the bioessentialism comes mostly from ignoring peter's roots as an orphan and instead emphasizing blood ties. he loses his biological parents at a young age, and then adopted and raised by may and ben who are for all intents and purposes, people he sees as his parents (and they in turn see peter as their son). after ben's death, aunt may is essentially a single mother (who, note, is not related by blood to peter). and we all know how fandom loves to ignore single mothers in favour of single fathers.
of course, irondad is something exclusive to the mcu, with no comic basis. don't get me wrong, i think mcu tony stark is a fascinating character. but a very large percentage of the irondad fandom ignores may in favour of tony, and will very often write peter being parented by tony x pepper, or tony x steve, or tony x dr strange, with him referring to them as his parents, and calling them mom/dad (superfamily/supremefamily or whatever). like. peter very occasionally calls may "mom," you think he'd call bruce or tony "dad"? hell nah
there are a very large number of abusive may fics, fics where may kicks peter after coming out so he can get comforted by tony stark, or plainly just fridging her so he can be adopted by tony x whoever.
why is it such a popular trope that tony, a man who blackmailed peter into joining his fight in civil war, is somehow a better parental figure than the woman who has quite literally been there since day 1, the first person that peter actually fought for?
now as much as I hate these tropes, the problem is how popular the secret biological child bullshit is in 2026, where tony is peter's bio father all along, or in the case of the peter in gotham fandom, dick or jason being peter's bio father.
now I wouldn't mind or care if it was a few people doing it, but it's a very very popular trope. it removes may's (and ben's) impact on who peter is as a character. "dick grayson is secretly richard parker" what are we doing here guys. these fans in particular take mary and richard and scrawl fanon all over them until they're unrecognizable as being from the spider-man mythos.
it's explicitly stated in canon by may, that peter losing his parents at a young age, despite him not remembering them well, was subconsciously the start of him internalizing his guilt over not being able to save people.
these bioessentialist tropes purposefully ignore may's importance as an adoptive mother and instead pass it off to bloodlines being the most important thing, and once the secret relationship is known, they can "take better care" of peter than she ever did.
*also note: to people who defend themselves and say "but multiverse means everything is canon!" i ask "have you ever actually read spider-verse comics and do you know how the multiverse works?"
