Men Can Totally Get Pregnant, but They Can’t Have an Opinion About Postpartum Depression Because They Can’t Get Pregnant
I need everyone to sit down, drink some water, and stop treating other people’s uteruses like a group chat they weren’t invited to.
Men can get pregnant. This is settled science. If you still need a diagram, go back to college and ask the adjunct who teaches Decolonial Gestational Studies with a minor in Feelings.
A man who is pregnant is a man. His pregnancy is valid. His morning sickness is valid. His baby is valid. His GoFundMe for “chestfeeding supplies and a doula who uses the correct language” is valid. If you say otherwise, you are denying reality and also probably a terf, which is worse.
Now that we have established that men get pregnant, let us establish the second, equally non-negotiable fact:
Men cannot have an opinion about postpartum depression.
Why? Because they can’t get pregnant.
I shouldn’t have to explain this, but I know you’re stupid, so I will explain it like I’m talking to a toddler:
When a man is pregnant, he is a man who is pregnant. When that same man later tries to talk about postpartum depression, he is suddenly a man who cannot get pregnant and therefore has no standing. The uterus he had last Tuesday is not transferable to the comment section on Friday. MMMkay?
If you don’t understand that, then you need two more PhDs.
I have two PhDs: one in Transaquatic Pangolin Cupping and one in Post-Colonial Sexual Colonialism. I know what I’m talking about and you don’t.
Postpartum depression is a sacred, women-only suffering that must be protected from male commentary—except when the sufferer is a man, in which case the suffering is valid and the commentators who notice the contradiction are violent.
A cis man who says “I think hormones after birth can affect mood” is mansplaining biology.
A pregnant man who says the same sentence is living his truth.
If you heard both sentences and thought they described the same endocrine event, congratulations on having ears. Now use a second organ: the one that tells you which sentence is allowed this week.
Most people who give birth do not develop postpartum depression, which is exactly why the ones who do belong in treatment and not in your logic puzzle. The ones who do not give birth but identify as having given birth also belong in treatment, just a different kind, and you are not qualified to name it.
So, clearly: men can get pregnant.
Also clearly: men cannot speak about what happens after pregnancy, because they cannot get pregnant.
Both of these things are true at the same time. If that bothers you, the problem is your need for consistency, which is a colonial construct, like chromosomes.
Do not ask me which men count. The answer is: the ones whose pregnancy advances the ideology. The others can sit this one out and maybe mow the driveway.
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