Gender Reveal

This is a weird one, bear with me.

I used to be envious of the dead, and now I am envious of (and a little concerned for) people not yet born.

Two of my young care providers are either on the precipice of becoming fathers (b’sha’ah tovah to him and his wife, hope the baby and parents are healthy) or approaching it relatively soon.

My cisgender women providers and teachers have been visibly pregnant around me or talked about their kids and gender them relentlessly (I was forced to go to one of their baby showers, which goes against my religious practice, by the way!!!!), my trans man providers have become parents…

SO WHY AM I FEELING MORE WEIRD ABOUT THE CIS MEN I KNOW BECOMING FATHERS?

Is it because my father and I have a tricky relationship?

Or because I want to be a father in theory, but it’s complex and scary?

Or is it, in the case of my bottom surgeon, the fact that he had “it’s a boy” blue all over the gender surgery office, proving that a) his track record of co-creating dudes is immaculate, and b) he subscribes to at least a little gender bullshit?

In the case of the cis gays whom I see doing gender reveals for their babies, I want to scream at them.

And my queer therapist, that his kid(s) will have emotionally intelligent gay dads that will love them and embrace them without outdated gender models?

I think it’s that. I do.

Here’s the thing: I believe that a surgeon who has done a ton of gender affirmation work is entitled to a tiny bit of the Kool-Aid, even if it makes me personally feel a little awkward. And I don’t think he’s inherently transphobic for labeling his unborn baby a boy… because for now, and maybe forever, that’s how the kid will be.

AND if my queer therapist ends up doing the aggressive gender stuff, I’ll be shocked, but I’ll understand, because it’s what we of the past generations know. I do know for a fact that he is going to go insane with tiny human outfits, regardless of gender.

I often think about how my future hypothetical children will be, and part of me prays that they aren’t trans for their sake, and part of me also doesn’t care, and part of me thinks about xyz for a son or daughter, but the truth is.

We know what we know until we know something else. There is no reason to force anyone to be anything. But this is just the script that many of us have.

And personally, I could’ve had it much better. I really could’ve. I could’ve been more normative and legible and/or had more attuned parents.

…and also much worse! My mom could’ve been one of those pink frilly moms… my masculinity could’ve threatened my dad. I could’ve been shunned. I could’ve been stuck closeted forever and still had the oppressively large chest I did as a teen.

I could’ve been stuck marrying a straight man and popping out kids of my own already, maybe even “boys,” and resenting that they got lucky.

I got what I got, and I got relatively LUCKY. My 20s have been about medically transitioning, and maybe in MY 30s-40s, kids will be part of the equation for me, too. And how lucky am I to have time?

I vow to heal a lot of my baggage in general and especially with gender before I ever become a parent, because we do the best we can with what we have. And being a parent is about loving and caring for another person you get to meet, support, and know for the rest of your life.

My wish is to love and be loved and accepted, and to be healthy and safe. I want that for everyone, even if I am jealous of those with a clean slate and wary of how clean a slate can be when we already assign colors and expectations before they’re earthside. Assigned ___ at birth ignores the pregnancy era (though ehehehe some of us were assumed male prior at some pre-birth juncture and then female at birth and then eventually have become a dude again). SO IT’S ALL JUST KIND OF A BASELINE OF INFO that can have some but not all the relevance!