Gotta hand it to TLC: They’ve come up with the most 2020 TV special idea ever. In fact, I defy you to think up a more woke abomination than My Pregnant Husband. Sure, the title is a pretty good tip-off, there’s so, so much more.
You see, according the site Insider: My Pregnant Husband “follows two transgender men and their spouses as they experience pregnancy and giving birth to their first children.”
One couple is white (Boring!), but here’s what Insider has to say about the other couple:
For Myles, a trans man, and his wife Precious, a trans woman, the experience [of carrying and having a baby, or whatever their process is] was all the more complex being African American, confronting racism and transphobia as they embarked on starting a family.
Confronting racism and transphobia? These aren’t people, they’re bullet points from the Black Lives Matter “What We Believe” page. BLM only exists to complain about sham “systemic racism,” and so does Clyde, the “pregnant husband”:
But one day, he went to the store by himself while pregnant, and police arrested him.
“I got arrested because they thought my bump was clothes I had hid,” Myles said in the special.
That happened to my uncle once. Boy were they embarrassed to find out it was just what he called “The House that Budweiser Built.”
The experience was traumatizing, but Precious told Insider she hopes viewers use the moment as a conversation-starter.
Can one be so traumatized by an experience that one must go on TV and be a “conversation-starter?” Actual people, no. Think I’m being too hard on them? Well, listen to Precious:
"Our participation in the series ... it's about celebrating trans bodies and celebrating our trans selves. And I believe that we are one piece of representation," Precious told Insider. "We are two Black American people love each other, and we just wanted to add another narrative."
Who talks about their relationship as a “piece of representation” or a “narrative?” By that logic, one is left to conclude that having a baby is what they call these days a “performative act.” Bringing a child into the world is political theater.
The other couple, Ari and Caitlin, seem to see it that way. They were no less willing to live as someone’s radical academic theory, and to make their child part of the exercise. They “opted for a gender-neutral parenting style and didn't reveal the gender or name of their child to viewers,” cooed Insider.
But, different strokes for different tropes. Insider:
Myles and Precious, on the other hand, said they were having a baby girl named Zayne. At first, Myles pushed for a more gender-neutral parenting style, but Precious said she would raise their daughter in an accepting manner.
So we’ve come to a place where someone can say, without being thought ridiculous, that raising a girl as a girl is “accepting.” Ah 2020, don’t ever change.
