They Will Keep on Speaking Her Name, Volume 6 - Mumther, May I?
Side A: Mother Mother // Side B: Lightning Crashes
Miranda’s Mixtape Memoir - They Will Keep on Speaking Her Name
This post is Volume 6 in my memoir project They Will Keep on Speaking Her Name. Basically, I’m using my transition mixtape as a framework to write memoir pieces about my life as a trans woman. If you’d like to know more, thumb through the Liner Notes here:
In addition to memoir, I write original poetry, which you can find here:
And I select poems from the public domain to share with my readers. You can find my previous selections here:
If you’d like to support my writing projects, buy me a refreshing glass of iced coffee at ko-fi.com/thepoetmiranda and sign up for a free or paid subscription to this page.
Side A: Mother Mother
Mother Mother, can you hear me? / Sure I'm sober, sure I'm sane / Life is perfect, never better / Still your daughter, still the same -from “Mother Mother” by Tracy Bonham
My kids call me Mum. Or Mumther, for the “formal” title. Being their Mum is one of the great joys of my life. Though it takes nothing from anyone else’s motherhood for me to fill this role, there are people who think I don’t deserve these titles.
My wife of 18 years (to the kids: Mom, Mommy, or Mother) is who carried and gave birth to our two teenage children. When we got married and had kids, she didn’t expect to someday be one of two mothers in the household. She knows her experience of motherhood, and she knows mine; mine doesn’t diminish or steal from hers.
I came out 16 years into our marriage, so I won’t act like any part of my transition isn’t complicated or like it’s been easy for her, but no one affirms my womanhood—every aspect of my womanhood—like she does. Not every trans person who comes out to a long-term partner receives the level of affirmation that I do, and I am grateful every day for that, for her.
My kids see my motherhood. My wife sees my motherhood. Outside of our household, few do. Even among people who are otherwise allies, my motherhood* has an asterisk.
“But you didn’t go through pregnancy or childbirth,” people say. If you ask them if they also consider moms who’ve adopted (or otherwise didn’t experience pregnancy) real moms, they say, “That’s different.”
They say that’s different, but you know damn well that in our patriarchal culture, motherhood is often reduced to the physical experience of reproduction. They’ll tell you that they consider step-moms real moms, but their motherhood* has an asterisk, too. They’ll tell you that women who adopt (whether they can conceive or not) are real moms, but they, too, have an asterisk attached to their motherhood*.
Also, conceiving, carrying, growing, and birthing a child isn’t always enough, according to the patriarchy. Single moms have an asterisk next to their motherhood* that leads to a footnote that says, “Bad mom.” Immigrant moms (regardless of legal status in our broken system) have an asterisk next to their motherhood* that says they are just deploying “anchor babies.”
On social media today, I’ve seen a lot of posts from churches and religious folks that say they only wish a Happy Mother’s Day to real mothers. Obviously, that’s meant to exclude moms like me—to harm moms like me. Our culture attaches an asterisk to so many types of motherhood*, and Christian nationalists and TERFs keep pushing for narrower and narrower definitions. They want to make it where white trad wives are the only “real” moms.
It hurts my heart that a lot of people don’t see me as a mother. Some never will. I know that I’m a Mum. My kids know I’m their Mum. My wife knows I’m our kids’ Mum. And here, we don’t attach asterisks to anyone.
Side B: Lightning Crashes
Lightning crashes / A new mother cries // This moment she's been waiting for -from “Lightning Crashes” by Live
I couldn’t listen to this song while my wife was pregnant because:
a. She experienced health concerns during all her pregnancies, so hearing this song made me catastrophize about the worst outcomes of childbirth.
b. Envy. Did you think I wouldn’t admit that? Part of being a transgender woman is that people attack the validity of my womanhood with statements like, “You’re not a real woman because you don’t have a period” or, “You’re not a real woman because you can’t get pregnant.” Not even getting into the fact that some cisgender women share these limitations, I know that there are things connected to womanhood that I will never get to experience. That hasn’t stopped me from dreaming about it, dreaming about being pregnant, dreaming about my baby bump, dreaming about bringing my child into the world, dreaming about it all—the pain, too. Instead, I carry the pain of that won’t happen and that can’t happen.
Happy Mothers’ Day to ALL the moms!
💜Miranda📚
Yes, you are right, @thepoetmiranda. I cried.
Insightful post--I hope you had a happy Mother's Day, Miranda!