🌊 🐴 what is a 'seahorse dad'? 🌊 🐴

QUEER WORD
SEAHORSE DAD

What It Means:

a slang term to describe a trans man or transmasculine person who has carried and given birth to their own child.

Let’s Use It In A Sentence:

Ginny found Father’s Day cards for car dads. Ginny found Father’s Day cards for fishing dads. Ginny found Father’s Day cards for power tool dads. What Ginny could not find was a Father's Day card for a seahorse dad.

What Do Seahorses Have To Do With It?

I am fascinated by the way that seahorses make families.

The elaborate courtship dance.

The fact they can give birth to as many as 1,500 babies in one go (!).

The way they look like they're sneezing when they give birth.

But, most importantly for today's story, the fact that they're one of the only species where it's the father who carries the pregnancy and gives birth.

And that's precisely where this week’s Queer Word comes from.

A seahorse dad is a transgender man (or other transmasculine person) who has carried and given birth to their own child, borrowing its name from seahorse's rather uncommon approach to parenthood.

(Fun fact: seahorses aren't the only animals where the father gives birth. Pipefish and sea dragons do it too)

It's not entirely clear where the term first emerged, but it's thought to have originated in the mid-2010s. It was then popularised by the 2019 documentary ‘Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth’, which follows British trans man Freddy McConnell through his pregnancy.

Wait, Trans Men Can Have Babies?

Yup, they sure can. And, like anyone else trying to start a family, there are lots of different ways it can happen.

Some men decide to come off testosterone for a while to let their body ovulate and get pregnant the ‘old fashioned’ way. 

Others might freeze eggs or embryos before starting hormones, so they've got options in a few years. Some use IVF. Some carry with a partner's sperm, some with a donor's.

Like most things in life, there isn't one universal route to becoming a seahorse dad.

And What Do The Transphobes Have To Say?

Yes, I know we shouldn't be giving them any more oxygen than they need. But we live in a time where anything vaguely trans attracts an extraordinary amount of scrutiny, and so sometimes it's worth taking the time to find out about the nonsensical arguments being thrown around (if only so you’re ready if you unfortunately stumble across them in the wild).

Perhaps predictably, some people argue that calling someone who gives birth a ‘dad’ is confusing, offensive, or somehow ‘rewriting biology.’

It isn't.

It's simply a word that's been created to describe something that already existed.

Trans men have been having babies for as long as trans men have existed. Before seahorse dad, they either got called ‘mother’ (which didn't fit) or they didn't really have a word at all.

The people are not new.

The families are not new.

Only the language is.

And that's what language is for. To describe the world around us and the people in it.