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Bump
Short story in The Atlantic
Unknown Binding
First published May 1, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 22, 2026
Morgan Thomas seems to write for an audience of the most transmisogynistic gender theorists academia can offer.
Thomas, who is not a trans woman, wrote a story about what amounts to womb envy.
Louie deals with her longing by buying a silicone belly and strapping it to her body. An author that is not a trans woman wrote a short story about a trans woman attaching a fake body part to satisfy a desire for a biological feature she does not have. That is verbatim a TERF view of us—that we use prosthetics to achieve a sense of feminity. Thomas might as well have wrote Louie with an extensive wig collection and breast molds.
The bump fails constantly, which is Thomas saying that our feminity is a fetish object that we bolt onto ourselves that is also destined to fail at the most inopportune times. Reality checks Louie’s delusions in the form of her grandmother reminding her that she can’t get pregnant, and the events of the story are written to remind Louie and the reader that the trans woman is playing pretend, and therefor her feminity as a whole, her womanhood, is also a thing pretended.
Louie calls the bump “and end in itself, the enactment of a ritual” and narrates how it is not about motherhood, which is putting the words of TERFs in the mouth of a fictional trans woman to reify the idea that we fetishize the process of being pregnant rather than suffer the wound of motherhood denied.
TERFs think we’re men wearing the molds of women. Thomas wrote a story they presented as tender and dripping with sorrowful interiority that pretends at sympathy but is actually mockery. That those are the same picture is not a coincidence I’ll extend a second of grace.
Thomas, who is not a trans woman, wrote a story about what amounts to womb envy.
Louie deals with her longing by buying a silicone belly and strapping it to her body. An author that is not a trans woman wrote a short story about a trans woman attaching a fake body part to satisfy a desire for a biological feature she does not have. That is verbatim a TERF view of us—that we use prosthetics to achieve a sense of feminity. Thomas might as well have wrote Louie with an extensive wig collection and breast molds.
The bump fails constantly, which is Thomas saying that our feminity is a fetish object that we bolt onto ourselves that is also destined to fail at the most inopportune times. Reality checks Louie’s delusions in the form of her grandmother reminding her that she can’t get pregnant, and the events of the story are written to remind Louie and the reader that the trans woman is playing pretend, and therefor her feminity as a whole, her womanhood, is also a thing pretended.
Louie calls the bump “and end in itself, the enactment of a ritual” and narrates how it is not about motherhood, which is putting the words of TERFs in the mouth of a fictional trans woman to reify the idea that we fetishize the process of being pregnant rather than suffer the wound of motherhood denied.
TERFs think we’re men wearing the molds of women. Thomas wrote a story they presented as tender and dripping with sorrowful interiority that pretends at sympathy but is actually mockery. That those are the same picture is not a coincidence I’ll extend a second of grace.
September 20, 2021
Morgan Thomas writes in the most captivating way. This story pulls the reader in immediately and it’s impossible to stop reading until you read the final sentence. I highly recommend this story and look forward to reading more by this wonderful writer.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews