The recent CBS story regarding nine Swedish women who received uterus transplants undoubtedly caught the attention of transgender women throughout the world. Anyone, with even the slightest awareness of the advancement of medical science, understands that eventually there will be few things left in the realm of impossible. The idea that a transgender woman will one day be able to carry a child in her womb is no longer just an idea. It is a reality of the future.
Another story in the Dallas Voice is evidence to this fact as Sarah Luiz has positioned herself as a candidate to become the first transgender woman to potentially give birth. Anyone, with even the slightest awareness of society's obsession with sex and gender, understands that the word controversy applies to this situation in the same way the word skirmish applies to World War II.
Society is obsessed with sex and gender. Society is also fearful, uncomfortable, and distrustful of anything that doesn't fit quietly into the imaginary gender binary. And if that were not enough to complicate the simple, society is also fearful, uncomfortable, and distrustful of conversations that question the tidy little fabricated boxes of male and female.
Of course, complicating the simple is a human talent, unsurpassed by any of the many other human talents. You might think that the human endeavor should be fraught with efforts to simplify the complicated, and indeed, it is. Unfortunately, it seems that most of the efforts to simplify the complicated, actually serve to complicate the simple. Please allow me to explain. The simple: People are different. The complicated: Why? The simple: Who cares?
In a transgender educational workshop a few months ago, I was asked if the technology existed to detect transgenderism in the womb, would it be appropriate to intervene? The problem, of course, is the assumption that transgenderism is a defect that needs to be corrected.
I confess to once believing that being transgender was a curse. That had a lot to do with not believing I would ever be able to just be myself. Today, I see being transgender as a blessing. A gift. An ability to see things through different eyes. Part of the diversity that makes humanity so amazing and wonderful. The simple: Part of the creation of God. There is no need to complicate it.
There are two things that I will never experience as a female human being. I will never be a three-year-old girl shopping with my mom for a beautiful dress, spinning and twirling down the aisles of the store, perfectly engaged in absolutely nothing other than being a three-year-old girl. And I will never know what it feels like to carry a child in my womb.
Neither of these things makes me less of a female human being. I am, I have always been, a female human being. Some of the nine women who received uterus transplants were born without a uterus. Seems simple enough to me.
Any controversy that comes from transgender women seeking to experience pregnancy and give birth to children is based on the same ignorant myth that creates controversy about bathrooms and locker rooms - the myth that transgender women are not really women. How absurd is the idea that someone other than me could possibly know who I am? If it were possible for me to be a man, I would have done that long ago. God knows, I tried.
As a woman, it is quite expected that I might have the same desires that many other women have. Among those desires is the desire to be a mom; the desire to carry a child. If medical advances offer that possibility to transgender women, it is no different than offering that possibility to cisgender women.
I am 56 years old. I won't be the first transgender woman to receive a uterus and experience pregnancy. But I will probably live to see it happen. And that makes me feel like I am spinning and twirling down the aisle, perfectly engaged in being nothing other than a three-year-old girl. How much more simple could it be?