Myles and Precious Brady-Davis are parents to a newborn baby girl. As a transmasculine individual and transgender woman respectively, the couple was concerned that their baby’s birth certificate would read that Myles, who carried the baby, was the baby’s mother. The couple petitioned the Illinois Department of Health to change the certificate, and it complied, according to the Chicago Sun Times. They are the first transgender couple to bring this concern to the attention of the state.
This is no trifling matter. The birth certificate is the first form of identification for any child. It is requested by schools for admittance, by medical personnel, by summer camps, by child care programs, is required for passports, and more. It’s a complicated situation, though: While the information on the certificate would only be biologically accurate if Myles was listed as the mother, since it was within Myles’s body that the baby was gestated, the couple risked being outed as transgender every time the certificate was shown.
The state’s decision to change the birth certificate to reflect gender self-identification as opposed to biological realities stands in stark contrast to that reached by the United Kingdom’s High Court in a similar situation. When faced with a transgender man who wanted to be listed as “father” on their baby’s birth certificate, the High Court declined the request.
In contrast, the state of Illinois is using this first case as a precedent to add options for transgender parents, so that alternative parental roles can be listed in future cases without having to get lawyers involved.
Myles said, “[I] always wanted to be a dad, so now that I’m a father, it means a lot to me that my child’s identifying document states that.” Precious, meanwhile, said the move simply “ensur[es] that we and other trans parents in the future aren’t experiencing harassment, denied benefits or services or assaulted because of our gender identity.”
While the parents’ wishes have been accommodated, there should be some concern for the child.
In the U.K., the High Court asked whether it was more important that a transgender parent’s gender identity was affirmed on official paperwork or if the child had an accurate birth certificate that correctly listed the person who biologically mothered them.
The court’s determination was that “being a ‘mother’ is to describe a person’s role in the biological process of conception, pregnancy and birth; no matter what else a mother may do, this role is surely at the essence of what a ‘mother’ undertakes with respect to a child to whom they give birth. It is a matter of the role taken in the biological process, rather the person’s particular sex or gender.”
While most agree that being a mother is a biological concept, Illinois, per its new stance, believes “mother” is only an identity, one that is defined by feeling and self-identification alone. There’s a fundamental contradiction here: If being transgender is about acceptance, about choosing your look, morphing your body, and having that be socially acceptable, then why would there be a problem in passing as a man in your social presentation but also being a biological mother?
We accept that women can look and behave any way they choose, so it should not be implausible that a person who gives birth and chooses to appear and live as a man is still a mother. If a man can “say yes to the dress,” he should not be afraid of being named father to his own child. Biology should not be negated in favor of illusion.
Libby Emmons (@li88yinc) is a writer and mother living in Brooklyn, New York. She is a senior contributor for the Federalist and a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
