I started rereading Being Born by Alison Stone. In it she is talking about the philosophy of natality- what it means to be born who we are, where we are, and into what relationships, among other things. The main authors she's building off of refer to people being born "of women" or from "maternal bodies". But multiple times she's paused to remind the reader that not all people are born of women. Some trans men get pregnant and give birth. Some people are born of paternal bodies. I appreciate it so so much. This is a book published by Oxford University Press, a work of academic philosophy that highlights trans men specifically. Do you know how rare that is? Even in queer and gender studies I rarely see anything that takes the time to remind readers (on more than one occassion) that trans men exist and are part of the conversation. And she doesn't just talk the talk, Stone says in the introduction that she's going to use gender neutral language to include all people who give birth and then she actually does it!
I love this book for a lot of reasons. I think that philosophy thinks way too much about death. Philosophy leans way too far into individualism. And philosophy does not spend enough time thinking about people other than adult white men (assumed to be cishet). But Stone is talking about our natality, which means she has to think about children. By virtue of our birth we come into the world vulnerable. We need care as children, but that need for care continues for the rest of our lives. We cannot do anything in isolation. Even as an adult, everything we do is in relation to someone else, whether we know them or not. Everything.
You get in your car to go to the grocery store. Your car was conceptualized and built by many other people. Assuming your car is used, someone sold the car to the previous owner who had it and was responsible for the maintenance. Then they sold it to you directly or to a dealership or it was gifted to you by them. But you have that car because of a chain of other people. The roads you drive on were planned, built, and maintained by other people. You're probably driving surrounded by strangers in their cars acquired similarly to yours. The store is staffed by others who stock the shelves. But stock only arrives because of a long complex supply chain of dozens (if not hundreds) of individuals. And so on.
So, you might be thinking: what does this have to do with being born? Well, it is only because all of those people were born into this global society that we are able to create the world this way. And each new person born has the capacity to make this world a better place. And (I don't remember if Stone makes this argument at any point, of if it's just me putting it together this way) I think this becomes an argument for why we need to be more caring and compassionate toward each other. We are all in this together. We all rely on each other to some extent, whether we know it or not. I think the fact that we are all born into this world and could make it better means that we should be making it better. We have a duty to care for each other. And, yes, it's hard sometimes. You can't care for and lift up everyone all the time. But I think not knocking them down is a good starting place. So, when Alison Stone takes multiple opportunities to not ignore trans men fathers she's taking steps to make the world better. She's reminding people that we exist.
