Letters to the Editor
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Disingenuous
You know, it isn't as if we ordered our ovaries and uteruses from Williams-Sonoma and are withholding them even though you're demanding access.
It is not as if George Bush was able to get his wealth and power by buying it either, but I am sure he is VERY grateful to have been born into that crucible of evil. He sure is not handing out the money to everyone else either.
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In lots of animal species
By getting pregnant she choose to stop taking male hormones and undergo the uniquely female process, taking advantage of something that no male to female transgender can experience. So as long as she is pregnant she is flaunting her biological sex in front of every man who feels like a woman and can never be, and every woman who felt like a man and made it permanent.
In lots of animal species, it is the male that carries and nurtures the offspring, in effect acting as the 'womb' or 'uterus'.
Thus it is nowhere near an exclusively female trait, though females are more than happy to coopt it and pretend it is. Women like they adopt all positive human traits and call the female, and reject all negative human traits and call them male, this is part of that same pattern of male hatred.
I know you probably did not know about the nurturing male species, but I am making a point at your expense anyway (sorry) because some females DO know about the speciation issues and still adopt their fraudulent posture anyay.
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IT'S NOT A MAN
This is the stupidest story ever. It's not a pregnant man. It's a woman who paid a doctor to cut her tits off. Not a man.
It's disgusting because this person has mutilated herself and is going on TV prancing around showing off her self-mutilation. And acting like it's some kind of miracle that a woman got pregnant.
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Brightstar
I have been quietly reading your messages for months. What I want to know is: what the heck happened to you? The severity of your rhetoric on so-called 'feminism' exceeds what I might assume to be basic intellectual challenge to questionable tenets or essential conservative reaction. Bad divorce or something?
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Transgender in sci-fi
Just wondering.
I've recently been reading "The Culture" books by Iain M. Banks, a sci-fi reality set in a society far more advanced than our own, a post-scarcity pseudo-utopia.
One of the (relatively insignificant) aspects of this society is that people can, due to futuristic medical techniques, switch genders relatively easily, and as many time back and forth as they like. It's considered a simple matter of freedom of choice. Now, I realize that this is simply fiction, but it seems to me that once (if) humanity matures beyond the theological and philosophical training wheels we've all grown up with, perhaps many things in the future would be considered a simple matter of freedom of choice -- e.g. anything that is a matter of the personal, private or discretionary self.
I think a lot of general intolerance in our world is a matter of people's psycological need to group people into easily understandable sets (us/them; normal/abnormal, etc.). Gods forbid we actually accept people who don't fit into our preconceived boxes.
Oh, and for all the inevitable trolls out there, I am a strait, naturally-born male. Not that it should matter.
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"Why do we live in a culture in which a doctor feels comfortable rejecting a patient because of his or her gender identity?"
We can't know exactly why many doctors rejected Thomas unless we know his medical history. Could it be because he had been taking large doses of male hormones for many years? Perhaps because pregnancy has never been studied among transgendered men, and they didn't want a lawsuit in case something unexpected went wrong? I seriously doubt this indicates an epidemic of trans-phobic physicians.
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Can I Just Be Disgusted that This Isn't News?
Seriously, a freak does something weird and a little uncomfortable, and it becomes news worthy? Really? Thank god cable news wasn't around during the traveling circus era.
We've got a war in Iraq, a messed up election, an economy headed towards outright depression, a banking system that is teetering near collapse , and cable news is wasting our time with a freak acting like a freak?
To me that -- the complete and meaningless distraction of it all -- is what Salon and every one should be outraged about. Not about how tenderly or not tenderly this Dude with Child is handled.
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What is disgusting
I could care less if a woman who became man wants to do female things again, but.... What is really disgusting is everyone going on TV with thier personal lives tahat should be kept private. Who wants to here this stuff? Even worse are all those people making videos of themselves acting stupid and putting them up on You-tube.
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@d.c. eric
If you like SF, you might want to check out John Varley. He addressed gender issues in a short story, "Options", and a book, "Steel Beach", as well as making the issue part of other novels and short stories.
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Troll Food
Is all this is, really.
I do feel sorry for the couple, and for the kid. They are all going to get shit on again and again for the next 20 years. I hope somebody teaches the kid some kungfu or whatever, s/he is likely to need it in the coming years.
I wouldn't be betting a whole lot of money on that marriage's longevity either; doing it transgendered has to be hard enough, without the added complications of fertility issues and celebrity limelighting.
So we have established that MSNBC is adolescent and stupid. What next?
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Chromosones don't lie, but...STEP RIGHT UP!
This person is not a "pregnant male." As other posters have commented, she has had extensive plastic surgery and hormone treatment to appear to be male, but on a biological level she still has two X chromosomes and is still very much a woman. Obviously, since she is pregnant. "Man" and "woman" may be societal constructs, but "male" and "female" are decidedly not. Biology runs cell deep.
In light of the biology, I'm not sure how to take this story except as a Weekly World News, carnival midway style freak show. And in that light the amused and/or disgusted reactions of the MSNBC anchors are pretty much what I'd expect. Weekly World News is not Scientific American.
It's a free country, and please by all means feel free to mutilate your body however you like, if you've got the money and the inclination. Look down on the gawkers all you want, call them bigots and haters, but I don't really see any difference between what this person has done and the extensive plastic surgery done on the likes of Jocelyn Wildenstein. If you radically alter your body, and then make a very public spectacle of yourself, don't be surprise when people react with voyeurism or contempt.
If Thomas Beatie had decided he was more comfortable with one leg, and had elective amputation, would that be viewed as acceptable? Removing the lens of gender and sexuality, would such an action of extreme body modification be viewed as perfectly fine, and even worthy of support by society?
I think judgmental rubbernecking by the public, even news anchors, is probably about as "natural" as getting major parts of your body removed and altered. Maybe instead of news anchors the proper way to handle the story would've been a sideshow barker.
At any rate - isn't there a war or something goin' on?