Pregnant Man - "Love Makes A Family"

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MrsSpringsteen

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NY Post

April 4, 2008 --

It's no hoax - this guy really is pregnant.

Thomas Beatie, the transgender man with the world's most famous baby bump, appeared with his wife, Nancy, on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" yesterday - explaining the hows and whys of his bizarre journey.

Beatie, 34, is six months' pregnant and on target to deliver a healthy girl - which he is carrying in the womb he kept intact when he became a man 10 years ago.

There was speculation Beatie was pulling a huge hoax when pictures of him appearing to be pregnant turned up on the Internet.

But he and his wife, who live in Bend, Ore., laid those rumors to rest on yesterday's "Oprah," which included a chat with their obstetrician - who declared their baby "totally healthy" - and footage of the baby's ultrasound.

Thomas Beatie said he was born Tracy Beatie and lived as a woman until his 20s. He even competed in the Miss Teen Hawaii USA beauty pageant as a youth (he made it to the finals).

"Growing up I really didn't have a perception of myself [as a girl]," the bearded Beatie told Oprah Winfrey.

"When I was a teenager I had an attraction to women, but it wasn't a sexual attraction," he said. "I was much of a tomboy who liked to play with Legos and go fishing . . . probably up until puberty I didn't see anything wrong at all.

"When I turned 14, I started to grow breasts . . . and that was kind of a shock to me."

Beatie decided to switch sexes when he was 24 - he had his breasts surgically altered - but opted to keep his reproductive organs.

"I wanted to have a child one day," he said. "I didn't know how, and I had no plan laid out. It was just a dream.

"I have a very stable male gender identity," he said. "I see pregnancy as a process. It doesn't define who I am."

Beatie said he was actually pregnant once before, about a year ago, but lost what could have been a "multiple pregnancy" due to complications.

After about a half-hour of chatting, Winfrey brought up the question everyone wanted answered.

"Let's get to the penis part," she said. "Did you have a penis implant?"

"No. Amazingly, hormones are an incredible thing," Beatie said, explaining that his intake of testosterone enlarged his sex organs.

"It looks like a small penis . . . and I can have intercourse with my wife."

Winfrey asked the couple why they decided to go public with their story.

"We felt it was best we tell our story instead of other people telling the story for us," said Nancy Beatie, who has two grown daughters from a previous marriage.

"If we have to, we'll go hide," she said when asked about being harassed. "It's something we knew could possibly happen."

Nancy Beatie, 45, said she didn't have any problem with Thomas getting pregnant.

"I can't have children . . . I had my womb removed," she said. "He does [have a womb], so this is the way we're going to do it."

But Thomas said that his family wasn't very supportive of his decision to get pregnant - and that one of his brothers was glad when his first pregnancy ended.

"My brother said it was a good thing that happened, that [the baby] could've been a monster," he said.

Beatie said he has a distant relationship with his father who he claims forced him into a modeling career when he was still a female.

"He's a very traditional man and growing up, he really wasn't around the house," he said.

"My mom was a huge influence on my life . . . when she committed suicide, I was 12 and my father had to learn to be a father.

"My father calls me intermittently . . . he still calls me by my former name," he said. "He calls me 'Tracy' and 'Mommy.'

"I believe he loves me, but he can't see me in that way - and that kinda hurts."

Beatie said he's writing a book, which he started when he was 17.

"Love makes a family," he said. "That's all that matters."

photo07.jpg
 
My main concern with this is the growth of the baby...I don't know much about biology and whatnot, but I hope his body has the nutrients that the baby needs to grow properly inside the womb. I guess my main fear, with all the changes this person has gone through, is complications for the baby.

I could be completely wrong, if someone could enlighten me that'd be great.
 
^ Im sure any such complications that may arise has been highlighted by doctors i guess.

"Love makes a family,", so true. It goes to same sex couples adopting kids also, love is all that is required.
 
vaz02 said:

"Love makes a family,", so true.
:yes:

As for the physiological effects on the baby, that poses an interesting question. I'm sure it's entirely new and uncharted territory for the doctors.
 
What I don't get is that if he has enough female hormone to become and stay pregnant how can he have enough testosterone to keep that amount of facial hair.
I'm still not 100% convinced that it's not a hoax but good luck to them.
 
Yeah, I'm not convinced it's not a hoax either. I'm even less convinced that 'he' can be classified as a male. It sounds like an utter failure of a sex change. Removing ones' booswahs a man does not make. Or something. I don't see them as anything but a lesbian couple with one partner missing a few parts and gaining a baby.
:confused:

I'm confused.
 
I guess it's interesting from the standpoint of someone who identifies as a male having a baby, but "parts"-wise it's a woman having a baby. :shrug:
 
So the collective liberal conscience of FYM finds itself confused and befuddled? :lol:
 
financeguy said:
So the collective liberal conscience of FYM finds itself confused and befuddled? :lol:

Well what do conservatives want? Do they abort, allow same sex marriage, accept sex change, OMG what the hell do they do?

This precedent isn't in the Bible, will they know what to do?
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


Well what do conservatives want? Do they abort, allow same sex marriage, accept sex change, OMG what the hell do they do?

This precedent isn't in the Bible, will they know what to do?

So conservatives base their entire thought process on the Bible??

At least read up on some basic conservative political philosophy before saying such silly things. :eeklaugh:

Still, thanks for weighing in.

I knew as soon as I mentioned the liberal conscience of FYM, that you'd be compelled to respond, like a magnet. :lol:
 
indra said:
I guess it's interesting from the standpoint of someone who identifies as a male having a baby, but "parts"-wise it's a woman having a baby. :shrug:

That's precisely the way I put it today when discussing it with someone.

BonoVoxSupastar said:



This precedent isn't in the Bible, will they know what to do?

:lol:
 
On one hand it does seem like the leftist posters are of very mixed minds, on the other the one conservative that has posted is agnostic and doesn't justify the position on the bible; if we wanted to play mischaracterisation why not make some joke about this being the final barrier of discrimination against men?
 
A_Wanderer said:
if we wanted to play mischaracterisation why not make some joke about this being the final barrier of discrimination against men?

Now, that is an interesting point. :yes:
 
It's a no brainer. "He," for all intents and purposes, is genetically female. Since all the "lady parts" are there, this transgendered individual can get pregnant. Outward appearances mean nothing, in this case.

In terms of maintaining a pregnancy, stopping male hormone treatment will quite obviously mean a resumption of the dominance of female hormones. Quite simply put...

Sperm+egg+uterus+female hormones=viable pregnancy

Everything else is irrelevant here. As for pontificating on the usual hot button issues here, last I heard there's no license required to breed, and I'm pretty sure that these two parents will do a far better job than the plain-old heterosexual lunatics paraded daily on "Maury."

But like I said...no license required=no external validation or approval needed.
 
financeguy said:


So conservatives base their entire thought process on the Bible??

At least read up on some basic conservative political philosophy before saying such silly things. :eeklaugh:

Still, thanks for weighing in.

I knew as soon as I mentioned the liberal conscience of FYM, that you'd be compelled to respond, like a magnet. :lol:

Oh come on, you have had to known that that comment had a little humor in it...

No, I don't think all conservatives base their entire thought process on the Bible.
 
financeguy said:
At least read up on some basic conservative political philosophy before saying such silly things. :eeklaugh:

I'd be inclined to agree, except that philosophy of any ideology has been neglected for decades. It's a real shame too.
 
Even if this particular case turns out to be a hoax, this has happened before: (female-to-male) transgender writer Patrick Califia's (female-to-male) partner gave birth in 1999.

In the US at least, requirements for obtaining *legal* sex reassignment (on one's birth certificate, etc.) vary from state-to-state, but I don't think any states actually require sex reassignment surgery. Most transgendered people, and many other people as well, would say Thomas Beatie is definitely a 'he' because that's how he identifies himself socially as well as personally; that surgically induced changes like his mastectomy and the hormonally induced changes to his voice, body hair, genitals and musculature are expressions of his gender, not the measure of it.

As far as why Beatie could still have a beard--the deepening of the voice, growth of facial and body hair, and genital changes that result when a genetic female takes androgens at such dosages are always irreversible, whereas musculature changes and the cessation of menstruation are reversible. I glanced at some information online about facial hair growth and I'm not sure I fully understood it, but the gist of it *seemed* to be that the sudden exposure to large amounts of testosterone through hormone therapy (or puberty, in normal genetic males) causes permanent changes in how hair follicle cells in that area process testosterone, such that even the small amounts of testosterone genetic females produce is sufficient to sustain beard growth from then on out, even if hormone therapy is stopped.
 
sue4u2 said:
So who is the sperm donor? Was it in-vitro or did - could he have sex with another man?

They said they had artificial insemination. I know he is still a woman as far as this is concerned but the reaction of people to this situation still interests me.

What about women who can't breastfeed for whatever reason, they shouldn't have a baby either? That makes him, and them, selfish?


(AFP) April 4th

His unusual situation first became public when he wrote an article in the leading US gay magazine The Advocate last month, entitled "Labor of Love."

"To our neighbors, my wife, Nancy, and I don't appear in the least unusual," he wrote, explaining that his wife was unable to have a child after undergoing a hysterectomy and that they had conceived by artificial insemination.

"Our situation sparks legal, political, and social unknowns," Beatie wrote, adding the couple had experienced opposition from health care professionals, friends and family.

One doctor refused to treat the couple, after consulting an ethics board.

"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," Beatie wrote.

While some have come out in support of Beatie's right to bear a child, and decried the discrimination that Beatie and other transgender individuals are up against, others have been less supportive.

"Seriously, how selfish Beatie is. He is not able to breastfeed, guaranteed, which is the single, most important thing you can do for your child nutrition-wise," said one letter-writer in the Advocate.

"It's called 'childbirth' and it is a 'female' thing -- not a 'male' thing. Period," wrote another.

"If I choose to not have 'bottom' surgery and keep my original genitals intact, as far as I'm concerned I've chosen to simply present as male, not become a male," said the writer, identified as Alicia "Joey" Brite.

But Robert Haaland, a female-to-male activist, said he believed most Americans were comfortable with the idea of Beatie bearing a child.

"The Beatie pregnancy is simply the Beaties' way of using the reproductive choices that were available to them. Most Americans can understand that," he wrote in The Advocate.
 
Angela Harlem said:
Yeah, I'm not convinced it's not a hoax either. I'm even less convinced that 'he' can be classified as a male. It sounds like an utter failure of a sex change. Removing ones' booswahs a man does not make. Or something. I don't see them as anything but a lesbian couple with one partner missing a few parts and gaining a baby.
:confused:

I'm confused.



i haven't paid much attention to this, but Memphis told me last night that this couple hasn't been totally embraced by the Transgendered community. of course, everyone wishes them happiness and love and a healthy baby, but most TG's feel as if they were born in the wrong body and that this really does feel more like a lesbian couple.
 
Irvine511 said:




i haven't paid much attention to this, but Memphis told me last night that this couple hasn't been totally embraced by the Transgendered community. of course, everyone wishes them happiness and love and a healthy baby, but most TG's feel as if they were born in the wrong body and that this really does feel more like a lesbian couple.

Thanks for this bit of information. That's something I was grappling with. In my own (admittedly ignorant) mind, I would speculate that a transgendered man would not have the desire to become pregnant and carry a child - an act that is seemingly feminine in nature. In this case, I'm obviously wrong. At any rate, I wish the couple and their family a healthy baby, and much happiness.
 
Irvine511 said:
i haven't paid much attention to this, but Memphis told me last night that this couple hasn't been totally embraced by the Transgendered community. of course, everyone wishes them happiness and love and a healthy baby, but most TG's feel as if they were born in the wrong body and that this really does feel more like a lesbian couple.

Here's the moment where I evoke "Queer theory" and argue that these narrow categorizations of "heterosexual," "homosexual," and "transgender" can sometimes be too confining. Minorities of any kind shouldn't have to conform to narrow definitions of individual subordinate hegemonies.

(Okay, I threw in a dash of Marxist theory in the end too.)
 
Just think in a few years when this father says to his kid "I brought you into this world and I can take you out" he means it literally! :)
 
melon said:


Here's the moment where I evoke "Queer theory" and argue that these narrow categorizations of "heterosexual," "homosexual," and "transgender" can sometimes be too confining. Minorities of any kind shouldn't have to conform to narrow definitions of individual subordinate hegemonies.

(Okay, I threw in a dash of Marxist theory in the end too.)




yeah ... well, i do understand on an intellectual level, but on a practical/political level, but i do know that TG's have a difficult time being taken seriously by society at large, and i can see how frustrating it is when you spend years telling people that you were born in the wrong body to see someone who wants to have it both ways. it's the same kind of frustration, i think, that some gay men have with bisexual men, that they're trying to have their cake and eat it too, to be gay but not have to bear any responsibility.

i finally found an Onion article from way back that i think gets to the heart of it in a humorous manner:

[q]Area Man Experimenting With Homosexuality For Past Eight Years

October 25, 2000 | Issue 36•38

LOUISVILLE, KY–Describing himself a "going through a little phase," 26-year-old heterosexual Michael Litwin has been experimenting with homosexuality for the past eight years.

"I'm a very open, curious person, and right now I'm in a bit of an exploratory phase, sexually," Litwin said. "The woman I marry will definitely have to be okay with my past."

Since first deciding to "open up and try new things" in 1992, the "99 percent straight" Litwin has had 23 male sexual partners and one female partner. And though he said that "having a wife and kids and the house out in the suburbs with the white picket fence" is his eventual goal, Litwin is currently dating "a real mix of people."

"Before I do settle down with one woman for the rest of my life, it's important for me to 'do a little exploring,' so to speak," Litwin said. "And part of that process, for me, involves trying out some new things. Again, though, I must stress that it's temporary: Dating people of my own gender is not something I see myself doing in the long run."

Though Litwin has many gay friends and possesses "a certain appreciation for gay culture," he can't see himself in a permanent same-sex relationship.

"I just can't get used to the idea of only having sex with men," Litwin said. "The truth is, I simply adore women." As evidence of his attraction to women, Litwin pointed to the copy of the Madonna book Sex on his coffee table and a framed poster of Audrey Hepburn on the wall.

"I have absolutely nothing against homosexuality," Litwin added. "Some of my best friends are gay."

Of these friends, Litwin has had at least limited sexual contact with nearly all. Among them is Peter Skye.

"I met Michael at an art opening a few years back and, boy, did we hit it off," said Skye, 27, a waiter and part-time actor. "It's too bad he's not gay, because he was incredible in bed."

After dating Skye for seven months, Litwin ended the brief flirtation with homosexuality in favor of a period of experimentation with restaurateur Tyler Randolph. According to Litwin, he "sort of saw" Randolph on a strict "no promises" basis for two years.

"I was living in Chicago when Michael and I met at a party," Randolph said. "Right from the start, there was amazing chemistry between us. We started seeing each other every weekend. But eventually, the strain of the long-distance thing got to be too much. That's why we broke up. That and Michael's inability to keep his cock out of my roommate Bruce's mouth."

According to Litwin, he has only had one serious relationship in his life: a three-year romance with high-school sweetheart Jenny Tankart that ended during the pair's sophomore year of college.

"I simply haven't had enough experience to really know what I want yet," Litwin said. "What I do know is that I don't need to be seriously involved with anyone right now. I've really enjoyed being single all these years. I like having my own place, with my own TV and my own leather five-piece sectional. Things were just way too claustrophobic with Jenny."

Now married with children, Tankart looks back fondly on her relationship with Litwin.

"Michael was a really nice guy–and a real gentleman, too," Tankart said. "He was always very supportive about my wanting to wait until marriage. So many of the guys I used to date just wanted one thing. Not Michael."

Litwin said he has been searching for the right woman for years, but every time he thinks he has found "the one," something goes wrong.

"My first few dates with Rachel went great, but then I found out she has a dog," Litwin said. "Then there was Annette a few years later, but there was just something about the way she dressed that turned me off. And Julie was terrific, but she lived all the way over in the next town. I wonder if I'll ever find true love."

While no woman has yet won Litwin's heart, women have taken an interest in him.

"When Michael started working here, I thought he was really cute," said Samantha Ringley, a coworker of Litwin's at Yellow Moon Graphic Design. "I didn't want to be wasting my time, so I asked him outright if he was gay. He started laughing and said, 'No, no, no!' After laughing for a long time, he said, 'I guess you could say I'm straight but not narrow[/q]


not sure where i fall on these things -- i tend to take a "free-to-be-you-and-me" approach, but then i haven't spent my life fighting in the trenches against injustice in the way that some people have.
 
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"I just can't get used to the idea of only having sex with men," Litwin said. "The truth is, I simply adore women." As evidence of his attraction to women, Litwin pointed to the copy of the Madonna book Sex on his coffee table and a framed poster of Audrey Hepburn on the wall.
:lol:
Irvine511 said:
i can see how frustrating it is when you spend years telling people that you were born in the wrong body to see someone who wants to have it both ways. it's the same kind of frustration, i think, that some gay men have with bisexual men, that they're trying to have their cake and eat it too, to be gay but not have to bear any responsibility.
And some women feel that way towards transvestite men. But how many "ordinary" pregnant women are going to get the kind of harassment through to hostility from relatives, doctors and neighbors that a pregnant transsexual man would? Even compared to other transsexual men, isn't he drastically upping his social risks by doing this? I have a hard time seeing it as "having your cake and eating it too" when that's taken into account--even though I can grant that yes, it's doubtless highly unusual for a self-identified transman to want to get pregnant in the first place.
 
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yolland said:
I have a hard time seeing it as "having your cake and eating it too" when that's taken into account--even though I can grant that yes, it's doubtless highly unusual for a self-identified transman to want to get pregnant in the first place.



that might not have been the most eloquent phrase, but it's the idea that if you are a man and you've been able to assign yourself the male body, why then choose do to something that only women can do?

i think that's where the issues that the TG community has in not wanting to claim this man as one of their "own," so to speak. it's not that they aren't fully supportive of his right to identify how he wants and to have a family, but that he doesn't fall under the umbrella of what most in the TG community consider to be TG.

of course, as Melon has pointed out, that raises a whole other set of questions and it does seem a bit exclusionary to me, but then again, if you've been fighting for years to gain acceptance of the fact that TG people feel that they were born in the wrong body, that everything about them is authentically the other gender, to see something like this might be seen as a complication with the potential to become a setback.
 
Intriguing story. I guess what I kind of wonder is why the wife didn't want to be the one to carry the baby. Did they discuss that on Oprah? I mean they had to know that this would create all kinds of hoopla in the media and attention on themselves. :slant:
 
AngelofHarlem01 said:
Intriguing story. I guess what I kind of wonder is why the wife didn't want to be the one to carry the baby.

She had a hysterectomy.
 
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