My first reaction upon hearing that a British trans man had given birth was a sigh and a somewhat world-weary "so?". But then I had forgotten – silly me! – the fascination, bordering on obsession, that large swaths of the non-trans world have for the most trivial of stuff concerning members of the trans community. So how could this not be of interest?

Is it in the public interest, though – the debate, that is? And is it quite the apocalyptic "shock! horror!" event being painted by the tabloids? Just don't let awkward things like facts get in the way of a good story. Because, of course, trans men are and have been mums since for ever, through the sneaky device of having children before their transition – or by retaining eggs that can be used for IVF after transition. Besides, ask around the trans community and the clear consensus is that this is so far not the first instance of a UK post-transition man giving birth.

Sure, I hear: but this is all too weird, isn't it? Because a trans guy wants to be a "real guy", doesn't he? To which the answer is a straightforward, if not entirely palatable lesson in trans 101. Transition is not a "sex change" or "sex swap" – terms mostly viewed by the community as frankly insulting. The old-fashioned sexist view that in order to transition individuals must adhere to stereotypical gender norms for their identified gender (including dressing "femininely" for trans women, fancying blokes and, where relevant, getting a divorce) are mostly gone. Transgender men and women are not, as the popular caricature has it, some throwback to a patriarchal past, blindly supporting an out-of-date gender binary.

Yet only according to that limited view of gender does a trans man having a baby make waves. In the real world, trans men, like men everywhere, can be strong, soft, gay, straight, well-dressed or slobs. To suggest otherwise – that there is some proper template that all "real men" adhere to – is just insulting to men. Moreover – whisper it – there exist natural born men who, if science allowed, would happily do the nine-months carrying thing as far as their children are concerned.

Don't forget the moral panic, though. As the story broke, various demagogues – doctors and professors whose credentials seem mostly to include something theological – were out spluttering the end of civilisation as we know it. It's a "distortion of biology", claimed the Christian pro-life group Comment on Reproductive Ethics. "Think of the children!" wailed danseuse and rightwing Christian former MP, Ann Widdecombe. Meanwhile, another Christian "expert", Trevor Stammers, pitches in: "You are hardly going to end up with a baby that's going to have a happy, productive and optimal childhood." He appears ignorant of copious evidence that parental geometry doesn't make any difference.

His comments also raise some speculation about what sort of parenting ethical Christians go in for. Because in my own experience, very few parents sit children down and force-feed them with all the gory details of their birth unless they ask and until they are ready for it. Unless, of course, this statement is really code for "trans folk should not be parents. Full stop". Which would place him in more or less the same boat as the old-style consultants and the Swedish government, recently condemned for its neo-eugenicist policy in this respect.

There are no big issues here. This is nothing new, nothing intrinsically different from a child being parented by a gay man. But it is a five-star opportunity for the family values guys to parade their wares. Time, perhaps, for them to accept that sexual diversity is here to stay, and to grow up and get over it.

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