I read this at Feministe yesterday and left this comment:

Sorry, no can like. A pregnant man? No, she’s not; a male id in a female body minus the chest alteration, pregnant, perhaps.
I feel for all confused human beings, and we all know how many severely conflicted people are out there, however, somewhere, lines have to be drawn.
If you choose to reassign your gender to be male, surgically remove your breasts, and take a female companion, why then decide to relinquish the drug therapy that assisted you to appear ‘male’ and go to numerous clinics to assist you to become pregnant? Why not adopt? The whole affair reeks of self-aggrandising neuroticism.
All sections of society, be they gay/lesbian/straight fall out of love and separate. Whatever legal problems ensue are a gold mine for lawyers and another problem for the community.
As for creating your own normality/reality, yeah, great. Look how it’s worked for the Bush administration.-end-

Guess who's popular today?

All sections of society, be they gay/lesbian/straight fall out of love and separate. Whatever legal problems ensue are a gold mine for lawyers and another problem for the community.

What in the world does this have to do with the issue of a pregnant FTM?

So nobody should ever have kids (gay/lesbian/straight) because they might get divorced/break up?

We've advanced to a scientific place and time that if a woman doesn't conceive and wishes to conceive, she doesn't have to wait around for adoptions, she can go through a series of treatments assuming she has the money or the insurance. That includes sperms donors and test tubes and uterine reconstructive surgeries ... there are women who haven't undergone surgery or hormones to change gender who go through as much treatment as described here.

Honestly, my concern is what happens to these offspring when they're born. Are they loved? Are they nurtured? How do their two parents deal with each other?

That can't be regulated and has nothing to do with conception.

If you choose to reassign your gender to be male, surgically remove your breasts, and take a female companion, why then decide to relinquish the drug therapy that assisted you to appear ‘male’ and go to numerous clinics to assist you to become pregnant?

The article mentions the reasons this couple decided to do that. But anyway, what business is it of yours?

I think it's sad that doctors refused, and they had to resort to the turkey baster routine. I bet it was cheaper, though. And potentially more fun.

I'm with owlmother... will they love the kid? Give it everything they can? That's what really matters.

Adoption would be awesome - but do you really think they would be able to adopt a kid? Hell, naw. Not in these great states, sorry to tell you.

"but do you really think they would be able to adopt a kid"

Exactly. Potential adoptive parents face such strict scrutiny that it would be unmitigatedly impossible for a "different couple" to become parents. I can't imagine what a difficult decision this was to make considering how sympathetic most of America is toward transgendered couples.

Though I do think it's a little self-serving to put it in the paper and talk about it. In the interest of the teenage daughter they will have- and we all know how kind 14 year olds can be to anyone who is a little different. I hope the world is a more tolerant place for her. I have my doubts, but I do still have my hope.

waldo: shit stirrer extraordinaire!

M/tch M/lls “…what business is it of yours?” - Yeah right, nothing on the web should ever be commented on.

Recently, this blog ran a link to examples of body modification. As an example of the Bender type of case, if a person (let’s call him/her Fred/a) chooses to alter their appearance to something like this, http://images.google.com/images?q=%22Pauly+Unstoppable%22
then decides to have a baby (in a manner that assures comment in every news venue in the world) what is the community supposed to say to the parent once the child is school-age? “Yeah, Fred/a, come down to school and join in the kids’ activities?”

Say Fred/a thinks “I’m going to have a doctor cut off my breasts and live as a man”. Great.
“Oh wait, now I’ve got to have a baby. Inseminate me”. Terrific.

What decision of Fred/a does the community have to approve next? “I’m going to join this club
http://wiki.bmezine.com/index.php/Ball_Club_Quarterly
and I want little Mary to take the pictures to show and tell”. Wonderful.

Society should be accepting but should not have to accept anything.

For the last seven years I’ve watched a smirking narcissistic sociopath lie like this:
http://bush-lies.blogspot.com/
while doing this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_prisoner_abuse
while all the time spruiking crap like this:
http://www.dubyaspeak.com/search.phtml?nq=love&stype=all&em=

His spokesperson put it this way “and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."[1]

“Embracing the gamut of human possibility and to defining for themselves what is normal.”...sounds uncomfortably similar to me.

I’d like to think love conquers all but after closely watching America’s war crimes (all committed in the name of peace and democracy) over the last half century, I’m dubious. Love is not a universal cure-all. I believe children need more than just love; in order to thrive they require stability, constancy and an environment that is in synch with the genuinely positive norms of a peaceful community.

Gay people are a part of that community, have always been so, and are deserving of the same respect as everybody else but the gay community is not the paragon of all virtues and therefore able to justify any behaviour. And if you think there’s motivation behind my rant, you’re right.

I abhor the gay practise of ‘cruising’ public toilets. I was accosted by a man (not your charming, handsome gay stereotype) when I was 10 years old. It violated every worldly and spiritual precept I held at the time. I was too ashamed to ever speak of it and it made the world a much darker, sinister place. It also made it difficult to find a place to piss. Funny now, but not then.

But back to the case in hand; “In total, nine different doctors have been involved.” Does anyone here think that all of these professional people were merely being mean and obstructive in order discriminate against this person? “He…told me to shave my facial hair.”
Yeah, well, maybe so you don’t frighten/confuse the fuck out of the 16 year-old-trainee nurse’s assistant when you go for your pre natal, eh? And I’m sure she’ll enjoy the chest scars.

He/she is also quoted as saying “Nancy and I are afforded the more than 1,100 federal rights of marriage.” Adoption is not amongst these rights? Or did this person have doubts about their own suitability?

In my original comment I said “The whole affair reeks of self-aggrandising neuroticism.” That this person has decided to go public with their rather pathetic personal life is a bit of a hint, isn’t it?
As for “So nobody should ever have kids (gay/lesbian/straight) because they might get divorced/break up?”, even if it’s a rhetorical question, it’s a stupid one. It is the decisions of people who have to get their tits cut off in order to realise their body image and who refuse to shave their drug-induced facial hair when they go to a doctor to apply for artificial insemination that do not inspire me with confidence.

It seems like the preggo guy story may be a hoax.

But at any rate, Apo, you will love this:

Army Holds Annual 'Bring Your Daughter To War' Day

The gaijin - always ready with the false trail

More power to 'em.

My only concern is that this will somehow become an issue in the presidential election. "If you vote for a liberul, the country will be overrun with pregnant shemales! Oh, the humanity!"

Folks who haven't clicked on GB's link will be interested at the damning, absolutely definitive evidence that this story is a fraud:

A story about a pregnant American man - who was able to conceive because he was born a woman - has been dismissed as a hoax by a neighbour.
The new allegations come only days after Thomas Beatie, formerly a woman named Tracy Langondino who underwent a partial sex change, said he was five months pregnant.
"Quite frankly, I think it's a hoax," neighbor Ron Schlieper told a local television station.
"I saw him a few days ago, he didn't look [pregnant].

Plus, um ... well, actually that's all of it.

GB, please stop being so evil! I`m afraid unless you make a full confession and clean break, pleople will have a hard time noticing how your views are changing.

But I do appreciate your digging and other interesting links. I liked the "Diebold leaks results of 2008 early" clip at Onion, too.

#13: It is possible to appreciate good comedy, as comedy, regardless of the views it promotes or disparages. Similarly, it's possible to find bad comedy utterly lame, even if it's advancing a point of view you support. The Onion's recent video work has been quite well done indeed.

M/tch M/lls “…what business is it of yours?” - Yeah right, nothing on the web should ever be commented on.

If all you're doing is stating an aesthetic preference, then fine, the web is the perfect place to do that. Of course, if I told you your shoes were ugly, or that you painted your house the wrong colo(u)r, I think you would be perfectly within our rights to respond "What business is it of yours, M/tch?" I believe you have the right to wear those ugly shoes and paint your house that hideous color, waldo, even if I don't approve of your deplorable choices.

And it seems to me that you're doing more than just saying what you don't like. You seem to be advocating somehow putting the force of law behind your particular preferences, and appealing to "the community" to back you up.

It's not clear what you're advocating, though. Shunning and scowling at the transgendered and their children? (That'll solve the problem!) Sending in the police and forcing an abortion? Seriously, are you just saying "I don't like it", or are you saying "It shouldn't be allowed."?

So far your comments remind me of nothing so much as arguments once frequently made against interracial marriage (and still sometimes heard today): "But people will be mean to your children!" The cure is to get people to stop being assholes, not to prevent loving couples from raising children.

As for what your encounter in a public toilet at a young age has to do with this issue, I have no idea. There's plenty of sexual exposure and abuse perpetrated on children by straight perverts too, but I don't think that should have any bearing on whether a traditional couple can have a child or not, or how I should treat that couple and their children.

And this sentence:

Yeah, well, maybe so you don’t frighten/confuse the fuck out of the 16 year-old-trainee nurse’s assistant when you go for your pre natal, eh? And I’m sure she’ll enjoy the chest scars.

Your concern for the trainee is touching. However, there are plenty of "normal" people with all kinds of scars in all kinds of places, including ones from breast reduction or removal, and with hair in places you might not find suit your personal aesthetic (or that of many a 16 year old trainee), who still need medical treatment. Those intending to go into the profession of medicine need to be able to deal with this fact (and whether they "enjoy" this or not is not the issue).

You'd probably be a better person if you learned to deal with it too, as at some point in your life you might just have a friend or lover or family member who ends up having unsightly scars or unusual hair somewhere, or some other "unbeautiful" condition. In fact you yourself might be so afflicted and need understanding and acceptance from your friends and family, not to mention healthcare professionals. I doubt you believe that having them tell you "sorry, I can't treat you, you're grossing me out" would not be an optimal outcome.

Finally, your equating this couple's decisions with the Bush administration's lunatic ravings is almost certainly the dumbest analogy I've ever seen. Anywhere.

So far your comments remind me of nothing so much as arguments once frequently made against interracial marriage

Dare I say, the crux of the biscuit.

"...your equating this couple's decisions with the Bush administration's lunatic ravings..."

These are the quotes: "to define for themselves what is normal".
"when we act, we create our own reality".

See the similarity? We say what goes and you concur or you're anti-whatever.

As for the rest, I'm not calling for the law to do anything. What I would like is for people to make rational decisions. A person who is broadcasting their private life which consists of one radical decision after another invites comment, as illustrated by this page.

And let's not forget, “In total, nine different doctors have been involved.” I ask again, does anyone here think that all of these professional people were merely being mean and obstructive in order discriminate against this person? Or did they also judge this person's behaviour as unstable, narcissitic and innapropriate?

When I said "The whole affair reeks of self-aggrandising neuroticism” I said it for a reason. This person presents like a martyr. "A pregnant trans man (a what?) tells his story of discrimination, mockery..."

This woman could have had a family with no fuss and no headlines but chose the most theatrical manner and venues to do so. Her decisions are indicative of a bizarre, public self-gratification not dissimilar to the body modification poseurs this site features so regularly.
Like them, she can do what she likes; that doesn't mean her behaviour is rational and that people can't comment negatively.

Now I'm tempted to do a little rewrite of 'Bobby Brown" but, enough for tonight.

Cruxier 17: "It was bad enough when the Negroes started getting all uppity, but now the homos are doing it too!"

Yeah, dirty sexistracistislamistcommunistegoistfascist.

"After being raised in an inappropriate gender role and having been through so much emotional confusion in the past, what is needed for a person with HBS (harry Benjamin syndrome) is to achieve a supportive psychological and physiological balance. He or she needs to affirm the mental identity, correct the physical anomaly, and leave all the "ambiguities" in the past. It is cruel to force a person to carry the label of "transsexual" for the rest of his or her life, making it part of his or her identity. A person with HBS is not continually changing sexes, is not involved in a never-ending transition, nor are they “living between” both sexes. And this is what such labelsovertly (sic) and covertly imply." _http://www.harrybenjaminsyndrome-info.org/terminology.html

Oops. Time for some more postmodernist theorising...

...or name calling

Describing the actions of someone you don't know personally as "reeking of self-aggrandising neuroticism” is a total asshole move. Period.

Sometimes, name-calling is what's called for.

(Hypocrisy disclaimer: I'm not attributing your jerky comments to any psychological dysfunction on your part. I'm just noting that they're jerky.)

When I said "The whole affair reeks of self-aggrandising neuroticism” I said it for a reason. This person presents like a martyr. "A pregnant trans man (a what?) tells his story of discrimination, mockery..."

So are you asserting that discrimination and mockery haven't occurred, or are you just stating your wish that those who are unfairly discriminated against and mocked should keep quiet about it, keep sitting in the back of the bus, and not create any fuss?

I blame nonsense like this on America's overcomsumption of processed soy products.

This kids today, with all their tofu and tempeh and transsexuality...