Pregnant trans dissed on Morning Joe

[ccharles000]

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4973

[TomInTib]

1. And why the hell not?

Who took this thing public?

I mean, really....

[La Lioness Priyanka]

8. clarify for me why he should be dissed?

[TomInTib]

14. And did not say that he should suffer any humiliation.

I am just saying that he opened the box, himself.

When you direct the spotlight onto yourself, you can't whine about the shadows.

Damn, I thought you had me on Ignore.

I always enjoy reading your stuff, when I run across it.

[dropkickpa]

9. They did

In an effort to avoid transphobic tabloid sensationalistic shit. They want their story told on their terms.

Transmen have the hardest time gaining acceptance, because many opt to NOT have "bottom" surgery, as the results are less than stellar, and the appearance is not ideal (phallopasties leave large amouns of scarring on the body). Transwomen have an easier time (but by no means easy by any stretch of the imagination) gaining acceptance because they have a better surgical options to appear biologically female. For the most part, tranwomen have been featured much more often in documentaries and such and transmen largely ignored. It is slowly changing (Transgeneration was one of the first shows/documentaries I saw that prominently featured transmen).

In my experience, men seem to be peculiarly threatened by transmen, as if their own masculinity is in question.

[pnwmom]

13. They aren't avoiding tabloid garbage this way -- this story is splashed all over

the tabloids. Their doctors and the hospital would have been bound by confidentiality laws, and the neighbors would have just thought he was getting fat.

If they weren't seeking publicity, they would have just gone on about their lives -- not written a book and gone on Oprah.

As someone posts below, he's not the first transgender f-t-m that's taken this step. Just the first to claim the mantle as first.

[dropkickpa]

18. But the tabloids aren't able to make up shit willy-nilly

As they've already on the public record with their story. It's not that he's the first, he hasn't labeled himself as such, the media has. Are we now taking everything the media says as the gospel truth?

It's in part because of this type of thing http://www.katu.com/news/17002811.html

"I couldn't say that he looks pregnant," said Bend resident Josh Love. "I can stick my stomach out and almost make it look like that."

According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, before Thomas Beatie was Thomas Beatie, he was a woman named Tracy Langondino. They sent us a picture from a story they did about his gay rights work when he lived there several years ago.

We hope to learn a lot more about this story in about two weeks. KATU has been in contact with the couple by phone and they said they would be able to talk more after their confidentiality agreement runs out with whoever it is they are giving their story to, which is likely a tabloid (tabloids pay for stories, unlike KATU News).

[pnwmom]

20. So it's better because this pregnancy is a money-making deal

for the parents?

[UncleSepp]

27. Phallopasties?

You just gave me the funniest mental image. Something to do with boylesque... :silly:

Yeah, I'm one of those who thinks the results aren't worth the risk. I'm not so attached to peeing standing up that I want to risk that much pain, potential complications, and possible loss of sexual function. I also don't give a hoot what this transguy who's having a baby wants to do, or whether he does it in public. More power to him. If the universe turns in such a way that I had the opportunity to make a baby with the man I love, I'd probably do it too. Privately and quietly, but that's just my way.

[dropkickpa]

29. Ack!

pasties? I totally missed that!:crazy:

I personally wouldn't ever want to be in the middle of a media shitstorm, but I also doubt I'm interesting enough to be worthy of such a thing, either. I think they've been pretty darn brave to be so open and forthcoming about everything, and hopefully opened some doors and minds for some people.

[pnwmom]

2. This guy's looking for attention to help sell his book. Given the

circumstances, he should expect to be dissed.

"He's" got female DNA, female hormones (stopped taking male hormone pills more than 2 years ago), fully-functioning female sex organs -- but he wants to go in the Guiness Records Book as the first man to have a baby.

Good luck.

[shireen]

3. I want more men to get pregnant

Really. I want to see medical research advancements that will give men the ability to experience those 9 months. I want them to feel morning sickness, food cravings, swollen ankles, kicking in the belly, backaches, and frequent bathroom visits. I want them to feel the excruciating contractions of the uterus. Or have a needle pierced into their spine to numb the pain. I want them to give birth, vaginally (or whatever) or via C-section. I want them to breast-feed the baby. Gosh! I just have one wish for men: to be able to experience the miracle of birth, first-hand!

Wow ... this will change civilization(s) as we know it .... :evilgrin:

Regarding that transgender guy who wants to carry a baby, no one has the right to deny him that experience, or the right to judge his reasons for doing it. It's his life, and his body. He and his partner are creating a child that will be loved and cherished -- that's a good enough reason to support what they're doing,

[pnwmom]

4. Or he and his partner are creating a child

that will fulfill their narcissistic, attention-getting, money-making, "aren't I amazing" fantasies.

Sorry, but I've known too many parents who've had children for the wrong reasons -- straight and gay. So now a transgender parent is having a trophy child. Poor kid.

[Toasterlad]

5. Can You Tell Me Where You Buy Your Mind-Reading Pills?

I'd love to be able to know what REALLY motivates a person to do something, just like you. Are they really expensive? Do you need a prescription?

[pnwmom]

10. I don't have to read their minds. They've been on television,

promoting the book.

If they really were publicity-shy, as they pretend, they're doing a damn good job of covering it up. And why write the book? Give me a break.

[shireen]

7. those are ignorant mean-spirited assumptions

You don't know why they're doing it. Heck, you don't know anything about them. You have a rigid notion of gender formed by culture and perhaps religion; you totally dismiss the underlying biological reasons. All you're doing is spouting judgmental and cruel garbage condemning this couple for wanting what any other couple would want: a child.

Welcome to my ignore list.

[pnwmom]

11. Underlying biological reasons? They didn't mention any. n/t

[lightningandsnow]

6. But.... he isn't.

FTM spectrum people have been having babies for years. My local GLBT newspaper did an article on it about a year ago. Patrick Califia (transgender author) and his partner at the time, also a trans male, had a child, and the partner carried it.

So this guy isn't the first. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

[pnwmom]

12. No, he's just the first, apparently, to write a book about it

and to go on Oprah as part of a publicity tour.

[MuseRider]

15. Maybe their purpose

in doing so is to take some of the pressure so that this would be open to more transfolk? I mean really, why does anyone assume their motives are selfish? Someone has to take the heat first and bring "new" things out into the public domain so that these kinds of knee jerk reactions will hopefully change.

Why all the nastiness about this? That baby will be very lucky to have two parents who love it and worked extra hard to get it. Damn, if I had had those things I might be a better person than I am today. Think about it. A wanted child. Many of us were not.

[pnwmom]

22. I hope that baby will have two parents who really know how to love it.

Unfortunately, narcissistic parents only think they love their children -- they really only love themselves -- the view of themselves that they wish to project out into the world.

Of course I could be wrong. I hope I am wrong. But this guy fits the pattern, IMHO.

[MuseRider]

24. I know you do feel that way

and hope for the best. As to the rest, well I just see it differently. To me this is an issue that is not heard by people who do not pay attention to GLBT issues and it needs to be (I had never even thought of it until now). As people are finally accepted in our society they are allowed more freedom to do what they wish. I see this as a positive in a few ways. It makes the issue visible, even if it causes upset among those who are upset anyway. They will have to learn to deal with this so now they can't simply avoid it. Someone has to be first out in public with something like this. Why not also use it to make enough money to support the baby? Really, they would eventually be getting lots of press anyway so why not now on their terms? There are always children of people who are famous for some reason or another and with careful upbringing they are usually OK. I know that last bit sounds callous but it is the reality. At some point someone is going to start screaming about this and then it will really get nasty. This will hopefully stop some of that and perhaps change some minds along the way.

I also hope you are wrong but we won't know for a long time, if ever. It is something that will happen more and more, if not these parents it will be someone else.

[pnwmom]

25. It isn't an issue to me that this couple is pregnant. As I said in another

post, all people are entitled to have children, to try to love them, and make their own mistakes with them whether they are straight, gay ,or transgender.

But I think what they are doing now with all the publicity is, at best, a mistake; and, at worse, a sign of nacissism. You mention famous couples -- I feel the same way about Angelina Jolie and her brood. IMO, and backed by many of her words, she's creating this family (unconsciously) to get attention for herself -- to put forth a certain image in the world. Her statement about not being able to love her birth child as much as the others was particularly telling.

Here's another problem down the road, with gay people or transgender people or anyone else who use their children in publicity to "aid the cause." Is there always going to be extra pressure on these kids to "look good," to behave, to prove to the world that transgender people raise well-adjusted, happy kids? What happens if, down the road, the family isn't so picture-perfect anymore? Are the kids going to be made to feel that they've let down not only their parents but the whole transgender community?

Any time parents use children to prove a point -- to validate themselves, or to enhance a cause -- that is a narcissistic behavior. And it's bad for the children involved, because it says that who they are themselves isn't the important thing -- it's the image they project to the world that matters.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

16. raising awareness of trans issues is attention seeking?

[dropkickpa]

21. Apparantly

Can't let straighty know all about our issues, they'll call us all freaks!

[pnwmom]

23. I think straight, gay, and transgender people all have the

same right to have kids, to love them, and to screw them up.

Nothing in my rule book says LGBT can or should or must be perfect parents.

But I also reserve the right to criticize behavior on the part of straight or LGBT parents that I think isn't good for children.

[UncleSepp]

28. They're usually injections, not pills.

Oral testosterone at the doses necessary for masculinization would destroy a person's liver, "neighbor". :wave: Where are you from in the great PNW?

[BillSam]

17. I think what may bother some people

about all this is that nowadays so many in the Queer community almost seem to be doing little parodies -- for lack of a better word -- of straight relationships. It's like it's not good enough to simply be a couple anymore. Gay couples adopting kids and living in the proverbial house with the white picket fence and so on; now a trans man who very much wants to be considered a man, understandably, but who gets pregnant like a woman. Of course people have the right to do whatever the hell they want.

It should be said that not every couple wants to have a baby, as one poster suggested (to my astonishment.) My sister and brother-in-law have been married for many years, have no children, and don't want any. I know other straight couples as well who have no children and are content not to have any. This whole business that you become a couple -- gay, straight, transgender, what-have-you -- and that means you automatically MUST have a baby is ridiculous. It's a very personal decision for the parents.

It's interesting to see how this plays out. Will it stretch the very concept of what constitutes "manhood" or will most people simply think of the father, in this case, as essentially being female or a combo of male and female?

For centuries most guys have been happy not to get pregnant! Now here's one who WANTS to have a baby. Many people won't think of him as a "real" guy on that alone. I recognize many (straight) women would love it if men could get pregnant, but sorry, most men don't have ovaries and it ain't gonna happen.

Interestingly, the conservative New York Post ran a full-page story on this and it was respectful instead of sarcastic or belittling. This man may not be the first "pregnant male" but he's certainly going to get attention as such.

[dropkickpa]

19. I think the manhood thing is key

A lot of people are reacting by saying "Not a man! What man feels having a biological child is so important?" I actually saw that one and almost spewed my Dr. P across my screen. There are a LOT of infertile (due to male issues) straight couples who go straight to adoption because the man is unable to get over having another man's sperm impregnate their wife, as if their masculinity is somehow quetionable or something.

I think in the gay community it's a combination of several things. The perceived "mimicry" of straight couples, transphobia, and some are doing the old "Now everyone will think worse of us because of those freaks!".

[terrya]

26. I think this is a fascinating story.

:shrug: