Maternal Desire

[livy_m_b]

There's a book titled "Maternal Desire: On children, love and the inner life" by Daphne de Marneffe. It's on amazon and is easy to find.

For those who self identify as ts, or for anyone who is moved to comment, how do you feel about motherhood? If it were possible, after electrolysis, hormones, srs, etc. would you like to become a mother?

That's probably too easy a question for most ts's, so let me make it harder by asking "When you think about being a mother, what are you thinking about and how does it make you feel?"

[Helen MC]

Livy, a valid question but a very risky one give the response to the one posed about CDs wearing Maternity Dresses. For the record I never wanted to be a Father, something I could have achieved but chose not to, so I would certainly never want to be a Mother!

[ChristineRenee]

Livy...I don't think of myself as TS...but rather CD/TG. I am not a father...never have been...and I think that I have missed out on a lot to be very candid with all of you. If I were a GG instead of a genetic male, I'm sure that I would have wanted to have experienced motherhood, and I think if I was a GG at my age right now (54)...and had never had any kids...I think it would bother me far more than it does now to have never been a father.

[Maria D]

I've just read the maternity thread. What a shock.
I was going to answer this question, but I'm just too stunned at the vitriole poured out.
Women don't 'take' the choice of having a life grow inside, it's their only option. If it's the only option, why is it special? Interesting to go through I'm sure, but it's as special as making sperm; ie not very, but pretty useful for life.

[Helen MC]

Maria, a woman DOES have choices.

1 She can use Contraception, usually the Pill.

2 She can have a termination

If a man wants to, (the CSA aside), he can walk away from it all after a quick squirt, his biological involvement is then over.

[livy_m_b]

Just a few words about the maternity dressing thread: It seemed to me that it was the "dressing" that was prompting a lot of the strong statements. Because the question was stated in terms of dressing, some people seemed to take it as sexual, weird, overtheline, etc. The few comments I saw there that seemed to be from ts's were drowned out in the overall reaction to dressing.

People can argue about what another person says they are feeling, thinking etc. but ultimately we all base our judgments on the genuineness of other people's feelings, thoughts etc. by comparison to our own experience, and every single one of us is limited, very limited. If we haven't experienced something, we tend to think it's not real if someone else says they do experience it or we tend to reinterpret it in terms consistent with our own experience.

So this thread isn't meant to be about dressing but about wanting to be a mother. If there is something real about being ts - and I think there is even though some do not - then we should expect some ts's to experience the desire to be a mother too. I would hope that when people say that they want to be a mother too we would just accept that they are the best reporter of their own feelings and desires.

[Maria D]

Helen, I am referring to the choice of method, not choice of having one or not. It's not like they have 2 options of 'special inside' or 'normal'. It's inside or not. Men do not have the choice of 'inside' at all, different plumbing. I'm not suprised some men wonder what it's like, I'm sure women who can't have children wonder what it's like too.

Livy, I understand, but I am upset over the CD issue. To clarify, someone said you can 'NEVER feel what it's like to carry a baby'. Well, that's true certainly. But by the same logic I can never feel what it's like to be a woman. I'll be a visual approximation at best. If wanting to 'feel' or 'be' or 'understand' something you never can is wrong, and 'taking the p*ss', then I'm wrong.
Perhaps my logic is flawed, but that's how I see it.

So, would I be a mother? Yes, if I could, because that's a woman's only reproductive option. Am I worried about being judged here for that? Yes, I am.
Am I deeply upset that the option of being a mother was never mine to consider? Yes, it hurts, as I know it hurts for any woman who cannot have children. My fiancee has endometriosis and may never be able to have children: SHE may never be able to feel what it's like to carry a baby, either.

[livy_m_b]

There's a concept of "mirror neurons" that has been invoked to explain how people are able to relate to what other people are thinking and feeling. It's easy to google, and I hope people will.

As applied to whether a person can feel like a woman without being a woman, it suggests that it is possible because the human mind is capable of emulating observed behavior to some degree.

As applied to gender theory, it suggests that a person whose brain development is "feminine" or "masculine" is predisposed to emulating women or men respectively. Women learn what other women think, feel, etc. not just by direct personal experience but also indirectly by emulation of the target behavior. So while it is true that a male-embodied person cannot "be a woman", it may not be true that the person is unable to "feel like a woman" at least in a basic and fundamental way, even without the benefit of direct personal experience.

If we think about human beings in general, we know that we can empathize with other human beings even without having their own personal experience. Somehow we are able to "resonate", "mirror", "emulate" the others' experiences at least in part. It's this pattern of sympathetic emulation of women that I think ts's are talking about when they say "I feel like I'm a woman", etc.

I think it's legitimate and genuine. I'm sure others will disagree and try to say it's just delusional and all the other stuff we've heard for years. In the face of that rejection, ultimately, we have to have confidence that our own personal experience is real, genuine, and conveys information to us about our personality, identity, and being. It's just a fact of our life.

[MandyTS]

I want a baby, for all my life really. I can remember at age 10 or 11 the "motherly" instincts, I even played with dolls as a young kid. I can not have children as a man or a woman, and to me that is devistating. As I have come to understand everything that was hidden from me all these years, and move towards my redefining of gender, the drive gets stronger.

You hear or teenagers saying... "I was a baby" all the time. For a GG that means being pregnant... and that is special. It has nothing to do with that is how babies are formed, blah, blah; it is the knowledge that something is living inside of you that is different.

Some day I will be a mother, to a little boy and a girl, adopted from birth...

Mandy

[Deborah]

I would love to have been born a GG and have a baby yes.
Anything having to do with being TS and having a baby...of course not.

[joanlynn28]

For me that would be the ultimate goal about becoming a woman. Perhaps that is why I am so jealous of GG's. They can do something that as a male I am incapible of doing and that is procreating a new life. Plus the thought of having my own child having to succle on my tits for him or her to get nourishment to grow and prosper is a thing that I can't experience. Well maybe I will take that back, with hormone therapy it is possible for a man to grow breast and be able to lactate. All of the internal plumbing is there, it exists within both sexes female and males too. Perhaps someday in the not to distant future medical science will be able to create a functioning womb and ovaries for us. Sure we can transition to become the opposite sex but don't we also want to be able to have all of the physical and biological functions that GG's have. Deep inside I do otherwise why go through all the hassle of SRS, HRT, plastic surgery, etc. when simply remain as a crossdresser. To me that is the true reason behind pussy envey.

[Gail Stauffer]

I agree, but here is a website with more information!! http://transwoman.tripod.com/pregnant.htm

[BeckyCath]

That's a good link Gail, it's been in my favourites for well over a year...

I'm TS, and there is nothing i would love more than to be pregnant and have a baby, I'd even volunteer myself for "experimentation" .

It is everything i have ever wanted from this life...

I've allowed half my genetic code to form 2 new lives, and the first time, i was the one who desperately wanted the child, and not my partner (even tho she carried) I remember when Darling Son 2 was born, i remember cuddling him for about an hour immediately after he was born, my partner was sleeping...
I walked out of the hospital thinking "That should have been me birthing him..."

I would love nothing more than to be pregnant and have a child... how ever medical science manage it...

As for cross dressers wearing maternity dresses and pretending to be pregnant, yes i can see where they're coming from, but to be honest, it's just fetishistic, and in my opinion offensive to women. It's one of those things that gives all of us bad press...

Yes, by all means wear maternity clothes when you're pregnant...

Hopefully that might happen within the next 5 or 6 years... I wonder how many transvestites who want to wear maternity dresses actually want everything that goes with being pregnant

Rebecca

[Kimberley]

I dont think that parenting is or necessarily should be gender related. I was the one who took my daughter to buy her first bra. I was the one who helped her understand relationships through puberty. My wife helped her with tampons. I was the one who helped my son get the courage to ask a girl for his first date. My wife was there to help him when his heart got broken. She told him about condoms.

Having a child is to be a parent. One need not have a biological child to be a parent. And to be a parent requires crossing so-called responsibility boundaries every day.

Kimberley.

[FionaAlexis]

Hi livy,

Its in an interesting question and I'm going to answer from a very personal viewpoint.

I had deep desires to be pregnant in my early 30s and this cuminated in a brief period when I would dress and go out 'pregnant' in maternity wear. This was a mistake as elderly women have an overwhelming need to know when baby is due. Now whether this was my maternal instinct expressing itself or my belief that pregnancy was the ultimate physical expression of femaleness...or just some passing fetish for maternity wear - I don't really know.

After I purged and then married - my partner was very keen to start a family asap - but I was not at all keen. In fact I spoke out against it. I was quite scared that we'd have a boy and I'd be an incredibly unsuitable 'father'. I was very relieved when the baby was a girl.

After my daughter was born I very much enjoyed the parenting role - and when I started working from home I became even more deeply involved. Some times there was friction between myself and my partner about who was the 'mother'. On reflection and, based on observations of some male parents, I don't know to that my parental instincts are vastly different - merely that I am TG and, therefore, my partner and I read more into this nurturing.

It is hard to say if I would have actively sought to be a mum if I had transitioned. I think I would have sought out a stable relationship and I do have this need to live in some semblance of normalcy. I believe that creating a family or being in a family would have been important otherwise I'd become totally reclusive. On the other hand I would still be ultra conscious that I'm different and that may have been a mental impediment. It would have come down to how well I'd fit in as a female.

This, in turn, brings me back to perfect transformation and a belief that it was not achievable.

Fiona xx