This is by Paul Major, based on a character by Reginald Bretnor It won third Prize in a Feghoot contest sponsored by the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1973.

At the end of the Missourian Momarchy, when its Women’s Lib origins were forgotten and it had fallen under the absolute dictatorship of Supermom, Ferdinand Feghoot faced one of his most dangerous decisions. Supermom (actually Hattie Lou Schultz) had been fertile, producing eighteen healthy babies, most of whom Feghoot had sired. However, none had been girls, and her power was imperiled, for her younger sister, Buzzie Bee, had had female children, and if Supermom failed in what the midwives agreed had to be her last effort, she would depose her immediately.

Finally, with due ceremony, Hattie Lou gave birth to one more hearty infant. Only the midwives (sworn to secrecy) and its father were allowed to behold it until its sex was announced and it had been appropriately garbed.

There stood Feghoot, wearing a large medal saying Pop. There was Supermom, with her guards, and her ambitious sister with hers; and he remembered vividly the punishments promised him by his consort, for the child, gurgling in its carefully screened crib, was only too obviously male.

Feghoot thought for only a moment. Then he smiled. “It is my opinion,” he announced, “that the good of the state and my personal well-being will be best served if I just skirt the issue.”

(Copyright © 1973 by Mercury Press. First published in THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION, 1973.)

Chris Cole immediately came back with:

Hoot, mon! ‘Twould appear that our feckless Feghoot saved the wee lad from being kilt!