Erica Louise Shugart
Nov 2 · 2 min read

When I found out the sex of my baby (yes, I used the word “sex”!) through a blood test at week 11, I wanted to know not what my child’s gender was because gender is meaningless to me, but rather, if there was a penis growing inside of me or a vagina. That information was interesting due to the corporeal/material experience of pregnancy and womanhood.

I also find it interesting to imagine what possible struggles my child could likely confront throughout their life — struggles that look very different depending on whether you are a female or a male in a sexist society. It is an important part of my mothering experience to prepare myself mentally for this.

As a feminist, I am mindful of social pressure to conform to sex role stereotypes (aka gender), which is why I reject gender because I see it as a ridiculous limitation and embarrassingly regressive class reinforcer. I also know that if my boy decides that he enjoys stereotypical feminine things, I will not mind-fuck him by suggesting he may actually be a girl or may have been born in the wrong body. If I committed myself to or projected such a regressive, irresponsible ideology onto my child, I’d also be responsible for maintaining gender roles/norms in larger society.

Perhaps listening to real problems women face during pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood might refocus your intent to actually empathize and speak about real world issues women face instead of using click bait, divisive terms like “cis” to dehumanize and trivialize female experience. Yes, there are people in the world doing ridiculous things in order to worship the gender deity — from various ideological perspectives — trans or not. This is old news and resultant of a male dominant society. How about we keep our eye on the target, or would the target be you?

https://medium.com/4th-wave-feminism/the-move-to-erase-women-from-periods-pregnancy-and-parenting-776e9d0b277e

Erica Louise Shugart

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Wave-riding lover of everything wet. Less energy for the screen and more for my animal and plant neighbors.