It was perilous for me to start this thread without a conclusion in mind, as I typically do, but I feel weird leaving it without one, so -- I think TERFs should think about what they're defending when they defend stuff like the OP and how it cuts to the heart of their ideology
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Assuming all the details historians have deduced about James Barry's life are accurate -- supposing his stretch marks in death really did mean he got pregnant and gave birth in secret -- isn't he exactly what the OP was fantasizing about?
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A man -- a respected doctor and military officer, known to everyone as a man, with all the privileges thereof -- who got pregnant and gave birth? And therefore, speculatively, pioneered the first surgical C-section -- as a man with a man's privilege who "knew how it felt"?
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But that's the whole, like, seething writhing contradiction at the heart of TERFism "Why can't men get pregnant? It'd be so much better if they could!" is this plaintive and fervent desire for the power and privilege accrued with manhood to be decoupled from reproductive biology
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But the idea of this *actually happening* is a huge threat A shock to the system, a cut to the core Like they experience being directly told "Okay, if you want to you can be a man who gets pregnant, and we'll fight to make society respect that" as a horrifying violation
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"I was a tomboy and I would've been transed as a child and that would've been the worst thing!" etc. Like there's something precious and vital about the name "woman" belonging to you, even as those "What if MEN could..." questions reveal how much harm that label carries with it
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Just saying TERFs bang on about how circular and inchoate and ephemeral the definition of "gender identity" is Fine, but they're apparently not free of it themselves
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End of conversation
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