it's unique qualities and being accepting of the uniqueness of others. "Gender" is a kind of straight-jacket or corsette intended to mold the body into a prescribed form defined by others. There's even a uniform evolving - blue or lavender hair, multiple facial piercings, ill-fitting overalls for the NBs or wrap dresses and platform shoes for the AGPs with fake breasts.
As a Pagan woman, I find the misogyny here stunning and as sacrilegious as a Christian might for different reasons. My opposition is not based on ancient scrolls of dubious origin or a drive to preserve biblical patriarchy, but in simple reverence for the Living World. Female is the Source of Life. Birth is the essence of being Female. It took a male and a female to produce that baby and it's gestating in a woman's womb. I don't care what she calls herself, how she dresses, what pronouns she uses, she's still that child's Mother. I pray that baby is loved and nurtured and raised in a way that won't leave it hating its own body. I pray it loves itself and the World around it.
No, I don't want to force my religious beliefs on anyone else. I want women to be free, admired, empowered and loved so that misogyny simply dies a natural death. I want children to grow up seeing women as the Source of Life instead of Original Sin. I want us to raise girls who love themselves and their femaleness however they express it, including being a proud Lesbian if she's same sex attracted.
Pregnancy is being promoted as much as ever except instead of being framed as "sexy" -- as when Demi Moore appeared pregnant and nude or nude with a painted-on suit on the cover of Vanity Fair -- it's framed as subversive/queer/progressive/etc. And it also sounds like women being subservient (Brown's nurses bending over backward to accommodate her) is being framed as "affirming". The over-involvement of a patriarchal, capitalistic medical industry is also framed as "affirming" here. Any reservations a woman may have about being pregnant or giving birth are framed as gender dysphoria so there's no need to think about that. As you said, Eliza, old stereotypes die hard -- women are objectified/dehumanized as much as ever, even when they identify as men.