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biggrin Believe me dear you are enlightened. You refer to him as "him". That's a ******** miracle. Scarily enough, we're having the SAME discussion about him in the gay guy's guild, and there is alot more ignorance in there with gay men, than in here with women.
And it's difficult to understand why he's want a child. I don't understand it. And really, it's not smart to have your ovaries and s**t after taking T for a couple of years, due to cancer risks and all. Many trans men don't even use their female body parts for sex, while others do. Some are drag queens or crossdressers, or the goth/punk ones will wear skirts or kilts for fun, while others can't even look at a skirt. It's not like we're made in a factory in Taiwan. We're all slightly different when it comes to this stuff.
Believe me, in the trans world, he's a freak. And we've been talking about him in my guild, and most of us transguys seem to be pissed about him.

We're pissed bqacause of the publicity. He was on my local news for some strange reason, and just the way the stupid b***h news anchor said it, with the "oh-what-a-freak" air, it just makes us sick. Every time I hear about him I almost vomit in my mouth, because I know someone is going to mention him and say something ignorant.

However, I will say, Thomas Beatie is doing all transmen a favor by giving us exposure (as many people don't even realize that we exist), empowering us in a way, and making it safer for other transmen who become pregnant.

But really, guild poll! Raise your hand if you've ever met a person who has been pregnant at one point in time! *raises hand, watches all of you raise your hands* It shouldn't be a big deal, another person's preggo, whoop de doo. It's tragic that one ittle wittle pregnancy is rocking our society's ideas of gender and fatherhood/motherhood.

*giggles* I read maybe 8 comments and then gave up because it was beyond moronic.

Ditto. I've been seeing enough red lately. I don't need to see more.

He may identify in his head as a man, but most men would not want to carry a fetus to term as pregnancy is very female oriented. In fact, I don't understand why this doesn't go completely against his notions of "being a man", as I know many trans people who would be horrified to do something of their biologically born sex because they truly feel that they are the OTHER sex.

Additionally, I don't believe that a trans person is LEGALLY recognized as their true gender until they complete the transition (including surgery that would make them infertile as their original sex). So while he may go on and on about how he's male, the state can recognize that he is really biologically female so therefore should be treated medically as such.

And seriously, I don't understand why people decide to do this s**t in the worst, most conservative a*****e places. You'd think they'd live in Canada or San Francisco, or some other liberal place where nowhere near as many people would even think it's weird. Hell, I'm sure that this has happened before, it's just that those other people weren't such big media whores that they had to go and get themselves on every television network in the nation.

He's a man in his head, but using his biologically female body to do a biologically female thing. Therefore, I posit that perhaps he is truly more bi gendered than simply trans completely.

After all, if reproduction doesn't separate women from men, then what does? Because if that's not a separation, then what's the use in wanting to transition to the opposite sex if nothing is "different" from one another?

I mean, women can be flat chested, have short hair, and talk in deep voices and men can have boobie, long hair, and talk in high pitched voices.

So what I'm asking, is, in effect, if we completely tear down the difference between biological females and biological males, then how can anyone justify saying that they were born the "wrong" sex or gender? Because if having genitalia or having certain behaviors or having specific roles are completely opened to both sexes in general, there truly isn't any reason for trans people to exist (because transitioning to male or female won't mean a thing since both will be pretty much the same), so it pretty much invalidates their way of life completely.

He's not a pregnant man. He's a pregnant transsexual who is biologically female but identifies as male (whatever the hell "male" means to him).

Argh, I'm trying to make sense, but the words aren't coming out the way I want them. Does that even make sense?

Oni and Fran, Thomas Beatie is not bigendered. Not only does he not identify as bigendered (and, pardon my bluntness, it is not up to you to slap a label on him based on his physical characteristics. It's his ******** identity, not yours), but you are using the word incorrectly. Someone who is bigendered is someone who identifies as two genders, not someone with the genitals assigned to one gender and the gender identity of another. The latter is known as a transsexual. If you're going to have a discussion related to trans issues, you probably want to know what the words you are using mean.

Oni, gender is not defined by genitals or reproductive organs. I don't know if you realize it or not, but your post comes across as very offensive and ignorant. For one, you made a sweeping generalization of why transsexuals are transsexual (not all of them hate the body they were born into; many do not get sex reassignment surgery ever because they do not want or it is too expensive). There are terms used in reference to sex-reassignment surgery--pre-op, post-op and non-op. A pre-op transsexual is one who plans on having surgery, but has not yet had the procedure; a post-op transsexual is one who has had the surgery; and a non-op transsexual is one who does not plan on having the surgery and likely never will. A lot of female-to-male transsexuals never get SRS because it is too expensive and can be dangerous. Plus, the results are usually not worth it. Someone is not any less of the gender they identify as if their genitals don't match up. Your reproductive organs do not determine your gender, only your sex (and that is actually debated in the transgender community. Let me tell you, gender theory is some interesting stuff). Are women who have hysterectomies not "real women"?

You also missed the founding principle of being transgendered--sex and gender are two different things. Gender is a mental identity, sex is what organs you possess. The words are not interchangeable, and just because Thomas Beatie has a functioning uterus and v****a does not make him any less of a man. To say so is incredibly offensive and comes across as an attempt to invalidate his gender identity by saying that he's less of a man because he wasn't born in what is considered by society to be a man's body.



Genders are not blurred because some people i.d. as one gender and have the genitals usually associated with another. That's not blurring genders or combining them, that's simply the existence of people who don't fit what society thinks is man or a woman. Not all transsexuals are transsexual because they wish to take on certain roles or hate their genitals. If you knew anything about transsexuals and transgendered people themselves, you would know this.

Not to mention the fact that you're completely leaving out the rest of the transgender community. Genderqueers exist too, you know.

Seriously people, is it that hard to do some trans 101 before engaging in a discussion about transpeople?

If you "have self-confessed ignorance of the trans community", why are you not doing more research before trying to form an opinion on the subject? I'm honestly curious.

And, as I said before, it is not up to other people to speculate about Thomas Beatie's gender identity. Pregnancy is definitely carried out by female-identified people 99.9999% of the time, but that doesn't make it exclusively female to the point that someone with the proper organs and a male identity is somehow more feminine or not wholly a man (or i.d.'s as bigendered) because he wants to carry a pregnancy to term.



Again, you're making a large generalization that all transsexual people want nothing to do with the gender they were assigned at birth. That is patently untrue. Gender expression is just as varied in the transsexual community as it is in the cissexual community. Just as there are cissexual butch women and femme men, there are transsexual butch women and femme men. And just as there are cissexual men and women who defy the gender norms and stereotypes of the gender they i.d. as, there are transsexual men and women who defy the gender norms and stereotypes of the gender they i.d. as. Being transsexual is more than identifying as another gender and wishing to alter your body to better fit physical characteristics usually assigned to that gender, and is way, way more than simply hating the body you were born in. And in speculating that Thomas Beatie may be bigendered, you are applying a double standard to him that you would not apply to cissexual people. Many transsexual people have had their gender identity questioned or outright denied by other people because they did or like something that society usually considers to be associated with the gender they were assigned at birth. However, this is rarely done to cissexual people who do not conform to gender stereotypes.

I know you're not trying to be offensive (I don't think anyone here is), and I appreciate that you're willing to learn more on the subject, but I thought I ought to point it out that what you have been saying can be considered offensive. Right now you sound like you are trying to decide for someone else what their gender is, when the reality is that it is their mental identity and not yours. Members of the LGBT community have had to deal for decades, if not centuries, with other, more privileged people dictating to them what their gender and sexual identities are, based on those other people's observations and not the LGBT person in question's own identity. If Thomas Beatie himself has never made any mention of identifying as bigendered, then as far as we know he is not bigendered and it is extremely disrespectful and downright discriminatory to try to guess what his "real" gender identity is as if he doesn't know it himself (or is confused) and we know better.