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Let's get into it:
In honor of Father's Day, The New York Times celebrated a woman who is larping as a father. Zach Ellams presents herself as a man, is part of a same-sex couple raising a daughter, and has that daughter call her dad. For the Times, this is good enough for Father's Day. Not dads who are actually dads doing fatherish things, but a woman who suffers under the delusion that she is male.
In a comic strip written by Zach Ellams, titled "To My Daughter, My Gender Was Never Complicated," Ellams describes what it's like raising a daughter, being honest with her about being trans, and navigating their forthrightness with her own personal interest in keeping the trans thing mostly under wraps.
Ellams wants to pass as a man, but being honest with the young girl and telling her that everything about being trans is totally fine conflicts with Ellam's interest. Ellam doesn't want to let everyone know that she's really a woman taking drugs to give her masculine secondary sex characteristics, like a deeper voice and facial hair. But how can she tell her daughter "hey, trans is beautiful and amazing" and "listen, keep my transness a secret," at the same time?
The Times could have chosen dads who are dads for their comic column on Father's Day, but instead, they decided to be inclusive and include women in the holiday set aside for men. There's an obsession on Father's Day to downplay men and fathers and to give all the praise to women. Usually, it's single mothers getting the kudos and accolades, but now trans men who larp as dads but are really just confused women have risen to the top of the list.
I know it's not easy for people who are confused and think they are something they are not. Lots of people have that problem, and many of them have it about something other than gender and sex. But it does no favor to those people to affirm the lies they believe about themselves. We don't tell short people they are tall, no matter how much they want to be. We stopped telling fat people they were beautiful in their big bodies as soon as Ozempic rolled in and showed body positivity for the lie it was.
The Times isn't worried about it, though. They don't really care if lying to people is the right thing to do or not. They just want to counter-message Father's Day and stick it to the man. But I think, frankly, we've stuck it to the man long enough. Let dads have just one day amid the massive onslaught of praise and honor for everything else.
Libby