By Alicia Alvado
Absent from the insistent advertising campaigns by the Father’s day but also of the imaginary ones, the paternity exercised by trans or non-binary masculinities It is one of the most invisible forms by society, either in relation to the sons and daughters born before their transition, or in relation to their desire to fatherhood.
It is the first contribution made by activists who today will participate in the First National Day of Trans Paternities.
“There is a generational issue in this of starting to ask ourselves about the possibilities of being parents but also a need to expand the agenda of transmasculinities, which was always subject to the gender transition, that is, to masculinize a body,” he told Télam the Cordovan teacher Santiago Merlo (45), Lola’s trans adoptive father (9) and moderator of the day.
For this reason, the main objective of this meeting is to offer “first-hand information so that colleagues, wherever they are, know that there are many possibilities” to access a right – that of parenting – that has always been denied to us.
It is that this absence of representation impacts the way they see themselves.
“There are a lot of colleagues who believe that when they start a transition they have to put aside the dream of having a child, which is one thing or the other, and in reality it is not like that,” Benjamin Génova from Neuquén explained to Télam (35 ), trans father of Macarena (20) and Agostina (15) whom he had before his transition that began 10 years ago.
And in this same logic of incompatibility, on the other hand, many trans men who already have children delay their transition because the “greatest fear is of rejection” from their daughters, a fear that in their case – as in so many – was unfounded because they assimilated it “from love”, they only reproached him for not having said it before and quickly “they went from calling me mom to calling me dad”.
Assisted fertilization
The other recurring problem among trans men who are or want to be parents is the “legal vacuum” regarding them both in the Law of Assisted Human Fertilization Techniques as in that of Gender identity.
Máximo Toledo (35) who together with Nadia had Kai last year using the ROPA method, that is, “with father’s egg and mother’s uterus”, said that, for example, the couple was denied access to this method of assisted fertilization of high complexity because “they told us that she had to go through three inseminations with donated gamete before, with which I was left out of genetic participation”.
Santiago, meanwhile, at the fertility clinic gave him a form to fill out where they asked him to take a spermogram – something biologically impossible for him – and they ended up recommending that he register with his old identity because “it will be easier for approval to come out of the treatment if they appear as two lesbians ”.
For his part, Benjamin has his two daughters “illegally” because “no civil registry” wants to rectify the birth certificate where his “dead name” appears, that is, the one assigned to him at birth and he modified to starting from the Gender Identity Law.
“Our path started like two moms”
Among the speakers at this first virtual meeting, is Julián Sosa (31) from Cordoba, who along with his ex-partner had Santino 9 years ago due to donor artificial insemination.
“Our path started as two mothers because I started my transition two years ago, when Santi was already six”, shared with Télam this non-pregnant father who discovered in therapy the inconsistency between the gender assigned to him at birth and his deepest feelings.
As a result of this change, the child went from having “two mothers” to having “a father and a mother”, but Julián assures that this was “a very gradual and loving process”, proof that “boys are much more flexible and they live it so spontaneously that you learn from them ”.
“Santino had a break when I told him I was going to have surgery (mastectomy); It was a moment when he cried a lot when he was very young, but he always says it was because he thought it would hurt. I think that inside he was processing other things and was firing a mother to give space to a father, “he analyzed.
Three years later, Julián does not hesitate to assure that from the shared transition, the bond “was totally enriched” with his son.
Although they have not felt discrimination in school and in other institutions where they have to go, it is clear to him that “terrible things happen to many classmates” and he drew attention to the conditional acceptance of many people.
“When you say ‘my identity is this’, they immediately tell you, and by when will the hormones? And when will the surgery be done? I did it for a personal decision, but others do not do it and it is also perfect, there does not have to be this pressure for you to do it in a certain way ”, he stressed.
“Come out of the closet”
Máximo Toledo, for his part, assures that his baby Kai – today one year and three months old – took him out of the closet “because when I was building my desire to procreate, I realized that I was a trans person”
“With Nadia we were a couple of girls, but deciding who is pregnant and who is not, made me look at my body, wonder who I was and see myself in the mirror as a transgender person, especially because I imagined raising a child and I felt very hypocritical doing it as a woman ”, says the young man who perceives himself as a non-binary trans person.
The commitment of this couple with respect for self-perceived identity and a more inclusive society means that their baby has been given a genderless name, using the neutral pronoun to refer to it, clothes and toys without brands.
Benjamín Génova is the one with the oldest daughters and as a father he is having a situation that he defines as a “beautiful experience”: he has a trans son-in-law because his eldest daughter is dating a transgender man.
“They have been very happy for five years,” he said and also stressed that parenthood can be shared with “the cis dad” of the youngest of them, who “is a great guy who was always present.”
“We are still very far from guaranteeing our rights because the Gender Identity law does not contemplate access to sexual reproductive health for trans people and the Assisted Human Reproduction law speaks of sexual orientations but not gender identity. There is a gray in both laws that must be problematized and resolved because what is not contemplated in the laws does not exist ”, concluded Merlo.
Télam.
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