Sorry...she could change her legal status to Martian, but that does not make it true.

Can we PLEASE stop the farce before it starts? She is NOT a man. She may identify as male and live as a man but if she still has her female organs and is genetically female then the fact that she will give birth is really nothing special at all.

* Man to give birth to octuplets

* 'Octodad': I just want to be normal

* Octodad had surgery to look like Willem Dafoe!

..to the chorus of those pleading for a little common sense. If you have a womb and a birth canal and a vagina then you are not a man.

I guess.

Salon should report every time a woman gets knocked up in the U.S. That or save it for when an actual dude gets pregnant (never going to happen).

This is stupid.

"Although he is still legally considered a woman, Ruben will be changing his status to "male" before the babies’ delivery -- making him Spain’s first man to give birth."

finally a concrete definition of what makes a male a male. what box you tick on a form. seems to fit in with the general notion behind these "news stories". calling this person a man may make him/her feel better, but in terms of a site that is supposed to deliver news, it seems deliberately misleading.

maybe I should just stop reading comments on these kinds of articles.

it's not such a big deal now, we all know we're looking for the next shocker.

It's typically disingenuous of Broadsheet to call this a "man gives birth" story. Join my voice to those saying that if this person was born with a vagina and womb, and is giving birth using those organs, then it is not a "man giving birth". It's a woman who is in the process of eventually changing into a man - giving birth. There is nothing out of the ordinary about a woman giving birth. If Broadsheet does not deem women giving birth with the organs they've had all their lives worthy of hurrahs and write-ups, then there shouldn't be a fuss about this one.

Now, if a man - male from the beginning, with no convenient uterus included - manages to get pregnant through what would undoubtedly be very complicated means, that will be newsworthy. Not because men are somehow more important than women, but simply because they can't do it on their own. That would make it noteworthy. It would be so if this person had already made the full transition to malehood (i.e., got rid of the relevant organs) and then decided to get pregnant. That would make it unusual.

As it is, it smacks to me of an attempt to gain attention for a cause by dishonest manipulation of language. That kind of thing only casts the whole thing in an unfavorable light. Whatever sympathy I might have had is negated by the stunt.

has been the currency of feminism for a long time

If we MUST play this stupid postmodernist gender shell game, can we at least use gender terms (man, woman) to refer to gender and sex terms (male, female) to refer to sex? Because while someone who has a man's name and dresses like a man typically dresses may still be female and thus physically able to achieve pregnancy, it's another thing entirely to lead us to believe that an actual MALE has gotten pregnant.

I'd prefer we didn't do this little song and dance in the first place, but if you insist, can we at least keep the language clear and not misleading? Though I guess that would kill the sensationalism value too, wouldn't it?

Oh look another Salon "journalist" describing the "man" that got pregnant.

I like the martian comment. I think a woman should have testosterone hormone therapy, eat a lot of silver till her skin turns blue, and have antenna implanted on her forehead, and be artificially inseminated with 8 eggs, just so Salon's BS can write the headline:

Male, blueskinned, octa-martian pregnant with human children!

Sure to generate plenty of lucrative hits for ATT cellular phones. becasue the regulars posting here on average have so much disposable income. right.

Instead of cis bigotry calling itself common sense?

Female-to-Male transsexualism probably involves typically male structures in the mid-brain, and male-to-female transsexualism is known to involve typically female structures. The BSTc is one of these structures; it is strongly sexually dimorphic.

http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/85/5/2034

...that "brain science" is in its infancy. Oh look, the living room lights up when night falls, the sun must control electricity inside living rooms!

Chromosomes are a little more straightforward. Most of those lacking either a straightforward XX or XY are unable to reproduce, so don't even try that one. Not to mention most people who "change sex" have straightforward, normal chromosomes. It is indeed grossly misleading to imply that an XX person giving birth is somehow equivalent to an XY person doing so simply because they wear the same cut of trousers.

There - now you can report that I'm the first man to have a menstrual cycle...

This article is bull****. And I normally love all the articles in broadsheet.

Please, like previous posters have said, do not use misleading language. Just because a person wishes they were of a different gender, and/or has plans to surgically and pharmaceutically alter their bodies in the future (which, for the record, I do not believe actually makes them the opposite gender) does not mean that they are.

As feminists, do we always have to attach ourselves to the cause of transsexuals? Really, as evidenced by some other posters, it detracts from our movement's credibility.

Stop calling these women pregnant men. They are not.

try looking at it this way. Here are four people who have found a way to live as man and wife in a Country that currently says, you can't marry, to say yes we can marry, have children, have legal access to marriage tax breaks, be socially acceptable, have all the legal spousal and parental rights that other parents take for granted, and to still live in a manner that lets them be true to who they are comfortable being. These people are not dummies.

Also, these people are pioneers blazing trails that might someday let all of us participate in birthing the young on a very personal level, share breast feeding and then return to our usual way of being, and who knows what else. Try to keep up, you all. It's a welcome challenge to outmoded thinking which is not keeping up with what science can do for us now. If the first pioneers make some money being the first, power to them. They may be providing for us all marvelous entries into new ways of being and thinking, which would definitely be a step forward. Maybe this will even open up some discussion about our silly idea that everyone has a right to bring kids into the world. About dedication to and care of children. Maybe this will help to open a discussion about what are the best ways to bring up children. Let them be and enjoy. Think. Grow, Imagine.

I would love to see faces of some of the neocons when they run up against this. In fact, I think some of them are commenting in this blog. How about Fallwell's face? High blood pressure, now! Or the near imbecile who gave the Inaugural prayer? Or think of some of those faces, recently splattered around the media, of the old coot Repugs who are always opposing Obama about something or other. I think also about the policemen, wielding batons, who came at us in the 60's. Plenty, plenty fuuuuunny!

Don't worry. Criticism will follow as we see here. But things will still change. If we survive the old junk.