A transgender guy named Tanius Posey has some tough words for social media users who criticized him for breastfeeding his child. Tanius Posey, who had a female gender assignment at birth, has been transitioning for the past six years. However, he visited the hospital near the end of 2021 because he felt under the weather when he discovered he was three months pregnant.
Keep reading to find out more.
Tanius is proud to be a transgender parent, also known as a "seahorse dad," because male seahorses are known to carry their young. His son, Za'nius, was born in early 2022 and is now one year old.
The proud father of one isn't shy to share his journey with the work especially on Tiktok which he has gained 928,000 followers and 10 million likes across his videos thus far and from the looks of it he has no plans of stopping soon.
Although, it has sparked a slew of backlash from users , some of whom have left hateful comments even going as far as claiming his son would "die" because he's consuming breastmilk that Tanius produced while taking hormones.
In a recent interview with Truly, he addressed the criticism and urged other seahorse fathers to "utilize what they've got" without feeling guilty.
"I've got the parts to be able to [breastfeed]. Just because I transitioned does not mean I stripped myself from wanting to give my child nutrients," he said.
"I've got it, why not utilize what I've got? My child has to eat. I can't sit there and starve him. He's gotta eat and he doesn't take a bottle, so I've got to feed him."
Men don't carry babies, "You do not belong on this earth bearing a child," and "Go ahead and go back to where you came from" are just a few of the horrible replies Tanius has seen.
Even members of the transgender community have made him feel bad, he acknowledged, saying things like, "You are not trans enough since you carried your baby," or "You're making the rest of us look awful."
The TikTok celebrity, however, has not fallen because of the abuse. He continued,
"I received a lot of reaction, and it got the better of me. But if I keep sharing, I can assist the next person."
Tanius recounted learning that he was three months pregnant, saying that because he was going through his transition at the time, he "definitely did not see it coming at all."
He had to quit taking testosterone right away, "cold turkey," which he compared to "Hell."
Tanius told Truly that he initially hesitated to breastfeed his child out of concern for how others might respond but later changed his mind after learning about breast milk's advantages to infants.
He claimed that he began "sharing his journey" online since he felt there weren't many other individuals like him.
"I was going on TikTok and I didn't really see trans people of color that were pregnant. I started filming my breastfeeding journey to normalize it," he said.
Posey wants to eradicate the negative stigma associated with transgender people parenting their families in an always-evolving culture.
