“Posted by Bennett Kaspar-Williams on Sunday, October 4, 2020”
Hard to escape
Expressing his distress over being consistently misgendered during childbirth, Kaspar-Williams highlighted the importance of disconnecting womanhood from motherhood. He shared his thoughts with the New York Post, commenting on the discomfort he felt when repeatedly addressed as “mom” despite marking “male” on medical paperwork.
“The business of pregnancy – and yes, I say business, because the entire institution of pregnancy care in America is centred around selling this concept of ‘motherhood’ – is so intertwined with gender that it was hard to escape being misgendered,” Bennett says.
This reflects a broader issue in the maternity insurance and hospital billing industries, where gendered assumptions in care can directly impact coverage eligibility and even spark legal disputes over misclassification or coverage denial.
“No one can ever really know whether having children is possible until you try — being born with a uterus doesn’t make conceiving or carrying a certainty,” the father said of their parenthood journey.
“That’s why it’s so important that we stop defining ‘womanhood’ in terms of ‘motherhood,’ because it’s a false equivalency that all women can become mothers, that all mothers carry their children, or that all people who carry children are mothers.”
“This sweet guy is 3 years old today! Malik Kaspar-Williams and I are so lucky to be his parents. 🫶🏼”
