Summarised by Centrist

TVNZ, the state broadcaster bleeding millions of dollars, promoted the taxpayer-funded documentary, Trans and Pregnant, as “heartwarming” and “relatable,” but journalist Graham Adams is not having a bar of it.

“On what planet is a story about a bearded woman who takes testosterone in the hope of becoming a male and then has to stop taking it to begin menstruating again in order to become pregnant ‘relatable to a broad, diverse range of New Zealanders’?”  

The film follows the journey of Frankie and Rāwā, a trans couple preparing for parenthood as Frankie carries their child. However, According to Adams, it is a bad time to make a documentary framing trans men as male when they can biologically conceive. 

Adams, quoting critical feminist Katrina Biggs, points to frustration over the manipulation of language by groups like the Midwifery Council: 

“Ten years ago, who’d have ever thought we’d be fighting to force the Midwifery Council to retain the words ‘woman’, ‘mother’, and ‘baby’?…because a small number of people are uncomfortable with those words?”

Read more over at The Platform

_{Image: TVNZ}