What does it mean to be a father? I ask myself this question all the time. It is necessarily connected to my exercise in uncovering what it means to be a man and a transman that seems to be endless. Where manhood and transmanhood intersect for me is the public/private barrier - which moves around a lot. Some days I just am, simply me, and there are no novel nor pithy observations to report.
When my wife and I were first planning to have a baby, all of the conversations about who the sperm donor would be and how we would go forward with our plans sparked a lot of growth in this area. Confronting what it means to be a father without the biological connection I think was a good first step. I am sure this will come up again as time goes on, and I'm not sure how or what we are going to tell our child about my trans identity and that is going to be a difficult time for me. But for now we are very comfortable with our relationship with our donor (who is a good friend) and I am very comfortable with my role as father. I was threatened by using a live donor, as most people would be, and it triggered a lot of sadness. There's an ever-present sense of injustice when I think about my missing man parts. Some days are better than others, and when wishing I had the sperm to contribute to the babymaking party it was pretty rough.
It's also weird because I was never in the closet as a dyke - there was really no choice for me to be anything but out. Now I'm professionally stealth (which I think is a lovely euphemism for scared sh*tless) and am starting to make some friends who don't know I'm trans but do know that I'm going to be a father. There's a lot going on there - how do I come out to people and will I still seem my child's father in their eyes? It's hard enough wondering if new friends will still see me as a 'real' man.
To be continued...
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