"Pregnant Man" Isn't a Man
There has been some twitter about a "man" who has become pregnant. Assuming the story is genuine, and I have my doubts, the man isn't a man. Biologically, she's a transgendered woman who became a man under the law and is married as a man under the law. Because his wife has had a hysterectomy, he decided to become artificially inseminated, and the child will be biologically his because his female organs remain intact.
He claims to have been discriminated against by doctors. If true, that is wrong. His health and that of the baby depend on good prenatal care. Doctors should not deny necessary treatment based on their moral disdain of their patients' lifestyles.
The pregnant husband told his story to the gay newspaper, The Advocate, writing:
How does it feel to be a pregnant man? Incredible. Despite the fact that my belly is growing with a new life inside me, I am stable and confident being the man that I am. In a technical sense I see myself as my own surrogate, though my gender identity as male is constant. To Nancy, I am her husband carrying our child--I am so lucky to have such a loving, supportive wife. I will be my daughter's father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family.They will be a family, but he is not really a man. She is a woman, biologically. That's why she is capable of having a baby. So, the facts are that a woman, who identifies as a man, is having a baby. That's not the same thing at all as a man having a baby. We can redefine all we want, we can say that legally she is a he, but that doesn't change biology. A woman is having a baby and that is not remarkable at all.
Labels: Pregnant "Man" is a Woman
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:13 PM
20 Comments
20 Comments:
I think it's kind of amazing that her body was able to support a pregnancy after all the hormone treatments and such that usually go on....
If it's true. I suspect this is a political essay.
Okay - I'll ask the obvious - does this "man" now have "reproductive rights" with regard to abortion or did those go away because only a "woman" is allowed to choose?
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ah, that's easy actually. You see facts don't matter any more. NARRATIVE matters. If she identifies as a woman at the moment she wants an abortion, she is a woman. Later, she can identify again as a man, and he's a man.
I have a feeling I'm going to be sorry I asked, but...Is the claim that this person has _all_ of her female organs intact? No surgery at all? So what did this person do to "become a man"? Just have hormone treatment and a legal change in paperwork? Or just the paperwork? Or what?
Lydia: This is definitely not my area of expertise, although not all transexuals have surgery. But that is one reason I think it may be a phony. ????
The mainstream media are picking this story up.
It does smell like a hoax, but who knows?
The national news media, including paparazzi, are staking out Beatie's home in Bend, Oregon.
The story may be true after all. If so, Beatie stands to make a ton off of it.
Yet Beatie isn't technically a man anyway.
He isn't indeed. I use the male pronoun because he is legally entitled to it, but this is a non story pursued by the media because it loves sensationalism over substance.
Beatie is a female who has taken hormones to develop male secondary sex characteristics, and who identifies psychologically and emotionally with the male gender. But his primary sexual characteristics, e.g. vagina, uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, apparently remain intact. Thus a FEMALE is pregnant, not a MALE. This is a non story that illustrates all that is wrong with the modern media environment.
And there was a man involved, a sperm donor. The child will have a mom, a step mom, and an anonymous father.
The thing to worry about is a transgendered "man" like this person actually impregnating a woman with stem-cell derived sperm. that is only a few years away, according to the scientists working on it. Wesley, are you ever going to join me in calling for a law against non male-female conception?
John Howard -
Dude, this story weirds me out enough I'd be handing out pamphlets if you had 'em to give away.
It's not a Bentley it's a Chrysler300!!!!
John, I'm with you. In fact, there is a whole group of us waiting for an opportunity to do something about this. We just don't know where to start, aside from our prayer groups and soon, peaceful pickets.
Any suggestions?
ok,
I saw the show. Mr. Beatie is a woman and she's pregnant. woohoo.. that happens all the time.
the only thing interesting about this show is the fact that a transgender male has decided to do that, which is decidedly female and have a baby. which "he" tries to deny as being fully under the female relm.
so what we're really looking at is a change in our societies thinking about reality.
can we say that mr. beatie is a pregnant man or can we say that mr. beatie is a woman who identifies as a man, who is pregnant and wants the rest of us to continue to view her as a man. Therefore, we must say that a man is pregnant when that is clearly not the case.
i guess we're at that stage of the politically correct getting completely out of control.
what's wrong with a transgendered male wanting to get pregnant? nothing. she can do whatever she wants and if she wants me to call her a man to her face, i'm more than willing to do that. i'll call her toto the chocolate filled dohnut if she that is what she wants. i fully respect her as a human being and i think it's interesting and allowable that she wanted to get pregnant but i don't have to live in her reality.
there is more to gender than just emotions and looks. it's biological as well and i think her pregnancy proves my point.
my hope is that people continue to treat Mr. Beatie with as much respect as possible and treat him like a pregnant guy. if you can't do that then don't hang out with him. however, Mr. Beatie shouldn't be surprised if someone isn't more interested in his pregnancy than as they were at first since he has a uterus that he was born with when he was gendered as a girl. ie, he's not a scientific miracle in the pregnancy sense.
Good luck to Mr. Beatie and his wife. once baby comes, their life is going to change in a big way, or so i've been told. I guess that makes them just like the rest of us.
Lesbian couple having a baby, thats it, no more no less!
Removing some of your body parts as a woman, just makes you a woman without those body parts. It would be like carving an orange into the shape of an apple, painting it red, and saying "Technically, it's an apple....". Ludicrous.
This sensationalist story attempts to perpetuate a falsely reported claim: A man is bearing a child. FALSE. FALSE. FALSE.
A woman with a fully capable reproductive system is bearing a child. This is not about passing judgment for choices in one's sexuality, but rather, it is about biological correctness. Women bear, deliver, and nurse children. Bottom line.
I wrote about this before Beattie appeared on Oprah and the story blew up, thinking of it as an interesting news item and not much more. But the hateful comments I received on my story are really shocking. (You can see them here: http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2008/03/27/pregnancy-it-s-not-just-for-women-anymore.aspx). It shows how far we have to go before we are a truly tolerant society.
This story is so f*cking stupid, he's not a man it's a woman who took hormones got a haircut and started wearing men's clothes. If i really wanted to i could have Doctors take donor skin and whatever else they use in these surgeries and turn my nose into a giant trunk but that doesn't make me an elephant. I'm not saying that to be mean or hateful or intolerant that's just the facts as i see them. If you were born a man or a woman that's what you will always be you can get all the surgeries you want take all the hormones you want take all the legal action and protest for equal rights all you want but the simple fact is you cannot defy nature.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home