Transgender man is pregnant

Antinous

Unfunny,

Let me give you a piece of advice:

When you refresh the Comment Submitted page, your comment posts twice.

dccarles

@209

I don’t quite understand what you’re objecting to here. Different cultures will have different definitions of masculinity and femininity – and much bad comedy will be made based on the misunderstandings so produced – but my definition holds cross-culturally.

No one seems to have addressed my little offering seriously. I am sad.

–Devin

rani79

#62 – I’m sorry, it’s just plain wrong to suggest that a child needs a mother and a father to grow up healthy and or happy – and it is double wrong to suggest that a child needs a mother and a father that were born a specific sex or gender.

Studies have shown that children of LGBT parents are at least as healthy, happy, and well adjusted (if not more) than children from conventional marriages. What’s most important is to have parents who wanted you, and prepared for you and made a very intentional decision to bring children into their lives. Thomas obviously has – rock on.

Smjor

#62 – I don’t think anyone here has said that gender doesn’t make any difference. People have said that it is fluid and subject to change, and people have said that it shouldn’t matter, but I don’t recall anyone laboring under the delusion that it doesn’t matter.

That said, two gender parenting isn’t necessary for the healthy development of a child. Need examples? How about all of the examples of gay couples raising well-adjusted children? How about the endless examples of single parents raising solid kids? I knew a girl in high school who was being raised by her grandmother and her aunt, and she seemed pretty okay.

If that’s not enough, let’s take a look at nature. Two gender parenting is not generally the norm among mammals. Males are programmed to spread their seed as far and wide as possible and, as such, don’t tend to stick around for the rearing. Elephants raise their offspring in communities that do not include any adult males.

I think that while gender identity is important to each individual’s sense of self, it is not very relevant to their child. I think that most children are not very concerned with what is in mommy’s pants as what is in mommy’s heart.

Dorthygale

There have been several comments about adoption. I can only guess that most of these come from people who have never adopted. Adoption is not quick. Not simple or easy. It is intensive, expensive, painfully slow, and a process where the adoptive family has no control or say whatsoever.

A quick and easy home insemination and a transgendered father giving birth is SOOOOOOO much easier than adopting.

Don’t misunderstand, adoption is wonderful. I’m an adoptive mother, that’s the path to my children. But it’s hard and slow. So much harder and less certain than your average pregnancy and delivery. Our society doesn’t make adoption easy or inexpensive.

It seems a little flipant to say “well why didn’t he just adopt” when there is no such thing as “just adopting.”

That’s my opinion anyway.

sonny p fontaine

rani79 @30
“This article was incredible – I am in awe of his bravery and strength. Thank you for posting this”
really? i mean, i’m happy for him and admittedly more then a little jealous, and not that pregnancy isn’t tough, but come on. really?

JustanAngel

I’m sorry this is wrong and I can see how and why some in the transgenger community are upset by this! This isn’t a man that is pregnant, its a woman who lives on the outside as a man but everything inside her is female. Its a female who cut off her breasts, took testorone, grew some facial hair, but yet still has her ovaries and uterus…..I think he/she is a little confused! The only reason they went public with this was to sell the book he/she is writing! That’s my opinion!

UnfunnyBoing

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UnfunnyBoing

ntcd.

Hw dd knw y wld rply t tht mstk nstd f th cntnt.

riley

All I can say is WOW!!! First, let me say that I am a transman and there are alot of ignorant things being said in this post! I know your entitled to your opinions, but, well, whatever. I know people are not comfortable with this issue. If they were, this article would never had been published but I agree that we need more stories like this out there. Without knowledge, there isn’t any education. Honestly, I’m sure that he could care less about how you feel about him having a child and more power to him. It had to be a difficult journey for him and his wife to take. So I say, don’t pass judgment on this man. Let him live his life.

DoctorE123

I may be a little conservative… but I didn’t realize that you can surgically remove your breasts and take hormone testosterone pills and THEN call yourself male… maybe I am mistaken but I thought that giving birth was the main thing that distinguished us females from males…

i believe if you want to be a transgender.. go for it I guess.. but you can’t partially become male and still keep your abilities to have children.. if you want to give childbirth stay female!

btw, breast feeding is the best way to feed your child for many reason, how can someone do that with no breasts?

JustanAngel

One more thing, if they really wanted a biological child then why didn’t he/she just have them freeze her eggs and have a surogate carry the child?? That can be done! It’s great they want a child and be parents, that’s not what I’m against, what I’m against is this woman claiming she’s a man! I really do believe its a publicity stunt for books sales!

Moon

Rush Limbaugh’s head just exploded!

If we just a donkey to give birth to a human being, we can also get Hannity and Savage’s head to explode!

Hahahahaha! Good job, transgender dudette/dude/whatever!

:D

Jeff

How fascinating. How sf is this? And it makes me very uncomfortable, but in a way that indicates I have a bit of dogma to hunt down and kill.

scottfree

It may in some ways be dated now, but I highly recommend the chapters in Butlers gender trouble dealing with psychoanalysis.

Although in practice, transgender should be simple [ie you're transgendered, I'm over it already], I agree with #62 to some extent; in the realm of theory, it tends to be more complicated. With FtMs I understand surgery isn’t done; testosterone injections swell up the clitoris into a small penis, and thats as good as technology currently allows, although in a few years, who knows? But even MtF isn’t a massive medical procedure. Both genetic men and women come from the same stuff; to make the change, simply rearrange.

Anyway, its a whole other argument, but I agree with Freud that gender is more less derived from having to deal with ones parents. You eventually identify with your competitor for love. Or not, if you’re weird. For Freud, everyone starts out bisexual. Butler added to that gender as a performance conditioned by desire [which as Lacan says is /always/ desire for the desire of the other]. The Buddhists here may disagree, but one cannot escape desire, and therefore gender. It does not follow that there are only two genders, however. Admittedly, people are more or less the same, but why not say there are as many genders as sexualities?

I really wish I had the link, but an Australian group issued a manifesto demanding new artificial sex organs more efficiently designed for sexual pleasure. Really, up with that sort of thing.

Nenya

There must be a clearly defined meaning of male vs female.

Why?

he is biologically a female. he started life as a female, lived life as a female, and then mid-life decided he should be male.

Wow, huge amount of sympathy you have there for someone who had to live for years in a body that was WRONG and DID NOT FIT. Have you even thought about what that must be like? Those of us who are born in bodies that fit our brains should support people who aren’t as lucky, not laugh at them and make their lives even harder.

I’m sitting over here admiring the love this couple must share, that after so much work and effort for Mr. Beattie to finally get a body that matches (to some approximation) the gender he is in his head, he would set that process aside for a while in order to help his wife have a baby. That must have taken a lot of serious thought, and I wish both of them well. Their child may hear about gender issues sooner than a lot of children–but I trust they’ll handle it in an age-appropriate fashion, and I bet you their kid is never going to be the one yelling dirty names at the gay kid in school, either.

I do admit one of my immediate thoughts on seeing this article was, “oh dear, wonder what the mpreg folks are saying,” though. I don’t think I want to know!

Blaine

Here… I can be someone for everyone to hate:

Allow me to partition you off.

Side A) Gender Matters – it’s sick.
Side B) Gender Doesn’t matter – it’s brave.
Side C) There’s no such thing as gender.

Side A: Not your life. Be glad your mother didn’t have a full beard. There was once a time where people didn’t have machine or baboon hearts. That time is gone.

Side B: If gender doesn’t matter, then why change it in the first place? A person’s sex doesn’t match their gender, they change it… fine. But this whole mix-n-match, one from column A one from column B salad bar approach IS WEIRD. The vast majority of people do not do this. You can go on and on about how it’s beautiful, or special or anything you can conjure – you will never trump, ever trump, the fact that it’s just bizarre. Doesn’t negate any of your points… just deal with the fact that it’s odd.

Side C: I’m quite sure there’s biological stratum of gender, but it’s not a naturally occurring phenomenon for this to manifest itself physically.
Just because medical science is now allowing for us to build physical representations of these levels doesn’t mean everyone should be like “Oh, what an understandable phenotype!”

So in conclusion, layer whatever caring and sensitive or confused and aggravated patina over the following, indisputable truths:

Genetically male humans don’t give birth.

We’re now at a point where we’re surgically manufacturing ones that do.

Focus on whichever of those two points that irritates you and beat it into your skull until you accept that fact.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

UnfunnyBoing, Katib, if you won’t read the preceding thread, or read up on the subject — i.e., if you won’t pay attention to anyone else’s opinion, even if they know quite a lot more than you do — I see no reason why we should feel obliged to go on paying attention to your opinions.

Takuan

what an extraordinary person.

Takuan

hoo-boy! Just one has to blow it for everybody…now all men everywhere have to learn how to work the washing machine.

Antinous

Honestly, it just looks like you are trolling for a flame war with me, and I have no idea why.

Perhaps you could re-read your own comment and then read most of the other subsequent comments, particular the ones from women and transgendered persons. That might help you understand that a lot of people are offended by the question, Can a transgender woman ever experience life exactly as a genetic female without even having the capability to bear a child? You have asked if women can truly be women if they can’t be used as baby machines.

Hottsburg

I am not hating on anyone here. Seriously, who really cares one way or the other. I think that people have the right to live however they want to. I am happy for this couple and believe that they will be good parents. Sexuality is not a concrete thing. That is more of an idea or concept in which there cannot be a concrete anything. Sexuality deals with feelings. Feelings are fluid and cannot be helped. However gender is a different thing. When born there are only 3 possible categories, male, female or hermaphrodite. None of which should define how you live your life. It’s a matter of fact you are one of the three and that can never change regardless of what you do to yourself or who you identify with. If you are a guy that feels like a woman than fine. But you are still a he. Now you may request that people use one pronoun over the other but fact is fact. Plain and simple, women have eggs, men have sperm. Hermaphrodites on the other hand fit into both categories and may or may not be able to have their own child with their own seed (egg or sperm or both). The “male” that is having this baby is a woman. If this guy had a womb implanted into him like Arnold in Mr. Mom, he would be a male having a baby.

Takuan

Dear WTT

google “disemvoweller”. Find a free “Re-imvoweller”. Cut and paste the posts above for “translation”.

The posts you see here were gutted of their vowels for breaking the rules of civil discourse. A lot.

jjasper

He’s not the first FtM transperson who’s been pregnant. I’ve met one. He ended up being a pretty good parent too.

I guess it’s a sign of how out of sync with most people I am that I’m really not even thinking this is interesting news.

impossibletospell

Way to go, boingboing. Thanks for posting this.

#63, I see your point–there aren’t any long-term studies on what happens when trans men who have taken testosterone in the past have children. We do know that testosterone levels drop off pretty quickly after you discontinue testosterone shots, and that several trans men have had healthy kids. On the other hand, we do also know that fetuses are extremely hormone-sensitive. That’s why I personally hope to adopt, but there’s a definite chance I’ll be discriminated against by adoption agencies, and in the event that I ever split with my partner, I would lose out on the rights courts tend to afford biological parents.

Also, what rudimentary scientific evidence there is about the brains of trans people suggests that our brains are morphologically more similar to the gender we identify with rather than our birth sex.

Takuan

Damned straight! (forgive me, the temptation was worth yielding to.)

pumilio

#130
“he’s OBVIOUSLY a she”
It would not be so obvious if he wasn’t pregnant.

Women can write their names in the snow too, so I wouldn’t use that as a standard for judging gender.

Antinous

I may be a little conservative

I might have chosen a different word. I’m sorry to hear that you believe that your ability to breed is what makes you a woman.

labs

Congratulations to the happy couple – obviously, they made a conscious decision to have a child. We should all wish them well – regardless of pronouns.

AnnoyedCapitalist

#49 Diatryma: “On a related note, is there a preferred pronoun cue I can learn to figure out what to use? Dress doesn’t always help, nor hair, nor physical appearance. Is there a polite way to ask in an ambiguous situation?”

This is exact same issue I have. Everyone has a default. I don’t believe the man who insists you call him “Dr.” is any less offended than the person who underwent this surgery. If you proposed this gender question, meant for the transgendered, to a strange-looking “normal” should she or he not be offended by your presumption? My point is that getting offended at these things that even the kindest heart can make is absolutley silly and pedantic.

The best response for the person offended would be to politely ask for a change. An kind person would comply. Should you run into me and demand my compliance, however, you will be met with my pronouns: “sex-she” and “sex-he”.

Hottsburg

Why does there need to be a clearly defined definition? Because that’s what words are. That is why we use different words to represent different things. If that meaning is lost what’s the point in the word in the first place. Why not just use the term HUMAN BEING. Transgender means a person appearing or attempting to be a member of the opposite sex. To attempt to be something that you are not, you must be what you are trying not to be. It’s clear in the definition.

Antinous

Were there any strong arguments that were made in those?

Mostly the theme was ‘It’s not natural!’ and “If words don’t mean what I think they should, the universe will implode!!”

I think that about covers the basic themes. Tak?

Antinous

There must be a clearly defined meaning of male vs female.

There’s an idea in Japan called ‘henna gaijin’. It means weird foreigner, and it’s used to refer to non-Japanese who speak perfectly unaccented Nihongo, use chopsticks with ease and are completely familiar with Japanese culture and customs. They are sometimes said to be more Japanese than the Japanese. It creeps Japanese people out, because it calls their own identity into question. If someone with blue eyes and blond hair can be just as Japanese, then what does it mean. The idea that male and female have to be kept perfectly separate comes from the same fear. When someone is neither, it threatens the identity of those who have never come to a comfortable understanding of their own gender and what it means for them. It seems like a waste of good anxiety to me when there’s so much other crap going on in the world to worry about.

labs

#168 – JUSTANANGEL – He is not a woman claiming to be a man. He is a person, born with female sex organs and therefore capable of reproduction. There is no reason he shouldn’t be able to. It’s his body, it’s his choice. He shouldn’t have to use a surrogate just because it makes you more comfortable.

Also, I hope he writes a book – it would be very interesting to read.

Takuan

Everyone done yet?

Now, shall we send Thomas and Nancy some of the traditional gifts associated with the birth of a human child?

Takuan

if anyone wants to read them, they are still here. Just a little extra work.

I have found this helpful in times of need;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t0okZ1PRfU

Takuan

“having characteristics agreed up”. Entirely culturally dependent. Transexuality/trangenderism occurs in every society.

Antinous

I knew a guy who found a surrogate to impregnate, had a sex change during the pregnancy, then became his biological child’s mother. This was about twenty years ago. I bet that there’s more of this sort of thing going on than people suspect.

scottfree

On the topic of pronouns, some people have thrown out ze/hir as alternatives to the traditional specific pronouns, but I don’t think its caught on at all, really.

Takuan

hmmm, does any person who does not act like a “Mainstream traditional” sex role parent therefore not qualify as a real parent? Does any man who say didn’t beat his children with a belt – as was/is the fashion lose the right to call himself a “father”?
I suppose bottle-feeding is right out.

Antinous

Tak-kun,

Did you notice that when he-who-constantly-changes-his-name called us ‘inferior to retarded monkeys’ that he spelled ‘retarded’ wrong? Money can’t buy that kind of irony.

Takuan

you knew Mrs. Cartman?

ivan256

Maybe I’m being too literal, or socially inconsiderate, or whatever, but that person is female, not “transgender”.

It strikes me as odd that she wants to have a “biological child,” and that particular definition is important to her, but when it comes to her sex she uses the legal definition even though she’s quite clearly biologically female.

enough is enough

Ok people wake up and smell the coffee either you M or F by genitalia or chromosones(hey there are a few that don’t match) but pick one and if you decide chromosone then then watch out DRS. the next time you say “It is a girl” or “It is a boy) you had better have the proof.And if it is decided by something else start suing the Drs for lying at birth!! Tell me someone what is the differance between Male and Female?? Female has a vagina, produces eggs and can have children, Males have a penis and well thats about it it is clearly defined.So unless she had her uterous and ovaries removed she is still a she and what happens when she decides she no longer want to be a “male” and changes again, The so called mother has no legal right as the she/he is the biological mother.

cherry shiva

…and when will NOT wanting a child be considered normal ?

Takuan

hee hee, a – heh…sigh…

chetoverton

Transgender rights aside, this seems very questionable from a biological point of view. Yes the baby seems to be fine, but were there increased risks of birth defects? And although his menstrual cycle returned, how certain can we be that everything would be normal in terms of pregnancy? I doubt that there’s much research regarding this particular situation and that’s probably a big reason why they had so much trouble finding doctors willing to help them. Feels to me like the child is exposed to unreasonable risk, especially when adoption is an option.

Anonymous

Tcha! Would you believe I actually sent that little git private e-mail? I hardly ever do that.

He’s astonished and outraged to find that his behavior is not only disapproved-of, but curbed. He’s sure it’s unconstitutional.

My favorite line: Stop ruining the world. That’s a wonderful take on one’s place in the Great Chain of Being.

Here’s what I want to know: how do you get to be old enough to post on Boing Boing without adult supervision, and have that come as a surprise? Surely he can’t have gone his entire life without ever having his behavior corrected.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden
Moderator, Boing Boing

Jeff

So, do you tell the kid, “I’m your birth mother but your father”? That might be a bit odd. But I guess we’ll just have to get used to it. I expect a future where people can selectively pick their gender, morphing into whatever it is their nano-enabled minds and bodies will allow.

Jami

#103 – I’m sure that male maternity clothes don’t look much different from the t-shirts that the guys with the big ol’ beer guts wear.

#125 – For MtF, the penis is NOT removed nor is the scrotum; only the testicles. In simplistic terms, the scrotum is used to construct labia and the penis is essentially turned inside out to fashion a vagina.

Some of the problem we as a society have is our general tendency to lump sex, gender and sexuality all together when they are actually 3 distinct entities. Sex is between your legs, gender is between your ears and sexuality is in your heart. I’ll throw out the explanation I use: Sex is the plumbing you have, whether it came with the house or was added later. Gender is how you decorate the bathroom. Sexuality is who you let use the facilities.

Finally, as an older (pushing 60 and proud of it!) transwoman who also happens to be the parent of two kids ages 12 and 6, I just want to say that I’m VERY happy that this is receiving the attention it is. Yes, transmen have had children before but this story is making it a mainstream event. The next step is for it to become a non-event.

Anselm

This is awesome.

buni

@68: You missed an option.
D) Gender matters; this is awesome.

Kristy

Antinous

I promise she was never in any German scheisse videos.

dss902

And it begins…

Tom

Chetoverton @8:

Transgender rights aside, this seems very questionable from a biological point of view. Yes the baby seems to be fine, but were there increased risks of birth defects?

Man, you must get incredibly worked up about anyone over 30 having kids! Those folks are known with certainty to be increasing the risk of genetic defects. Could you send me links to any comments you’ve ever made anywhere addressing this issue? I’d like to see your thoughts on this.

Antinous @everywhere: It’s never insulting to make a mistake. I don’t have any idea what gender or sex you are, so I might in ignorance call you he or she in error. It would be silly to be insulted by that. Transgendered people aren’t sufficiently common that most people can be expected to know what most of them consider the proper form of address, and taking quick offence at the errors of the ignorant isn’t going to open anyone’s mind.

To whoever said “they” isn’t an appropriate gender-neutral pronoun: “‘He’ started to be used as a generic pronoun by grammarians who were trying to change a long-established tradition of using they as a singular pronoun. In 1850 an Act of Parliament gave official sanction to the recently invented concept of the ‘generic’ he.”

emailus

Three comments

1. I think “hermaphrodite” would be a closer term for someone with reproductive organs of both genders.

2. I had read about research studies that measured the exposure of fetuses to higher levels of testosterone while in the mother’s womb, to compare if there were higher chances of certain affects in children. Had any research been done in this case before proceeding?

3. I used to joke that I would not have kids until the day the baby could be implanted in my husband’s side; so I could carry for the first 6 months and “the man” could handle the last 3. If there are no unnatural chemical or hormonal conditions that might clash between the father’s body and the baby, this might be possible. If not, too bad. I guess I should be been born a seahorse.

ivan256

#68

I can understand and accept homosexuality, and I can accept transgender people. I understand that people are the way they are sexually, and I believe that people are free to do with their bodies as they wish provided they are willing to pay their own way.

What bothers me is not the two points you mention. I understand that homosexuality is not a choice, but what bothers me is transgender people who try and claim that what they did to their bodies wasn’t a choice they made, and therefore we shouldn’t judge them by it. Discriminating based on what somebody is is a terrible thing, but discriminating based on choices people make is completely fair territory. I respect their right to do what they do, and I would hope they respect my right to think it’s dumb. There are plenty of straight people who I don’t think reproduce either.

Jami

#137 – XX and XY are not the be-all and end-all of chromosomal expression with regards to sex. Like gender itself, chromosomes are not simply a binary choice: XX = female, XY = male. Sometimes, the sex chromosomes don’t pair up, they triple (e.g., XXY) or even quadruple (XXYY) up. And with, for instance, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome a person can have all the appearances of a female (breasts, vagina, no penis, etc.) but have XY chromosomes. Is that person male or female? If there’s any biological universal, it’s that life is infinitely variable.

Takuan

“I guess it’s a sign of how out of sync with most people I am that I’m really not even thinking this is interesting news.”

ditto.This kind of item is useful as educational I suppose, but it really ought to be considered passe.
Pity the planet is still so backward.

Now, formal legal recognition of full, basic human rights for this person – and child – now that IS worth posting.

More I think about it, sex really ought to be dropped from all legal constructions. We are ALL human. We all have the SAME rights. Matters of DNA and social roles are secondary to our intrinsic value.

Takuan

and it ends, a trivial, humourous sidebar is just that.

Agent 86

@UnfunnyIsBack

See that little eye next to your posts? If enough people click on that, and say they were offended with your post (or maybe just the wording, or just the tone) Teresa takes a look at it.

Antinous and Takuan get away with it because they are 90% genuinely funny and on topic. The other 10% is ambitious enough to slip on through. [Also, I assume they don't get very many specific complaints against them]

PS:If you want to get a real answer from Teresa, try reporting your own comments, as she has a life outside of moderating BoingBoing (namely, from what I can find on the internet, it involves moderating MakingLight) and “Over an hour” is not a very long time [nor would an entire day be]. Probably won’t work, but we’ll get a laugh when you annoy her enough to ban you.

Takuan

“discriminating based on choices people make is completely fair territory. I respect their right to do what they do, and I would hope they respect my right to think it’s dumb”

yeesh! read some books, there’s at least 40 years worth available now. If you think transexuality is a “choice”, you haven’t done any homework AT ALL.

Evil Jim

Ohhhhh, so it’s a lady with bodywork done.

They should have adopted tho’. 6.5 billion is far to many.

Agent 86

While “biologically female” may be technically correct, “genetically female” would be more apt.

Now, less P.C. – I wonder if (s)he has dangly parts?

sophiap

Why is the focus on his gender? The real issue is the crappy state of health care for transgendered people. Here’s this hetero couple starting a family and they are refused health care.

random

From I younger point of veiw.

if i was there child coming out of her/him i would be embarrassed. i wouldn’t tell anyone because that would mean there both gay and that my dad is really a women.

gandalf23

How…

ummm…

Wha…

From a technical viewpoint, I thought if you changed gender from female to male that you kinda got the whole package, penis and testicles. Did this guy not get that? If not, how is he a man? Flat chest + testosterone pills = male?

And if he has a penis and testicles, then that begs the question how was he inseminated? And how the baby will be born? I assume caesarian, but is the birth canal still there?

We need diagrams and illustrations here, people! Not to be crass or a perv or anything. I draw charts and diagrams all the time to figure out how to code something, I just think better that way. And could use a bit of a hand here to figure this out.

Mike8787

The scary thing about this post is not that there is a lot of ignorance about this issue, but that there are several indignant posters who came in here seemingly to ridicule the transgendered for having the audacity to think they are anything but what their genetic code says.

Life is not black and white, as someone has already said. Hell, I just became an uncle through a relative going through in vitro fertilization, something the Pope just came out and declared a mortal sin.

It’s interesting that issues like these seem to prove the fact that most of life’s issues come not from malice but ignorance.

Takuan

I guess you don’t have enough knowledge or the desire to acquire it.

Tell me, why do you have such an emotional stake in this?

Diatryma

See, AnnoyedCapitalist, that’s kind of what I meant. You are being rude because it has been pointed out to you that you made a faux pas. That does not excuse your rudeness. Having been presented with a person who considers himself male, is legally male, and uses a male pronoun, you insist upon calling him ‘she’.
As you said, a polite person would comply with the correct pronouns.

If someone refers to me using male pronouns, I will correct that person once. Any further need for correction is either intentional and malicious or insensitivity, and neither speaks well of those who need it. I consider myself female. I am legally female. I use female pronouns.

I don’t think that the Dr/Prof analogy holds up very well. It may be more analogous to a woman not taking her husband’s surname, and always being called that by his family– of course she’s a Smith now, she married a Smith! That the family refuses to use her actual name is rude and demeaning.
It doesn’t work entirely; gender is closer to most people than surname.

ivan256

#77

No matter what any book says, surgically and chemically altering yourself for conditions that do not affect your physical health is a choice. Are you saying it wasn’t a choice for this person to have their breasts removed? If it wasn’t a choice to take testosterone, how come they had the choice to stop when it was convenient? He admits in the article that it was a choice whether or not he kept his reproductive organs… So the person in question admits it is a choice, why would you disagree with him?

Like I said, I respect the person’s right to make that choice, but I reserve the right to think it’s dumb.

Mike8787

IVAN, it is for health. Maintaining emotional health is just as valid a reason for someone to receive treatment as to as physical health.

By your logic, insurance companies shouldn’t cover individuals who use antidepressants or the like because it’s “a choice”. Or perhaps your point is that gender identity disorder is not real?

Antinous

in Boing Boing comments, do we feed and flame trolls, or do we ignore them?

I would suggest that if it’s an arguable point and it hasn’t already been argued, weigh in with your opinion. If it’s a single rude comment, you might remind them about manners (which really works sometimes.) If it’s been covered thoroughly, ignore it. If it’s getting seriously annoying or offensive, click on the eye icon and let Teresa know. For me, once a regular commenter like Takuan or Noen has denounced someone as a troll, I just skip right over those comments without even looking.

If you click on someone’s name, you can see their comment history. If they only ever post on one subject (like gun control!), signed on just to troll a single thread, or always act like a dick, just report them.

Takuan

oy vey Teresa, I’m getting you a rubber suit and some very long tongs. I keep forgetting you screen so much of the toxins before they spatter all of us… thanks.

AnnoyedCapitalist

#79 Diatryma: You only like your analogy better because it suits your preferences. Mine is just as valid.

I didn’t intend to use the “she” pronoun again, and don’t see where I used it above. I’ve been trying to avoid that in the hypotheticals I’ve given. I think your rule is perfectly acceptable. Maybe extend the cutoff a bit if dealing with people whose first language doesn’t use gendered pronouns.

And honestly the only reason I’ve argued this far is to be rationalize my calling MtF transgendered women “sex-she” in my best Sean Connery voice. Until corrected or told to knock it off, of course.

Antinous

Enough is Enough,

You seem to have a lot of rules for others to live by.

Anonymous

We’re thinking about altering the user interface so that new user ID registrations are automatically sent to the moderation queue for the first n days. If and when we do, remember to thank posters like Sunnyside and Greengirl for making it seem like a really good idea. It’s remarkable how many of the people who say really, really stupid t;hings on Boing Boing are brand-new registrants.

But if you think they’re bad, you should see some of the anonymous comments that aren’t getting out of the Pending Comments queue for this thread: all-caps, some of them; hideously misspelled; incapable of forming a coherent sentence or paragraph; and utterly bereft of charity and tolerance.

What do they say? Stupid, stupid things: This is flouting God’s will! Thomas is obviously a woman! Think of the children!!!

Idiots.

Especially the hardcore fundies and evangelicals, that bibliolatrous lot. Do they stop to think that the Bible says NOTHING about sex vs. gender, transgendering, lesbianism, hormone therapy, any of that stuff? Apparently not, to judge from the pending comments. The Bible as the literal Word of God is good enough for them, right up to the point where they need to have it justify their prejudices about a subject on which it’s silent.

Other commenters don’t need G-d’s help to be stupid. They do it all on their own.

A selection of profoundly discreditable bits from the unreleased anonymous/pending comments:

wow what the fuck??!!!!!!!omg wow thats so gay i cant believe that!what a freak .so technically he is really a she so yeah its not really a man thats pregnant if he has a vagina.

Can you hear his sigh of relief as he figures out partway through that Tom has a vagina, and therefore cannot be a threat to his masculinity?

To all out there who judgeg abruptly into this issue without taking or reading othere materials about this, allow me to tell you guys that this “pregnant man” that you are feasting is a “biological woman” … What else explanation do you want to have?? It’s an A,b,c matters.. :)

That’s probably a native English speaker. Worse, so’s the next one.

I have heard of children being born with both genders so why don’t partnts do something then before it gets to this piont have a sex change when the chils is born so no one knows about it but them. it is a sad world and sick people in it . why ruin the new child if it is so a he she is pregnant why did n’t the women find a way to have a child or adopt one was she so hard up she married a transgender no name please

I would infinitely prefer to be the child of a transgendered woman-become-man than be born of the person who wrote that comment.

HELL AWAITS HIM NANCY AND OPRAH IF SHE THINKS ITS RITE…

Honey, that holy book of yours doesn’t say jack about transgendered couples, but it says a hell of a lot about love, mercy, forgiveness, and not casting stones. It also says (Matthew, 7:21) “Not everyone who cries Lord, Lord will enter into the kingdom of heaven,” so you just watch yourself.

Men are not meant to have children. If God wanted men to have children then they would have children.

I don’t suppose they’ve noticed that by that logic, God must have wanted this pregnancy to be possible.

Next: another native non-English speaker:

I think that what they are doing is horribe!!! He/She what ever they are, one thing they are is messed up in the head. They seem to need attention and possibly profit.

Don’t you just love the ones who jump to the conclusion that anyone they disapprove of is just trying to get attention? Aren’t you glad you’re not their offspring?

Next one’s so vile it’s getting ROT-13‘d:

guvf guvat arrqf gb qrpvqr vs vg jnagf gb or n znyr be n srznyr. v guvax vg vf ernyyl pbashfrq. jung vf vg n fuvz? gurl fubhyq abg nybj crbcyr yvxr guvf gb unir puvyqera. gurl ner tbvat gb pbashfr gung cbbe yvggyr xvq. vg vf nfunzrq bs orvat n jbzna, ohg jnagf gb unir n puvyq abj…..guvf vf qvfthfgvat.

Shpx you, buster.

its a matter of moral and values, humanity as we know is drastically falling into abis. war everywhere, inconciousness….. we are not only bound to the laws that man has created, there IS a greater law that looks down to these kind of situations.

I wonder what s/he/it thinks abis signifies? I’m just curious.

Being Gay, Transgender and Bisexual is an abomination in the site of God. Whatever God made you as thats who you should be. You shouldnt try and change what God made you. What kind of madness is this. You should repent now before you go to hell. God is the only way out.

I don’t think the troglodyte that wrote that intended it as the affirmation it is: go ahead and be whatever God made you to be! I can buy that. God knows a lot more about the subject that troglodytes who post anonymous hate messages on weblog comment threads.

This “thing” IS NOT A MAN!! It is a woman that had her breats removed and took some hormones. Why can’t the media stop portraying “it” as a man and be realisitc.

Right. It’s all the media’s fault. They invented gender issues. They were probably just trying to get attention.

Next: tonight’s award winner for most illiterate comment:

THIS IS JUST STUPED TOM STILL HAS OARIES AND A UTERUS AND VAGANA TOM IS A WOMEN… IF A MAN GETS A SEX CHANG BUT WHANTS TO KEEP HIS MANHOOD HE IS STILL A MAN NOT A WOMEN……………

I’d really, really like to think that this story is going the rounds in the Stupid Community, and they’re googling on it and finding Boing Boing. I really want to believe that’s why they’re here.

Anyway, that concludes tonight’s selection of prime idiocy, bigotry, misguided theology, and inability to use a spellchecker. It’s hard to believe these people even exist, but they’re obviously out there.

It could be that all this has just been a leadup to telling Greengirl that though she’s ignorant, narrow-minded, and about to get disemvowelled, she’s nowhere near as bad as it gets. I wouldn’t want her to think she’s accomplished anything remarkable.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden
Moderator, Boing Boing

Antinous

Presumably, if they were your parents you wouldn’t have that value system.

Stefan Jones

This story reminds me of a great David Byrne song:

Now I’m You’re Mom. From the “Uh-Oh” album.

Last week NPR’s “Fresh Air” had an interview with a veterinarian who had written a memoir. One of his patients was a dog who had to be both spayed and neutered. Don’t know how functional s/he was before the surgery…

UnfunnyIsBack

#202 Trs Nlsn Hydn k “Mdrtr”

m nfnnyBng

gnrng my pnns s n thng.

Mkng my prvs psts nrdbl s nthr.

Tht knd f wrttn prssn s lk tht f tyrnt.

Shm n y fr mdrtng fr spch nd blvng thr s pwr t blck t.

nvr nc crsd r brk th rls f cmmntng n BB. jst spk my mnd.

Bt pprntly tht s nly llwd whn t cms frm th mnd f smn y gr wth.

Grw p, f y hd ny rspct fr th d f fr spch, n ssnc, wht y spprt by wrtng n ths pg, y wld tk th bn ff my rgnl nm.

f nt, thn hv fn grng wth vryn n ths st. Whtvr y thnk yr stnc n frdm nd rghts s, rflct nc mr pn yrslf.

bozz723

This is amazing. However there really are pregnant men currently living. There is a transgender man-named Thomas Beatie, and a REAL pregnant man that was artificially inseminated by an experiment procedure named Lee Mingwei. Lee Mingwei was born a man, and was impregnanted through a controversial procedure…

here is a link I found..

http://pregnant-man.net

Hottsburg

Okay. I am truly trying to come up with an understanding of what people seem to be saying. I read the first quarter of these responses trying to understand the difference between a male and a female before I was fed up and needed to throw in my two cents. It’s been suggested that it boils down to what you think you are, what you identify with most. Simply put that cannot be. There must be a clearly defined meaning of male vs female. I believe that it has to be a tangible definition (something a simple objective test can determine) whether its by identifying genes, genitalia, or whatever. The line needs to be drawn at some point. I mean I am color blind and I see the grass as orange. I use crayola markers as my ruler and new fresh grass looks crayola orange. Does that make the grass orange? Of course not, its green. Just because I believe something to be true doesn’t necessarily make it so. It’s the same when determining sex.

Bottom line, feel how you want to feel. Live how you want to live. Live and let live. But don’t try to bend and flex the meaning of things to your liking. That’s an insult to wonderful power of language.

impossibletospell

For all those who have expressed confusion about how you can politely ascertain what pronoun a person prefers: Yes, you can ask. Don’t beat around the bush, just say something like “hey, what pronoun do you use/prefer?” Once someone has told you, it’s the only one you can use politely. Of course,honest mistakes happen; if you screw up, don’t freak out. Correct yourself quickly and move on with whatever you were saying.
Generally, trans people aren’t looking for excuses to get mad at you, but if you consistently and pointedly use the wrong pronoun, we can assume that you’re doing it to be a dick. If you’re trying to get it right and are generally treating us like regular people, it shows.

Of course, a lot of non-trans people may get upset at the idea that someone thinks they might be trans, but your still better off asking than guessing wrong.

aaronstj

“From a technical viewpoint, I thought if you changed gender from female to male that you kinda got the whole package, penis and testicles. Did this guy not get that? If not, how is he a man? Flat chest + testosterone pills = male?”

Apparently, most transmen (correct me if that’s not the proper term) only get the top done, since phalloplasties (having penis made) doesn’t work that well. They don’t look very good, and don’t have much sensation. So most transmen skip it. I guess many of them have hysterectomies and have their ovaries removed, but not all, and clearly Thomas kept his. So from the waist down, he probably look like a normal, if hairy, woman.

As for what makes him a man, one can have one’s gender changed on one’s birth certificate is almost every state. So feeling strongly that he is a man and then having his legal identity changed to reflect the gender he identifies as is what makes him a man.

Chocolatey Shatner

You know, I’m kinda glad I’m just gay: it seems like it’s a whole hell of a lot easier to deal with…

Beccabeth

Okay I have a question. How did he/she get pregnant? It was stated that they inseminated her, however it also states that she had her tubes removed. Where did the egg come from? Just wondering if anyone has an idea?

Diatryma

Well, a good Sean Connery voice forgives many things.

I think the difference in our analogies depends on how closely we feel titles describe ourselves. I will, if nothing goes horribly wrong and a few things go wondrously right, be a Dr in a few years. This doesn’t mean much to me right now. I have friends who are Mrs, friend who are Mr, friends who are Ms. The titles don’t matter; they’re fluid anyway. I expect to change titles.
But I have seen a lot of anger over calling people the right name. My mother is not, and never has been, Mrs John Surname. My brother is J* M*, not and never J*, even if it took yelling at his teachers– because they have to get his name right, at least. My sister’s name is similar to other, more common girls’ names, but she does not look kindly on being called any of them (one strike against my grandfather’s wife is that she has never once pronounced it correctly).

Of course, in Germany, titles matter much more. Difference in background.

chuk1

FORGET THE BOOK HAVE YOU SEEN THE VIDEO ON OPERAH

http://pregnant-man.wedding-review.info/pregnant%20man.html

Takuan

Bozz723 looks like spam, please report

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

What Jami said. Our culture pretends sex and gender are far more important than they are.

Tenn, thank you for making that point. Two loving, committed, sane parents who really want to have the child? That swamps all the worries expressed here about this couple’s modest departures from the norm.

minTphresh

truly looks like someone who could, if the mood stuck him(?), go fuck himself. wouldn’t be great for the gene pool tho. will he breastfeed? ya know, one has to take a test, pass and buy a license to catch a fish or drive a car, but anyone with proper genitalia can have a kid. who knows, maybe they will make excellent parents… lov3 ya b-b!

Ceronomus

Antinous,
once again, you are obviously projecting your own issues onto my words.

“Perhaps you could re-read your own comment and then read most of the other subsequent comments, particular the ones from women and transgendered persons. That might help you understand that a lot of people are offended by the question, Can a transgender woman ever experience life exactly as a genetic female without even having the capability to bear a child?

“You have asked if women can truly be women if they can’t be used as baby machines.”

Nope, your comment is wholly inaccurate. See, I’ve NEVER stated that you can’t be a woman without the ability to bear children. Indeed, I fully accept transgendered individuals. I am CURIOUS as to how their life experience as a woman might differ. That is a wholly seperate thing.

I don’t know, maybe you are so used to dealing with bigotry that you see it everywhere, but really, you do nobody any favors by picking fights with people who are looking at things from a wholly philosophical level. Let me quote a DIFFERENT portion of my post to you, one you seem to have skipped…

“Now, THIS (this being my comments and opinions) isn’t really an important issue.”

Because I’m a bit off-topic here. I’m pondering something that is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify. Does a transgendered person really get the full experience of their chosen gender? This isn’t to mock, poke fun, or ridicule, its a serious question.

I’m not sitting here saying that woman are baby farms. I’m not sitting here arguing about their sexual preferences. I’m simply pondering the more ephemeral aspects of this.

Should gender matter? No.
Does it matter in the US? No more than race or sexual preference. Sadly, BOTH, of those things still have a great impact on our daily lives.

I’m not confusing gender identity with sexual identity, they are wholly separate things and can, in some circumstances, come into SERIOUS conflict.

Again, I’m pondering, I suppose pondering aloud, about the differences, if any, of the life experiences of a transgendered person versus a genetically gendered person. Studies have shown that at least some of our behaviors are linked to our genetic makeup and, if that is the case, how much of our behaviors might be linked to our genetic gender. What, if any, differences are there between the genders that might cause differences.

I have never, though apparently some people seem to think I have, tried to MINIMIZE the life experience of anyone. I’m discussing differences. Perhaps too many of you are used to flaming at people who you perceive to not follow your belief system to get that.

As for the question as to why they didn’t adopt? Chances are that they wouldn’t have been able to. When a state like Florida can pass legislation to ban same-sex couples from adopting children, how easy can it actually be for a family with a transgendered individual to adopt.

Someone above said something really important. It is FAR too easy to say “Oh, that kid will be messed up because their parents are weird.” Far too easy. That sort of rhetoric has been used by anti-gay groups as reasoning that gay couples shouldn’t be able to adopt. The fact is that every child deserves two loving and supportive parents, even though a growing number of children in the US don’t get that basic need fulfilled.

I’m not concerned about this child at all. These parents have gone through a great deal to be able to have this child, and I’m betting that they treasure their daughter far more than many parents in this country feel about their children.

But again Antinous? Don’t put your own words in my mouth. If you are reading what I’m saying, and you are still getting what you are telling me that I’m saying? I think you need to perhaps look at whatever hidden things you have lurking in your own mind. Because the crap you are saying is coming from somewhere and…as a hint? It isn’t coming from me.

Antinous

Not fair to this already over-crowded planet, not fair to the thousands of unwanted children desperately in need of adoption, not fair to this unborn child.

So why are you picking on the transgender parent? Are you screaming this invective at every pregnant woman that you see on the street? I didn’t think so. What you mean is that it’s okay for people who fit your acceptability profile to get knocked up, but everybody else should go through the hell of adoption. That’s bigotry unsuccessfully masquerading as social concern.

viva_la_toast

That article is one of the sweetest things I’ve ever read. The premise, I mean, not people’s reaction to it (both in the article, and here on BoingBoing. I mean, come on guys.)

Twoplates

Flat chest + testosterone pills = male?

Yes actually it does, you don’t need charts and diagrams, the way it works with transgender is they decide with lots of counseling and help from professionals, hopefully for its dangerous otherwise, and choice what surgeries to have. This guy choose not to have “bottom suregry” or the surgery that is required to give him the sex organs of a man. From what I understand though its not as common place as having “bottom suregry” for m-f transgender.

As to the person who was asking why don’t they just adopt, well unfourtuntley though it is happening more frequently, transgender couples or gay people in general sometimes have a hard time adopting. Its unfourtunte. It truely is.

And I have to say that gender is fluid. If your are lucky enough knowing what gender you are born to and feel comfortable within your own skin, count yourself lucky, I can’t even begin to imagine what its like to feel like your in the wrong body.

Interesting side note, most m-f transgenders they still date women after the transformation.

Elorin

Gender pronouns can be a tricky issue, but thankfully most transgendered people make it simple – even when going through transition, they are approaching one gender as a firm goal.

It’s even harder when dealing with a crossdresser – calling the CD him when dressed as a male, her when dressed as a female, and trying to decide which pronoun to use when speaking of him/her when he/she isn’t around.

Most transgendered people that I know are not offended by being asked “How would you like to be addressed?” However they ARE offended when someone who knows them uses the wrong pronouns, particularly after the individual has been asked more than once to correct their speech.

Antinous

Oh, so you send all the rejected comments to craigslist and HuffPo to use. I wondered where they all came from.

Takuan

Ivan:

Do you understand that for a very,very long time,people who were transexual found it easier to kill themselves than live a society that would not recognize them? Would you not call suicide a matter of “health”?

You make the same argument that homophobes have used for too long: “It’s choice!”

It is not choice. Who would choose the sheer bullshit from bigoted idiots that goes with it?

It is no more choice than you chose your skin colour.

tgjerusalem

But this whole mix-n-match, one from column A one from column B salad bar approach IS WEIRD.

Genetically male humans don’t give birth.

Not actually true. Some rare forms of chromosomal intersex conditions can result in a person who is mostly or entirely XY (some conditions resulting in different chromosomal patterns in different parts of the body), but who are able to conceive and bear healthy children. It’s extremely rare, and fertility is reduced, but it happens.

Hounskull

#113 – Transsexuals are almost always clearly genetically gendered. Additionally, she has working reproductive organs that are clearly female.

#115 – “Having a Y chromosome doesn not make you male, as people with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome or Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia can tell you.”

No, that’s completely wrong. Being genetically male (XY)or female (XX) means that you’re genetically male or female. A person may have a condition which limits manifestations of gender, such as hormonal issues, but they are still genetically gendered. A person who doesn’t have clear genetic gender is just that, a person who doesn’t have clear genetic gendering. It’s not as though by picking sides their DNA changes.

#122 – “And there is no “biologically necessity” of referring to him as “mother.” We have no idea how he identifies. “Mother” is a very distinct and weighted social term”

Sorry, but that’s nonsense. “Mother” is not simply a social term but also a biological and genetic term. When a doctor asks who the biological and genetic mother is, or for that matter any legal proceedings having to do with the biological fact, then it’s her. Technically the person who identifies as “mother” in their home is a “step mother” or legal guardian. She has no biological link to the child. The person who identifies as “father” is in fact the biological and genetic mother and always will be. The sperm donor will always be the biological father.

Some other issues:

The kid will unavoidably go through some serious issues. I feel sorry for the kid, and think it’s rather selfish and unthinking that the couple decided to become parents and experiment on that kid’s life.

If they have a son, neither parent will be able to relate physically to him, because physiologically both are actually women. Unless they lie to the child, the child will always know his “father” isn’t really a man. If they brainwash the child with an irrational definition of gender, it’s likely to cause problems later.

The mother can’t breast feed her child, because she’s had breasts surgically removed and identifies as a man anyways. Breast milk, produced by the mother, is keyed to the child’s needs developed in utero. Every mother produces milk specific to her child, designed to boost the immune system and brain development. The use of formula is very recent, and the safety of it,or whether it has long term effects on health and intelligence, has never been studied sufficiently and is very difficult (virtually impossible) to do so with existing technologies. We do know there are continually new discoveries being made about breast milk containing special antibodies and nutrients that formula doesn’t and can’t contain.

I understand life is difficult for transgenedred people, and make all efforts to be respectful to them and go along with their chosen gender ID. Because most of the time gender doesn’t matter that much. But there are certain genetic, medical and reproductive facts of gender.

Attempting to blur the medical facts and introduce irrationality on empirical issues is not ok when transsexuals do it any more than when religious fundamentalists do it. Experimenting on children to fulfill one’s emotional needs is also unethical.

Oswaldo

:O!!

Agent 86

I don’t know whether to be proud, or disappointed. 85 comments, and not a single disemvowelment! There goes my entertainment for the night :(

Takuan

bloody mammals

Gender is in the brain.

Sex is in the crotch.

Whatever works for you.

Why don’t you all grow up and either discover eggs or fission?

Will The Thrill

Why don’t we ask why everyone is obsessed over whether someone is one thing or the other? Most would argue, I’d imagine, that it isn’t “what’s in their pants” that concerns them, just that what happens to be in their pants used to be the way to tell the difference.

That’s just not true anymore.

And language is losing, too. We are, all of us, re-defining words and ideas every day. Heck, look at this blog. Journalism isn’t what it used to be. The idea is the same, to be sure. At least, the theory of it – the noble cause we tell ourselves that drives most of the on-line blogging world today is the same true spirit of journalism. Is it? Does it matter?

We’ve adapted, and we’ll keep adapting. Not just adapting, but changing. Growing and learning.

So, with that thought, then what are we really arguing about regarding sex/gender anyway? The *idea* of a man or a woman? It can’t boil down to “how can I have sexual realtions with this person” because I’m sure no one here plans to have sex with Thomas. And, really, isn’t that the *only* instance we need to know what’s in someone’s drawers?

Other than that it is just our human need to be able to categorize things so they make sense to us. And everytime we run into something that doesn’t fall easily into one of those categories, our brains come to a screeching halt. And, instead of being adults and engaging said person in dialogue so we can figure it out, we freak out and get scared. Of course, fear isn’t an option, right? So we just get angry. How dare they confuse us!!!

Seriously?

The vast majority likes to think of themselves as advanced, reasonable, clear-thinking, having some basic self-knowledge, non-judgemental, etc. Oh, pipe dreams! We’re not. We *could* be, but then that would lead to us having to admit we don’t really know much about anything and we’d have to bend our stiff proud necks and gain knowledge from one another without it turning into a pissing contest.

But, that’s my two cents.

Belac

62,
It’s not that gender makes no difference. It’s that, even if mother+father, traditional-gender households are -better-, other household arrangements are -good- and the transaction costs of forcing everyone into the -better- arrangements are higher than the benefits derived thereof.

Too many people ignore transaction costs in their social planning. Don’t be one of them.

sassifrassilassi

Maybe I’m being too literal, or socially inconsiderate, or whatever, but that person is female, not “transgender”.

(adj) transgender, transgendered – involving a partial or full reversal of gender

sounds like he’s transgendered, though i suspect he doesn’t care what you think.

Takuan

Dear Dccarles:

I thought that I had. A fundamental flaw in your definition if it is not broadly applicable. Which you concurred on.

Perhaps a rephrase?

Takuan

hold that thought, I have to go kill something, I’ll be back

Takuan

@91

that’s because they know they’ll be handed their heads

donopolis

This sis sooo cool.

If I were him I would get a tattoo of a seahorse, after delivery of course.

Don

Antinous

Ivan,

Not eating rat poison is also a choice, but what kind of mental gymnastics does it take to choose to phrase it that way?

Ceronomus,

Your own quote condemns you. Apparently you find it easier to accuse me of psychological projection and trolling than to take responsibility for your own words. You are dead to me.

Next!

Tim Cosgrove

#112 “But I think I’d consider those people less MTF/FTM than genderqueer.”

Hmm, but you ‘considering’ someone FTM or genderqueer and what they consider themselves isn’t always going to be concurrent. I would venture that most of the world probably ‘considers’ Calpernia Addams a man, for example, but that doesn’t mean she is one.

Imagine saying to someone identifies as FTM or simply as male (like Mr. Beattie) ‘I don’t really consider you male/FTM, I consider you genderqueer.’ How different is that from ‘I consider you a woman, whatever you think you are.’?

I agree and concur with everything else you said in response to me.

This seems a very amorphous area at this point (scary! awesome and good!) There are at least two things going on, as far as I can see: allowing a person’s right to gender/sex/sexuality self-determination, respecting that, and interacting with them in ways that convey and confirm that respect; and, then, being able to talk about people, categorizing them (sadly necessary, maybe) so that we can discuss societal trends and changes, etc.

I’m also sort of talking about this in the abstract. I don’t have many intersex/trans acquaintances. It’s very possible I’m saying something offensive, or betraying some ‘old’ thinking. If so, I would invite Calpernia Adams or any hot leather transdaddies out there to chap my ass.

Antinous

Check on the new stadium while you’re there.

impossibletospell

@108 Yes, trans men (especially those of us who haven’t had hysterectomies) need pap smears and whatnot in the same way women do. You were quite right, it can be difficult to find an understanding gynecologist See the documentary Southern Comfort for the story of a trans man who died of Ovarian cancer because he couldn’t find a doctor to treat him in time.

@117 The term ‘hermaphrodite’ has fallen out of favor to describe humans, and has generally been replaced by the term ‘intersex.’ ‘Hermaphrodite’ is still used by biologists to describe organisms that make both eggs and sperm, but as this is generally not the case in humans, and because ‘hermaphrodite’ has been used for so many years to sensationalize and dehumanize intersexed people (think carnival sideshows), intersex advocates have pushed for this linguistic change. It’s more polite and more biologically accurate.

Takuan

only 90%?…. I’m hurt, genuinely hurt….

but I’m lucky..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdu7xoHU9DA

AnnoyedCapitalist

I am going to propose and finance legislation which replaces “sex” or “gender” in official documents with a “Y Sex Chromosome” checkbox.

Hopefully it will make this “official” nonsense simpler, it includes those XXY types, and as a bonus will annoy everyone who wants to pretend they don’t or do have one.

tlcmine

So….who gets to decide who’s male or female? Who gets to decide if any of us is masculine or feminine enough? Why can’t we identify with the gender or ethnicity group with which we feel most closely affiliated? Gender isn’t about social roles…there are female steelworkers and male daycare givers…and it’s not about genitalia…because that can be variable due to birth defect, accident, disease, etc. It can’t be about reproduction either since people of both genders make choices there too. If Mr. Beatie identifies as a man…and especially since the law and his legal wife see him that way too…well…he’s a man. Just because he has a choice not all men have…hey, that’s life…we all get different options. Just wish him and his family well, people. Stop hating everything that makes you uncomfortable.

markfrei

Re: #18 AARONSTJ
Good write up – one additional note on phalloplasties is that they can cause complications that are life threatening. NYTimes mag just had a nice article on the topic of transmen at women’s colleges a few weeks back:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16students-t.html

It might pay to read up a little as this is a complex area and there are divisions in the trans community itself on key issues.

Smjor

#125 – I’m sorry if you felt that I was too harsh. In the second paragraph of the story, there is this:
“Sterilization is not a requirement for sex reassignment, so I decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights.”
To me that seemed pretty clear. If it didn’t to you then it would have been difficult to wikipedia the term “sex reassignment surgery” to get more info. If a person is on boing boing I assume they have a higher rate of internet literacy and resourcefulness. Your question (and especially your demand for pictures), made you seem either flippant or lazy, whichever you prefer.

Tim Cosgrove

I’m a little surprised by the ignorance and discomfort in this thread, especially here on Boingboing. Though, people are being honest about their feelings, and honesty is always a good place to start.

FTMs typically don’t have genital surgery, as the results are generally disappointing in terms of getting a working penis or penis-like appendage. Penis simulation is generally dealt with through packing (soft dildos, usually, for daily wear) and strap-ons, toys, etc. for sexual activity. One assumes too that the wife/partner of an FTM knows what sort of natural equipment their partner has, and that there isn’t necessarily a need for a penis. Being a man isn’t strictly about having a dick.

FTMs will often have hormone therapy and/or breast-modification surgery, along with more obvious changes in dress and mannerism. Sometimes a person might identify as FTM without any physical/medical intervention happening. At any rate, there is nothing about the FTM process that interferes with ‘normal’ female reproductive function, apart from the hormone therapy, which Mr. Beattie states in the article he stopped several months before attempting to conceive.

Regardless, the concept of gender is pretty detached from biology at this point, though the vast overwhelming majority of people do live the gender role determined by their genitals. But, it certainly is a lot more fluid than that, for some people. Ditto ditto to the people who think this isn’t really news, but I live in San Francisco where this isn’t really unheard of. It’s something of a bubble here (but a happy, diverse bubble!)

I am not an FTM, nor am I a sex educator, though I’m embarking on training in the latter shortly; so, take this for what it’s worth. I would love to hear comments from an FTM Boingboing reader about this.

(Grr, probably duplicating already-posted info, fricka fracka fast typists.)

Roach

‘Please reassure me that you’re being deliberately thick. “Dr.” and “Prof.” don’t come equipped with appearance cues. Let me put it for you this way. Calling a woman ‘he’ is like saying, “I know that you’re really a man.” Would you say to your doctor, “Gee, it sounds from your accent like you grew up in a trailer park.”‘

If I didn’t say so to my doctor despite noticing such, and he did grow up in a trailer park, would I be being deliberately thick? Seems like you’re privileging transgenders but not people from trailer parks.

I don’t think the statement “He’s pregnant.” makes much sense, but I suppose we may as well reconstruct the entire definition of the human race along with language. It’s not like any of us know what the hell we’re ever talking about anyway.

Bek

For #6 posted by ivan256 :

Actually, Thomas IS transgender. Gender can be a fluid, malleable thing that some believe doesn’t even exist in binary form.

Sex is the physical manifestation of your genetic code. However, even this definition has its pitfalls, if there are disruptions or multiplications in the expression of the code.

And, although you can’t change the expression, you can change the manifestation, hence transexuals.

Takuan

regarding pronouns;

considering that I can easily finesse someone’s marital status, age, citizenship, national background, religion,income,line of work, education and other personal trivia in a few moments conversation (without them having to take official notice of my information gathering), I don’t think it is particularly hard to find the preferred pronoun of address without giving unintended offense.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Unfunny, I see you haven’t read the moderation guidelines. You’ll find they address all your points.

Anne K.

Congratulations to them, I hope everything goes well and for a healthy baby. I’m sure they will have to endure stupid questions, ill remarks, and snide comments but I hope that these will be few and far between.

And in regards to what pronoun to use, as with most other titles and names, one should use the one the bearer most prefers if no other name or title is generally considered proper (such as calling the Queen “Your Highness” instead of “Elizabeth”).

I would not call someone named Robert “Bob” unless they indicated that was all right. I would ask first. Same goes with any other pronoun or name confusion. It’s just simple manners.

memphisgirl

I saw recently on Oprah that he actually does have a penis that grew with the testosterone pills but still has a uterus also. They took his sperm and his wife’s egg and inserted it into him and thats how he is carrying the child.. i think it is very fascinating…

Elorin

@TIM #127 – Consider your invitation shared. :) I’m posting the permalink to this BB article on my journal with a particular note to the hottest leather transdaddy I know to please read it and share feedback. :)

rani79

IVAN256

It’s a guy NOT a woman,

and please don’t call him “she” that is a really insulting thing to do.

This article was incredible – I am in awe of his bravery and strength. Thank you for posting this

katib

Sh’s wmn. Prd. t dsn’t mttr hw sh hd hr bdy srgclly mdld. Hw sh flld p n drgs t mk hr bdy rspnd n wy tht t wsn’t brn t. t dsn’t mttr f sh dd r ddn’t hv bts nd pcs ddd r rmvd. SH s wmn. ll th “cmpssn, ndrstndng, bty, h my gd ths s fntstc…” sn’t gng t chng tht fct.

Prsnlly fl srry fr th chld. Ths pr bby ws cncvd n bdy tht hs bn pppng plls tht th Drs rlly dn’t knw wn’t hv n ffct. (Drg ddcts gt thr nwbrns tkn wy frm thm fr ‘pttng thr chld t rsk’….bt hy….THS s ‘btfl’….)nd hnstly…ths kd s lkng t lftm f thrpy.

prsnlly thnk ths s slfsh dcsn nd rsk nt wrth tkng….bt hy…SH gts hr 15 mn f fm….s wh crs hh?

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

I agree: not all that weird. I’ve lost track of how many transsexuals I know socially.

One of my favorite-ever blunt kid questions: “But if Daddy’s decided he’s really a woman, and Mommy’s decided she likes girls better, WHY do you have to get a divorce?!”

Ivan256 (6), trust me on this one: that’s a transgendered person with a working uterus and ovaries. Insisting on a strict male/female divide just gets exhausting for all concerned. When you lift (well, diminish) the social stigma attached to being something other than strictly male or strictly female, you suddenly find the world is full of ‘tweens and others.

Cherry Shiva (7), that’s a different argument.

ChetOverton (8), transgenders are conscious of biological issues. I can’t imagine the prospective parent is taking the kind of hormones that can cause birth defects.

Gandalf (16), we’re nowhere near being able to make functioning reproductive organs from scratch. At most, you get cosmetic simulacra. The female-to-male versions don’t work well.

UnfunnyIsBack

Trs, hv jst rvwd th mdrtn gdlns tht y drctd m t n yr prvs pst.

Bt y hvn’t nswrd why my cmmnts wr ffnsv, nflmmtry, r ‘trllng’.

hv md thr cmmnts whch ddrss thr tpcs, yt y hv kpt ths p.

Bsclly, m skng y t gv m strght nswr s t why my psts n ths thrd wr cnsdrd fr mdrtn. Th gdlns xpln th prcsss, hwvr, nt th rsns. r thy prsnl? hv bn ffndd by th cmmnts f thrs n ths st, thrs wh HV crsd nd HV xprssd rcsm/gnrnc t th tpc.

Why ws sngld t?

Takuan

definitions and labels seem more important than the people – to some anyway. Putting aside the utterly silly like #177 above and addressing Kaytib;

This person presents to the world, and you, as “male”. This person’s medical details are private and should not concern you anymore than say someone’s who had organs removed because of cancer and is dependent on hormone replacement to maintain health.

As to risk to child, this is a call for medical professionals with opinions worth considering. I do note that the level of medical understanding in this entire area has been severely retarded in development largely due to ignorant social prejudice and unjust pressures.

You are judgmental to an irresponsible degree. That is part of the “problem”.

ornith

@39 Excuse me? So not having given birth or been pregnant, and not wanting to, means I have not “had the full female experience” and am therefore not really female? Bite my curvy, feminine-identified, XX-genetic ass! That’s one step from declaring me a baby machine, and sexist as all get out.

@7 Someone else mentioned the point that we do actually sort of need the species to keep breeding, and have a genetic imperative to do that, so it’ll never be entirely normal. Which, ok, point. But I’m with you in HATING when people somehow equate womanhood with childbearing or tell me THEY know how I feel better than I do, and I’ll change my mind, or will think differently about kids when I have my own. I know the inside of my own head better than you, thanks, and I’m not the one having kids I’m not capable of supporting.

This is really pretty awesome, though. I admit I was sort of surprised that he hadn’t undergone the lower-body surgical procedure until I read the comments – thanks for the education, commenters. That’s got to really suck for FTMs, not ever being able to have the right genitals.

noen

Ceronomus – Your question is nonsensical. There is no such thing as the official “full” male or female experience to which all other experiences are but subsets.

I can tell you from my own experience that yes, as a transsexual woman my life experience is complete though atypical. Besides, what difference does it make? Your obsession with this is rather odd.

Diatryma – I admire your restraint.

As far as children go… they need mother and father figures. Though many don’t even get that. There is a lot of pain in the world.

Regarding worries about the hormones affecting the child. I’m more worried about children of drug addicts and alcoholics. Fetal alcohol syndrome is a far larger problem.

noen

#126 Jami
I like your analogy Jami. Very good.

katib

t #181 – t bcm pblc whn thy wnt n prh. :) F prsn wnts prvcy thy dn’t nrmlly g n tlvsn, rd, nwpprs tc…Tr?

hv frnd wh lst hr fml rprdctv rgns fr mdcl rsns. Fnny – sh’s stll fml. :) hv thr frnds n hrmn thrps fr thr rsns. Thy sm t kp thr gndr n tck. Tht s bd rgmnt n yr prt.

Th fct tht th Drs rfsd t b nvlvd d t th nknwn rsks spks fr tslf.

<>“Ths prsn prsnts t th wrld, nd y, s “ml”. Ths prsn’s mdcl dtls r prvt nd shld nt cncrn y nymr thn sy smn’s wh hd rgns rmvd bcs f cncr nd s dpndnt n hrmn rplcmnt t mntn hlth.”

Y r dng vry gd jb hr mkng t YR bsnss. Hw mny psts d y hv nw n ths pg? r y rltd? Gttng pd? r jst bttng n t shr th 15 mn?

pnns rn’t “prblm” xcpt t ths wh dsgr. Nr d thy chng th fct sh s wmn. Y r nttld t yrs. :) Hnstly – n prblm.

Takuan

To move this along by degrees;

1. It is possible – not in the near future by any means, but certainly possible – that whole brain transplants will be done. The difficulties at this time are monumental, nay astronomical, but I think any person with minimal knowledge will allow that it IS within the realm of human possibility. Eventually.

Agreed?

2. What is the “sex”, then,of a “male” at birth brain, transplanted into a “female” at birth body?

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

And what will you do if I explain and you don’t like the explanation?

DarkOne

Who’s the baby’s daddy???? If he has a wife wouldn’t that mean he was cheating on her??? unless she’s a he??? confusing…

whoknew

I believe that there is a spiritual side to life, and that souls are inherently either male or female. I believe an inherent element of the female is the bearing of children. Thus, this creeps me out.
I could be wrong, but there you have it.

Smjor

#140 – I think it’s a lame trick to hide your own prejudices behind the “Think of the Children” argument. Sure, breast milk is the best milk, but plenty of people do just fine without it, or using someone else’s breastmilk. Keep in mind that for a very long time it was considered unseemly for upper-class women to breastfeed and so their infants were handed off to a wetnurse for this.

There are plenty of other people who can’t breast feed, but no one is ever trying to dispute their right to reproduce. And keep in mind that even “normal” females who give birth aren’t guaranteed the ability to breast feed. At least three of my friends who recently had babies weren’t able to breastfeed because they just weren’t producing enough milk.

And what about people who are have multiples? If you are having triplets or more it’s not uncommon to be unable to produce enough milk for all the babies. Should these people be culling the litter in utero so as not to cause these babies to suffer the horrors of not having breastmilk?

And what of mothers who, for whatever reason, give their child up for adoption at birth? Should these women instead be encouraged to abort since they won’t be breastfeeding their child? That sounds like a great idea, give the anti-abortion crowd some real, valid ammunition to hate with.

As to the question of whether the difficulties this child faces should overrule this couple’s right to breed: I was raised (if you can call it that) by an extremely mentally ill and extremely abusive mother. I would gladly trade her and my absentee step-father for this couple. Your assumption that because the child is being raised in an environment that is strange to you she will be confused is no good. Children are, more often than not, completely unaware of how different their life may be from another child’s. It wasn’t until I left home and started living with other people that I really got a sense of how messed up my own family was.

Additionally, to you and all the others who have questioned whether these two are being selfish for breeding even when the risks to the child from the mother being on T therapy in the past are unknown: Shut up, seriously. If this was a “normal” husband and wife choosing to get pregnant and have a baby even though they are carriers of Huntington’s or something, they’d be on Oprah getting a pat on the back for being so brave. You are putting yourself at the top of a very slippery slope to say that one shouldn’t be allowed to breed unless one is certain that one has no risk factors. Where do we draw the line? Fatal birth defects? Chronic conditions? The mother being over thirty? High cholesterol and hypothyroidism runs rampant in my family, should I be sterilized? What about male pattern baldness? It’s been proven in many studies that balding men are at a distinct disadvantage in life with everything from finding women to getting a promotion; it would be cruel to bring a child into this world knowing that he would have a good chance of going bald.

scottfree

KatiB,

and how many posts here already say exactly what you’ve said? in my opinion your repetition of others is unnecessarily inflaming to people who disagree.

AnnoyedCapitalist

May I ask why addressing a transgendered person in their genetic pronoun is so insulting? Is it more or less worse than addressing someone with the incorrect title, or using “Dr.” and “Prof.” incorrectly?

It seems to me it has to be one of those learned things, which frankly shouldn’t be insulting in any way.

Megan777

If you don’t have the balls to back up the assertion that you’re a man, I don’t think it is ignorant or intolerant for other people to question the validity of your claim. I don’t feel any hate or fear toward transgendered people – your body, your choice – but I do question whether the belief that you are the opposite gender is sufficient proof that you are.

Takuan

unfunny: bullshit.

You just read, digested, considered, interpreted 500 posts on the Moderation thread in less than ten minutes?

Stop wasting other people’s time. That is also rude.

Takuan

and what do you do if your soul does not match your body?

witch burners creep me out

Takuan

the question stands to anyone

Takuan

While that one simmers, I will make another observation: There is great similarity between some of the posts on this thread and arguments advanced in the past to suggest that “negroes” could never be the true equal of “white men” due to “biological facts”. Also, women were denied the franchise on similar grounds for millennia, since it was “medical fact” that their brains were incapable of the rigors of politics. Either that or the “natural hysteria” of their reproductive organs made them unreliable.

Just an innocent sidebar. Back to the question?

UnfunnyIsBack

Y gt m thr ntns, msplld crcl wrd n tht nslt. hv n dfns, t’s jst tht bd fr m.

Hwvr, d nt s tht t gnr wht hv sd bt frdm f spch n ths wbst.

Trs, y r rrspnsbl s mdrtr. Jst bcs y sy dsmvwllng cn stll b rd, y blv tht t s nt cnsrshp. S lt’s sy fr whtvr rsn, ppl hd dsmvwlld Lncn’s Gttysbrg drss spch, mn, thy ddn’t cnsr t, thy jst md t cmpltly nrdbl, bt tht’s k cs t’s nt cnsrng!

Wht f t wr y wh hd yr pnns dsmvwlld? Smthng y hd n xpcttn t b tmprd wth, smthng y flt strngly bt. Wld t b cnsrng thn? r wld y knl lk dg t th wll f th mdrtr.

Yck. Y pltclly-crrct, ql bt nfr, glt-rddn, nfnny, nmtvtd, spcttng, vrsclzd, hypcrtcl, whnng, prtnts, wldn’t knw gd tm nlss thy rd bt nln, brng, ndcsv wnn-b-rbls cn g strght t hll. (nd n cs y d nt blv n hll, s d nt, thn y cn g t th nxt wrst plc; Sn Frncsc.)

jim.cowling

Enh. Pre-op, post-op, therapy or not, doesn’t matter to me. If someone identifies as male, I call him “he”. If someone identifies as female, I call her “she”.

I still find the ‘pregnant man’ thing kinda creepy.

Takuan

change your handle to “tedious” , you owe others that

Antinous

May I ask why addressing a transgendered person in their genetic pronoun is so insulting? Is it more or less worse than addressing someone with the incorrect title, or using Dr. and Prof. incorrectly?

Please reassure me that you’re being deliberately thick. “Dr.” and “Prof.” don’t come equipped with appearance cues. Let me put it for you this way. Calling a woman ‘he’ is like saying, “I know that you’re really a man.” Would you say to your doctor, “Gee, it sounds from your accent like you grew up in a trailer park.”

AnnoyedCapitalist

#115 meadhbh: Yea, I already knew all that. Hence my comment on that standard beneficially including nonstandard situations. The “Y Chromosome” legal standard would stop 99% of the issues raised above, and be a constant for the life of the individual. No messy personal identity issues.

Antinous

Well, you’ve been busy while I’ve been having a nap. I don’t think that UnfunnyBoing likes us very much. No matter. We’ll always have Lhasa.

UnfunnyIsBack

Tkn, d nt wsh t wst nyn’s tm.

Trs, m nly lkng fr n nswr, nt t pprv f t.

wll nly nlyz yr nswr nd thn nlyz myslf n rgrds t hw my ftr psts wll b chngd.

UnfunnyIsBack

wld lk nthng mr thn t, bt ‘m frd ll wll b fr nthng nc bg bd mthr trs rsts hr ys pn m.

Bt nly f y chngd yrs t “nwllngtnswrnythngndrctfshn”

Tht’s knd lng…hw d y fl bt “dchbg”?

gandalf23

Arronstj, I did not know that. Thank you.

crusin

The problem I have with all this is: it is NOT a HE………SHE has a vee-jay-jay and female reproductive organs…..therfore is a woman……having your breasts chopped off and taking hormaones so you can grow facial hair dosen’t make you a *man* so all this hype about *pregnant man* is a load of crap…..not true……the story is being report incorrectly by the media…… She is just another pregnant woman. This is all just a publicity stunt to sell a book IMO…….these are some SICK people this couple and I feel sorry for this baby to be brought into their world of mental illness and confusion.

UnfunnyBoing

Rspndng t #183

hv n d wht th prgrss n brn trnsplnttn s t ths tm, nr th fcts t dspt ts plsblty. Prhps t cn b dn, prhps nt.

Rgrdlss, whthr th brn f mn s gvn t wmn, srvs n rl qstn f nhrtd gndr chrctrstcs. nlss y ssm tht th dtchd brn cts s srt f mmry crd bng nsrtd frm n cmptr t nthr.

bvsly thr s n nswr t ths bfr sccssfl trnsplnt ccrs, bt ntl thn w cn nly spclt.

Bt th d f hvng brn tht cld b swtchd frm bdy t bdy, crryng ts prr nstncts wth t, s msng nd nlkly.

UnfunnyIsBack

ls, Tkn’s prvs cmmnt, wld tht nt fll ndr nmbr 6 r th 10 “wys t lnd n yr bd grcs”?

6. Jrng, snrng, cndscndng, r n-ppng whn thr’s bn n prvctn.

S why s h nt t b sbjct t ths rls?

Takuan

I surrender the field to the Marshal. Ave!

dccarles

Takuan:

No, I don’t concur. I don’t think cultural relativism is relevant here, and I can’t see why you do. Even if it were relevant, many of the characteristics of masculinity and femininity do hold across the species, because they’re part of biology, not culture.

I’ll admit I posted the ‘no one took my post seriously’ line partially because it didn’t seem like you’d really thought much about my argument. (And there’s nothing wrong with that; you don’t owe me anything.) It seemed to me like an off-the-cuff, casual answer.

I’ll assume that gender behaviour is at last partially culturally defined, sure. No big deal there, really. But the definition of ‘gender is what you look like’ still holds across cultures; different cultures may interpret your gender differently. If a man dresses in a skirt in England, people will assume he is trying to communicate a gender of female-true; once he goes to Scotland, though, he’s just a guy in a bad kilt.

I am trying to answer the fundamental question that people like Unfunny et al. are asking (though they may not know it): by what right is one called a ‘man’ and ‘woman’? The objection they are making is that biology, in this case, is destiny, and that a surgical operation or mere desire doesn’t give one a right to be called male or female. It’s in your genes, or genitals, or brain structure (they seem pretty fuzzy on this detail.)

I think it’s a valid question, and it deserves an answer. I think, though, it’s the wrong question to ask: the word ‘right’ immediately puts it in the moral sphere, and they’re resorting to factual arguments.

But no moral statement can be proven, or even supported by reference to the natural world. You can’t get an ought from an is. (If you disagree with me on this point, then I’ll have to direct you to David Hume.)

So the “biology determines your pronoun” crowd is barking up the wrong tree. But no one seems to have answered their question on its own terms, so they just get all huffy and feel persecuted, which just makes them all the more stubborn.

However, the answer “you choose your own pronoun” leads to absurdities, as I pointed out before.

Which leads me to where I am now.

–Devin

SammySnapshot

ANNOYEDCAPITALIST (32): That’s a well-thought-out way to ask what’s a very important question. Put simply, gender is not determined by chromosomes. An easy-to-remember phrase is “Sex is what’s between your legs; gender is what’s between your ears.” That’s not a perfect way of putting it–and if you’re in gender studies or a similar field, it’s easy to pick apart–but it’s easy to remember and gets the gist kinda right.

Ultimately, gender is constructed in many not-so-subtle ways. For example, parents put baby boys in blue and baby girls in pink. This is before they’re anything like sexual beings and, lets be honest, before anyone should even care if they’re a boy or a girl. We’re lucky to live in a society where some people “grow out of” that initial programming and actually get to think about–and feel for themselves–whether or not they feel more like a “boy” or a “girl” by the way society has (unfortunately, maybe?) defined boys and girls to be. So, in the end, what matters most is what someone feels like on the inside, not what a DNA test might or might not reveal.

The most unfortunate thing for me is that modern english doesn’t have an a priori gender neutral pronoun. And, on that note, FYI “they” or “them” is currently deemed appropriate for use in gender-neutral speech and writing instead of the awkward s/he variants.

Hope that helps… (and that I didn’t accidentally stick my foot in it somewhere in there. lol)

tgjerusalem

#102 – Depending on where and how the obtained the sperm, the donor may (and probably has) relinquished rights to the child.

Legal “parenthood” in any situation involving donors is a bit questionable, but just because they opted for home insemination, doesn’t mean they didn’t go through established medical routs to find a donor.

And being pregnant while taking testosterone *isn’t* normal – in fact, it isn’t even possible. Read the article again; he had to stop testosterone replacement therapy months before being able to get pregnant, and will have to remain off them until giving birth.

And there is no “biologically necessity” of referring to him as “mother.” We have no idea how he identifies. “Mother” is a very distinct and weighted social term – he may identify with it based on the unique experience of pregnancy, he may consider his role in the process to have simply been that of a father with an incubator. It’s not our right to impose such social distinctions.

#106 – there is no “empirical gender.” There is only description of biological sex. This is a matter of appearance – not identity, just a description of what they look like.

And trust me, all trans people are perfectly aware of the “physical fact” that our anatomy at birth is in contradiction to our psyche. That anatomy however is not the sole or even most important factor in determining who and what we are.

This is not an identification with “social norms of the opposite gender” – this isn’t “I am more masculine than the average woman, therefor I should be a man.” Not all trans men are even conventionally “masculine,” nor all trans women “feminine.” This isn’t about adherance to social norms – it is simply that one’s psyche/soul/mind is designed to know one’s self as a woman or a man, even when one simultaneously recognizes that one’s outer form appears in contradiction to this.

By way of imperfect example, on a sheer physical level the situation might be comparable to that of a person who has lost a limb, or was born without one. The mind is wired to know how the body should be – from a vague knowledge through full-blown phantom limb syndrome, a person rationally know that physical reality says they have no arm, while simultaneously knowing that *they should.* Beyond even the practical and social ramifications of a body that looks and works differently from other people’s, one knows on a fundamental level that one’s outer form is not the way it should be.

Gender identity is part of this fundamental knowledge of self.

trueblue2

I read the post and comments about Calpernia’s video first, and WOW the comments are radically different on this thread. Fascinating. I am so glad Xeni followed this up with Calpernia’s video.

Thank you to those who have explained the FTM bottom surgery. There are actually two different surgeries you can get, but both are pretty nonfunctional, are prone to many complications, and enormously expensive.

I recommend that some of you need to look up “genderqueer.” Working outside the gender binary is getting progressively more common.

Individually or as a group you can feel that gender does not matter, but in our larger society, like it or not, it still does matter. Many of the people I know who have transitioned do not feel strictly male or female, but they feel it is easier for them to function in society presenting the way they most closely identify. Being a gender warrior who openly operates outside the binary is no easy task, and I applaud this couple for doing so.

trueblue2

Jami – Love your analogy.

Takuan

“However, the answer “you choose your own pronoun” leads to absurdities, as I pointed out before.”

could you expand on this?

Village Idiot

I want to be a dolphin, and I’m not the first.

I’ve always been attracted to vast, open expanses of ocean but feel like I was given feet by mistake, so have been anxiously awaiting the necessary technology to remedy the problem. If I can’t have flippers, I guess I could settle for a prehensile tail, which would be my second choice for expressing my true self. I suppose I shouldn’t limit myself with either/or choices… So, I want to be the first dolphin with a prehensile tail and I’m willing to pay big money to make it happen (just in case someone who can do it reads this).

Megan777

Okay, so my other post said something like “is the belief you’re another gender sufficient proof that you are?” Now I’m wondering if that could go both ways. Like, I’m certain that I’m a woman, but is my certainy proof that I am? Is gender mostly a matter of self perception? That just seems so wishy-washy to me.

sotall

years ago, I had a friend that was male on the outside, but things never worked. He started taking hormones prior to a sex change and began bleeding every month. When they checked deeper, he was completely female on the inside and was told he would be able to get pregnant after the sex change.

So no one can deny, who we are attracted to sexually, has nothing to do with what we are on the outside. As long as the couple involved are happy and provide comfort and support to each other, who are we to say they are wrong. There is too little love in the world to try to tell anyone their love is not right or real.

Anonymous

How do you plan on giving birth ? from your uterous or do you have to have a seesection

Sam

“I find it interesting that you refer to the Weekly World News as, ‘The paper.’ The paper contains facts.”

“This paper contains facts. And this paper has the eighth highest circulation in the whole wide world. Right? Plenty of facts. ‘Pregnant man gives birth.’ That’s a fact. “

UnfunnyIsBack

Bng pltclly crrct s wstd ffrt.

vryn s lwys gng t b ngry vr t mch ttntn r t lttl, t pstv r t ngtv.

t’s y wh gvs mprtnc t ths nmprtnt sss. Stp wstng brnspc vr sch slly thngs.

Takuan

We are already aware of your lack of any substantial opinions.

In the absence of a reply to the question in #183, I shall advance the proposition: A body furnished to a brain’s specification is nothing more than the ultimate technical extension of having dental caries corrected with an amalgam. Anyone who has had dental work done is “modified”.

Are they somehow lesser or flawed then? Or if they have a prosthetic limb? Body tissues cannot be exhalted some above others. Is a hand more important that ovaries? To the individual? We may make choices, but where is the intrinsic hierarchy so widely assumed? Genitalia may be important to species survival, but is not a sterile human being still a human being?

Antinous

Tick Tock.

Ceronomus

I once learned that a person was transgender after watching them melt-down after someone used the phrase, “you guys.” The strength of that reaction was almost frightening. While most of us take gendered pronouns for granted in some cases, understandably those who have undergone gender transformation are a lot more sensitive about it.

I’ve always found transgender psychology interesting. While someone above has stated that “Being a man isn’t strictly about having a dick,” a large portion of male psychology IS about the penis.

I wonder how full of a gender experience any transgender person can every truly get. Can a transgender man without a penis ever experience life exactly as a genetic male? Can a transgender woman ever experience life exactly as a genetic female without even having the capability to bear a child?

I don’t think so, at least not yet. Of course the matter of EXACT isn’t important, but it certainly would be interesting to learn what the differences in those life experiences are.

I do not disagree that gender identity is important and that people who view themselves as a different gender should have the option to transform their body cosmetically to fit their self-perception.

Because so few in the medical community seem to understand gender dysphoria and GID it is really hard to say if any transgender person is getting the full experience.

Now, THIS (this being my comments and opinions) isn’t really an important issue. But I just got to thinking about that with a father giving birth to a child. Childbirth is a female experience, much as some men might claim to empathize or to understand it, let’s face it, we really don’t. It is something wholly wrapped up in the life experience of woman.

It leaves me wondering what the possible long-term effects on this father’s gender identity may be. The whole thing is simply fascinating and I hope that the couple consider telling their story to a psychological journal as this event could serve to teach us all a great deal more about ourselves.

chris3244

i personally don’t see why people are so amazed by this. he is biologically a female. he started life as a female, lived life as a female, and then mid-life decided he should be male. he went through the steps necessary to achieve that, but he retained all the female reproductive organs. how does that make him male? in my mind it does not. as someone stated above, taking testosterone, recieving a breast reduction, and holding an id that legally says: “i’m male,” does not make someone male. in my mind, he is just another pregnant female, and there is nothing extraordinary about that…

Skep

A couple of things come to mind.

1) Because the couple did not go through a doctor, the sperm donor is the legal father.

2) Being pregnant while taking testosterone isn’t normal. Gender IDing as male is one thing, but to use male hormones while gestating as a female seems dangerous to fetal development. I would hope that the mother (if you are gestating a baby that’s the biologically necessary way to refer to you) is discontinuing all male hormone therapy..

cherry shiva

5th option:

E) Importance of Gender is personal and variable, this is awesome.

i personally don’t care to be identified by gender, but it doesn’t bother me that i am, and i’ve not needed to revise that reality beyond an occasional display of androgeny. but i respect anyone who has endured the discomfort of an imposed identity which they did not want or understand. i’m with jami: the sooner this is a non-issue the better. mix it up !

KurtMac

Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire.

Then I guess I’m not human, since I have absolutely no desire to reproduce biologically or otherwise.

Also, is his wife technically a lesbian? Seriously, I’m confused. What?

Takuan

Repent, Harlequin!

Ceronomus

I think you are reading too far into that statement.

“Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire.”

That doesn’t mean that you aren’t human if you don’t want children, only that the desire to have a child is not a gender specific desire.

ismirth

Although I have heard of such stories in the past I think it is important that we keep hearing about them. Many people are simply not used to nor have ever heard of such things, and these types of stories help to open people’s minds.

I find the entire trans plight to be quite inspiring. I feel admiration for anyone who would go to such lengths to create the life they want to live, in the body they want to have, and with the identity that rings true for them. I find them courageous.

On top of all of that deciding to have a baby, in spite of the conflict it might bring upon them from their community… well, I completely admire them both for undertaking such a journey.

I think that in another 30-40 years it could be possible for genetically male persons to carry a baby to term. This is a topic that can get peole thinking about all of the things the future might offer.

Our current times are the sci-fi of 20 years ago… just imagine what another 20 years could bring.

lfdubin

Rgrdlss f th tr ntr f ths ss, th whl sttn cms ff s xtrmly slfsh.
(ys, slfsh, NT slflss). Hr s nthr cs f smn wh wnts t hv t ll…wnts t b mn, yt wnts t cntn t b wmn, nd wnts t hv bby, tc, tc, d nsm. W ll mk scrfcs n ths wrld t srvv, yt ths cms crss s smn wh rfsd t mk rl chcs, n spt f “hs” physcl mnfsttn. t cms crss s smn wh s hdgng thr bts, tryng vrythng n th bfft t s wht thy lk bst. Nt fr! Nt fr t ths lrdy vr-crwdd plnt, nt fr t th thsnds f nwntd chldrn dsprtly n nd f dptn, nt fr t ths nbrn chld.

ribex

I want to know what his (male) maternity clothes look like.

An image which I found strikingly similar can be found as the background here: http://www.youtube.com/user/itschriscrocker Not sure what Chris was going for, however…

Thanks for posting the story. I find it amazing, puzzling, exciting, and confusing all at once. Aside from possible issues of hormones damaging the fetus, I think it’s wonderful.

UnfunnyIsBack

Trs, r y gng t gv m n nswr?

Antinous

Can a transgender woman ever experience life exactly as a genetic female without even having the capability to bear a child?

So infertile women are not really women? That’s pretty close to the Baby Machine Doctrine.

UnfunnyBoing

#189

Thnk y fr nt mkng ny prgrss wth ths.

Y hv msntrprtd yr wn qstn wth mttr f n ntmc clss systm. Dvtng frm th rgnl qstn, wll brn f dffrnt gndr hmn brng ts chrctrstcs t mmbr f th ppst sx n trnsplnt.

Wht md m lgh wsn’t yr lck f ttntn t th rgnl qstn, rthr yr fcs n dntl wrk n cmprsn t th mdfctn f prsnlty nd physlgy thrgh thrtcl brn trnsplnttn.

cnnt sy hv hd tht typ f dntl wrk, bt ftr cvty d nt wnt t rplc my gntl. Prhps w hv dffrnt hlth cr pln.

S pls gt bck t th qstn t-hnd.

Greengirl82

Dsn’t ths dscrdt th whl ntn f trnsgndr? Sh’s wmn, physclly. wmn cn hv hgh lvls f tststrn nd stll b wmn. Why s th wrld s wllng t ssm tht ll xmpls f trnsgndr r nt clncl dntty dsrdrs? Mrvr, n ntrvws, sh dsn’t ct lk mn. Sh cts lk wmn wh s rprssng smthng.

nd wht bt th chld? t’s n thng t hv n fthr fgr r n mthr fgr — mst rptbl psychlgsts gr tht ths s dmgng ngh. Bt t hv mthr nd mthr/fthr, chld’s mnd s smply nt qppd fr tht. Prnts cn b lvng nd stll mng t scrw thr kds p by kpng thm n th wrng nvrmnt.

nd ppl r syng hr tht wht ws tr bck n th dy s nt lwys tr nw. Hny, whn t cms t physlgy, nlss thr’s sm mttn tht dn’t knw bt, wmn wh ws wmn n th 1500′s s stll wmn n 2008.

W ccpt dvrsty mr nwdys thn w dd rlr ths cntry. nd ths s grt n ts wn wy. Bt f w ccpt frm f dvrsty tht cntrdcts trth, w’r jst gng t nd p wth chs nd cnfsn. Whr w drwn th ln s, n r ctlr, pn t dbt. Bt tht ds nt mn tht ln mstn’t b drwn smwhr.

My tw cnts.

mekkio

Fine, I admit it. I’m confused. I thought the whole point of being transgendered was that you were not comfortable with your original gender. That is, you believe you were born the wrong sex.

So in this case, this woman hated being a woman, so she became a man. Then why give birth which is pretty much the one thing that makes a woman, a woman biologically? As a transgendered man wouldn’t that be the most far thing from your mind? Men don’t give birth in general. They’re not built to. There is no culture behind it. So, why would someone who wants to be seen as a man get pregnant?

I don’t know. Would someone, please, explain this to me because like I said, I am confused.

novakreo

I’m surprised no one has mentioned mpreg fan fiction yet. Those guys must be getting pretty excited about all of this.

jazzie

It might be unbelievable for others but its possible…. if you had kepy ur reproductive

Takuan

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Photos/LANL/images/IvyMike.jpg

Antinous

Tak-kun,

Have you ever put a live rat in a cage with a big snake and waited?

noen

This is still going on?

Why does every troll think his turds are the Gettysburg address?

dccarles – You are asking the wrong questions. In other words, you’re framing your questions in such a way that it leads naturally to your desired result.

“The objection they are making is that biology, in this case, is destiny”

There is plenty of material in this thread, in the related thread as well as countless websites to help you understand. Please educate yourself.

“So the “biology determines your pronoun” crowd is barking up the wrong tree.”

No, they are just being assholes. You can’t call blacks ni**ers anymore so they have to pick on someone. The likes of unfunny et al, are hateful bigots and racists. They are trolls who do nothing more than troll, who seek nothing more than to flamebait and engage in endless rants, who’s constantly shifting arguments never go beyond an atavistic hatred of the other.

They are filth.

Hounskull

opps. Meant to say:

“It’s also a possibility her male gender ID may be psychologically based without any physiological basis. Regardless, she remains sexually, biologically, and genetically female.”

Smjor

I have a question that is mostly related to this article (believe me, after watching Calpurnia Addams’ video I am trying to be as careful and sensitive with this question as possible.)

Mr. Beattie discusses in his article how he had trouble finding a doctor to care for him during this pregnancy. Do transmen have the same trouble finding gynecologists who don’t discriminate? For that matter, is it common for a transman to go to a gynecologist? On the one hand I can understand that if you are identifying as a male then you don’t want to be bothered with the usual trappings of being a girl, such as pap smears and yearly pelvic exams. But on the other hand it’s still important to practice good maintenance on whatever body parts you have, whether or not you identify with the gender they imply. Just because your uterus isn’t bleeding every month doesn’t mean you can’t get cancer in it. Maybe it’s not a big deal at all to most transmen, I can only say that it would cause some cognitive dissonance for me personally if I were a transman so I am curious about other people’s experiences.

UnfunnyIsBack

Nw mst sk, wht d y mn by tht ntns?

Antinous

Would someone, please, explain this to me

Six billion humans can’t be squeezed into only two psychological profiles. Have a cocktail.

Kyle Armbruster

I can always tell I’m back in the states because I suddenly become a woman, I guess. Evidently the stubble and male clothing style isn’t enough to let Americans know I am (and always have been, between ears and legs) male. And heterosexual.

However, when I walk up to get my clam chowder at SFO, and the woman behind the counter refers to me as “miss” as she hands me my order, I do not explode in a tirade. I don’t say “excuse me?” I don’t even correct her.

I just say “thank you.”

It’s annoying to be called by the wrong pronoun, but, at the end of the day, who cares??? I’d only be concerned if someone I saw every day did it. Otherwise, I’d really just like to eat my soup.

stanfrombrooklyn

It would have been a lot more fun if he/she would’ve said from the beginning that he’s totally a dude but said that he and his wife couldn’t conceive and that he prayed to Jesus every night for 30 days that he could become pregnant. See how that would change church attendance.

UnfunnyIsBack

Nn.

Fr sch n nlghtnd prsn t crrct th pnns f thr ppl n hr, y sr r qt dsmssv whn y dsgr wth thr pnns.

Cllng m trll, rcst?

Prhps y cn pnt t n ncdnt f rcsm n my psts.

nd cllng m trll? Lstn, d nt cr whr ths jrgn cm frm, bt f y r s qck t rfr t my pnns n sch wy, prhps t s y wh shld cnsdr yr wn prjdc.

Takuan

“in the wrong enviroment.” “a form of diversity that contradicts truth,” “does not mean that a line mustn’t be drawn”

go look up “bigot”

Kieran O’Neill

#109: Kyle, I find the trick in those situations (which I get a lot of, too) is, as you said, to just shut up most of the time.

Every now and then, though, you can turn it to your advantage. (Beggars and salespeople come immediately to mind.) Nothing beats interrupting someone’s carefully prepared patter with the assertion that they’ve just insulted you, their potential mark.

UnfunnyIsBack

h nd tht cmmnt n blck ppl, f y rlly blv tht prjdc nd htmngrng s fd lk wth wht jns r pplr ths smmr, thn rlly dbt y hv ny d f wht y spk f t ll.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Bozz723, legit link.

Sister Y, the thread is renumbered — #259 has been deleted, account blocked, commenter permanently banned.

I’m going to close down comments in this thread. We’re still getting vile comments from newly registered users, and the anonymous ones are worse. I’ll do one last scan of the backstage comment bin to see whether there are any pendings worth publishing, then shut things down.

Sorry, all of you. It’s just getting nauseating back there.

Tim Cosgrove

#97 “That’s got to really suck for FTMs, not ever being able to have the right genitals.”

You mean well, but we’ve really got to examine the assumptions behind ‘the right genitals’. The point here I think is that there’s a decoupling of genital shape/status and gender identity.

People in general assume that your genitals determine pretty much your whole mode of behavior. We don’t need to fall into a similar trap, thinking that your gender role behavior determines your desired genital configuration.

There are a number of MTF people who remain ‘pre-op’ (and there’s a whole set of assumptions in that term). Maybe they can’t afford the surgery, maybe they’re afraid of it, maybe they like being a woman with a dick. As Calpernia Addams says, it’s not really any of your business unless you’re going to be getting in their pants.

I have no doubt that there are some FTMs who would love to have the same type of genitals that most genetically/biologically/gendered male (‘cis-men’)
have, but I also have no doubt that there are many who are happy with their equipment exactly as it is, and the particular sensations it offers. And again, what they’ve got underneath the hood has nothing to do with their manhood or femininity or whatever gender presentation they choose.

Ceronomus

No Antinous, not once have I said that ANYONE, transgendered or not, is not a woman simply because they can’t bear children. I think you need to cool your jets and read the rest of my post.

As for infertile women? Being infertile is often a sharp blow to the psyche. One moment you think you are capable of bearing children and then you learn for certain that you are not. So the vast majority of infertile women STILL have a very different life experience to a transgendered woman because most of certainly didn’t know they were infertile for their entire lives.

I’m speaking about the differences in gender life experiences here, and I’m certainly not trying to put out biased gender views. I’d appreciate it if you would refrain from overlaying your own bias onto my words.

whoknew

@112 Ornith
Sounds like you’ve got a chip on your shoulder. You’re reading my statement backwards. I said it forwards, essentially: only the female bears children. I did not say it backwards, as you suggest: only those who bear children are female. My statement does not logically require the second statement, and I reject it. You are twisting my words (thus, the chip). Speaking more precisely, however, I believe that an inherent part of being female is the biological potential to bear children, even if it is medically not possible (for any of the myriad reasons this happens).

@100 Takuan
Please donâ€™t jump to conclusions. I’m aware of the possibility that souls may not match bodies, and it is a mystery I am glad I do not need to solve. Just because I have strongly held beliefs, doesn’t mean I would force them on others, let alone BURN another for not agreeing.

Takuan

no, but I’ve watched corn snakes get dead mice served to them

Tim Cosgrove

in Boing Boing comments, do we feed and flame trolls, or do we ignore them? I haven’t been reading the comments long enough to know.

Takuan

“Our culture pretends sex and gender are far more important than they are.”

is what she said.

Do you understand what she said? Do you want to?

dccarles

I have followed this thread with interest. As far as I can see, the contest between the self-righteousness and the overbearing seems to be pretty much a draw. I wasn’t keeping score, exactly.

By way of introducing myself, I’m interested in linguistic issues. (This seems more germane than to give my sex, gender, sexuality, or preferred pronoun.) And this, I think, is primarily a linguistic problem. Who gets to decide how language, which is defined by consensus, is used?

On one side, I have to reject Humpty-Dumptyism: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less.” If I were a man (whatever that means) and went around insisting that people refer to me as ‘she’, I’d just be wrong. We as individuals can’t dictate what a word means unilaterally.

On the other, using a pronoun based purely on someone’s genes or genitalia is pretty silly, too, since neither of these are obvious without close inspection.

So I am going to offer a fairly simple theory of gender that I think will annoy everyone in this thread equally: your gender is what you look like. It has nothing to do with your sexuality, and is related to your sex by correlation, not causation. It has everything to do with dress and hair style…and these are not trivial things, since they determine gender.

In this scheme, there are two different genders (male and female) which are not opposites, and five different gender terms:
* Male (having characteristics agreed upon as male)
* Female (ditto, mutatis mutandis)
* Mixed (having qualities of both, by quick visual inspection)
* Undetermined (e.g., of an animal whose genitals are not immediately obvious)
* None (e.g., the laptop I’m writing with.)

For practical purposes, most people are either male-false and female-true or vice versa. Some people might be male-true and female-true. But no one gets to dictate what pronoun gets used for them directly. Gender’s something you have to earn.

I can foresee two objections to this theory. The first is ‘What do I call someone when their gender-term is mixed, undetermined or none?’ To which I reply, ‘Make a guess, or use the term you prefer, given what you want out of the conversation.’ If you want to piss a transgendered person off, by all means, call them by their sex-pronoun. If, on the other hand, you want a more civil style of communication, use the term they prefer. If you have to ask and they get offended, well, you can’t please everyone.

The second is that judging a person’s gender by their obvious physical features and style of dress (and judging is exactly what we’re doing) is frivolous, or irrelevant. To this, I reply that what you display, be it obvious breasts or a suit and tie, is a form of communication, just like language.

Communication sometimes fails, and it’s
generally a sterile pastime to try to blame either the receiver or the sender. Neither is in complete control of what message they send or how it’s interpreted; a transwoman can’t always hide her stubble, and if I see someone with long hair and delicate features I have every right to say ‘she’.

Now, as for sex…I’d say that there are a whole bunch of those, what with the broad range of genetic variation. But as I see it, gender is as simple as breath mint/candy mint.

Not that that problem hasn’t caused no end of trouble…

dccarles

Of course, Takuan. Some of these problems have been pointed out before by others. And I shouldn’t have used the word ‘absurdity’ when I don’t always mean ‘logical contradiction.’

First is ‘how exactly is one to know what pronoun to use?’ In most cases it’s pretty obvious, and where it’s not, a simple question will clear it up. So I don’t consider this a very serious objection.

Second is the case of the pre-operative non-transvestite transgendered person. Imagine John, congenitally and anatomically male, knows he is a woman from puberty. It’s pretty common, from what I’ve read. John hasn’t told anyone about this feeling, or taken significant steps toward surgery or transvestism.

I think the linguistic consensus would be: John is male and that’s that. He’s a male that wants to be female. The female pronoun would be out of place and embarrassing for him – even if he were secretly pleased he’d have to feign indignation to repercussions from other males.

A third objection (and this one really seems to stick in some people’s craw) is that the choose-your-own-pronoun system is vulnerable to hacking. Much as people would like to believe that is doesn’t matter if you’re black or white, male or female, it does. Just because it shouldn’t doesn’t mean it’s not real. People could choose to redefine their gender legally to take advantage of affirmative action or health care benefits.

My real objection, though, is entirely linguistic. It’s an example what’s called the Humpty Dumpty theory of language: a word means what I say it means. Which raises the question of what I mean when I explain my meaning..you get the idea.

Aside from that, Humpty Dumptyism has destroyed many good and useful words in English; it’s why I’ll never use the words natural, feminism, democracy or patriotism when another one (or ten, or fifteen) will do. When you use words like these, people hear what they expect to hear. They’re an impediment, not an aid, to communication.

This might seem like a pretty small objection, but I believe, like George Orwell, that the abuse of language kills people.

–Devin

(Ooookay, sorry, gonna cut down my message length real soon now. )

UnfunnyBoing

Y knw wht, t hll wth t.

Ths hypthtcls r mr ttmpts t clng nt fltng blf n th fc f rsn.

Strs lk ths r nthng bt dstrctns frm CTL vnts. n 2009, f y sk smn wht knd f brd th ‘prgnnt mn’ hs nd hw mny trps wr klld n rq by 2008, lmst nyn wh sw ths stry wll gv y th nswr. lmst n n wll gv th lttr.

S kp tggng n ths strs t dd whtvr phlsphcl r scntfc pnn y my hv, trth s, ths thngs r scty’s wy f cpng wth th fct tht w’r nthng mr thn bnch f prtnts, slf-nttld, mtrlstc bngs tht r wllng t d fr n mn’s wrd vr nthrs.

Kp gvng m strs lk ths, s cn lgh t th rdclsnss f t ll.

Nthng n ths wrld s bv lghtr.

AnnoyedCapitalist

@Antinous: I assure you, I’m being deliberate, but not thickly so. My question arose because of a negative reaction to a wrong pronoun in discussing the article. We don’t really have a lot of visual cues about the person, and I would naturally use “she” when discussing a pregnant person. Focusing on female sexual organs brings them out. What makes anyone think I am using that pronoun in a gendered sense instead of a sexual one?

And titles can be incredibly powerful. Use them incorrectly in Germany. Try to stifle a laugh when a PhD repeatedly insists on being referred to as “Dr.” Watch the sadness of a woman who is addressed as “Ma’am” by a child when she is too young.

Frankly, I’m a bit amused by the fact that anyone can be so incensed by these usages, or of “incorrect” pronouns when referring to transgendered people. It seems hilarious to me that their comfort requires them to force people around them to conform to them.

I have nothing against transgendered people. Nor anything against voluntary amputees.

I do have issues with people who are offended at mere parts of my speech.

Tenn

I’d probably double take in the streets, if I saw a masculine figure carrying a baby; but I know enough trans people to maybe politely inquire and hope he’s not of the sort to be offended, or to just shrug and look it up on the internet later.

Unfortunately, I’m bitterly aware of the fact that most people can’t do that.

Also, on genders; one’s physical sex should be taken note of, just as one’s eye and hair and skin color is. Gender identified with could also be listed; it is as much an inherent trait as appearance- rather, it is more, because appearance does not matter. Whether gender should be listed on ID etc is heads or tails for me; I haven’t reasoned out any effects of that to know whether it would be net negative or net positive.

T therapy, ill effect on the child? I doubt it, provided the therapy has been quit; PRIMARILY BECAUSE WOMEN HAVE TESTOSTERONE AND SOME WOMEN WHO HAVE CHILDREN HAVE HAD THERAPY. Because women can be testosterone deficient, too. My friend’s mother (whose absolute brilliance as a mom is explained below) was on it. Guess what? She has three healthy, well-adjusted kids with no physical problems except poor eyesight.

@SMJOR; The literal definition of a child not knowing a different environment from their own is egocentrism.

I share your sentiment. I live in a household with a grandmother who is mentally unstable and a grandfather that follows her ‘eccentricities’. It is not an exceptionally dangerous matter, but it isn’t a comfortable one. I get accused of stealing on a regular basis; my slightest error results in screaming fits or threats. I’ve been woken up at 3 AM for no discernible reason to be told I am worthless, just like my mother. When I visit my best friend’s house regularly, even at the age of 17 where I have read and been exposed to enough culture to know my situation is not normal, I still balk. I’m stunned to see apologies taken seriously and not mocked. I doubletake when I say something that’s not perfectly sincere and respectful and her mom accepts my apology or doesn’t even mention my error. It’s neat to be able to reach into the fridge and grab a drink without being screamed at; in fact not even having to ask. Rest assured I’m not taking advantage of my friend’s mom (as my grandmother has insisted, having a fit when my friend’s mom made me a birthday cake)- Mom2 treats me as her daughter. To the point where I am welcome there any time.

If my mother had deliberately conceived me, worked to have a child, then been so devoted to someone else- even if that someone else had three eyes- I would be thrilled.

Then again, I like to pretend I’m not entirely broken, so perhaps this life was okay for me.

Antinous

I do have issues with people who are offended at mere parts of my speech.

@47, I am fairly certain that if you were regularly referred to by a pronoun that did not match your gender, you would not be quite so amused by it.

I think you need to cool your jets and read the rest of my post.

@46, Your post was lovely, but that particular statement was an epic fail. Try re-reading it.

Takuan

chotto…sumimasen

UnfunnyIsBack

Trs, cn y pls ddrss my sttn. t hs bn vr n hr.

dccarles

I’m afraid, Noen, that unlike you I have no special insight into the mind of others. (I was taking a long-distance course in telepathy, but for some reason I never even received the syllabus.) I don’t know why people believe what they believe – though sometimes I have ideas – and so I tend to take opinions I don’t agree with seriously.

[QUOTE]
“The objection they are making is that biology, in this case, is destiny”

There is plenty of material in this thread, in the related thread as well as countless websites to help you understand. Please educate yourself
[/QUOTE]

I’m unsure of what you’re objecting to here. Do you think I’m endorsing their point of view? Why do you think I need to be indoctrinated into yours?

As for people being “filth”…I don’t know enough about Unfunny to dismiss him so easily, let alone to say that people like him are bigots and racists. I’ve met bigots and racists: I revile what they believe in, I find their mindset paranoid and simplistic, but I’m not going to deny some of them are nice to their mothers just because I need to demonize people I dislike.

When you say I’m asking the wrong questions, though, you sound a lot saner. What, specifically, do you think I should be asking?

–Devin

brickflow

all y’all are getting worked up over nothing!

don’t believe the hype!!!

http://beta.flowgram.com/go/pregnant_man

since when is a vaginal birth news!?!?!?

Takuan

How long do we get? How many years will you live? You are going to die you know. You too. And you. And you over there.

I suppose it was the Baby Boomer generation that created a popular attitude that death was optional…pity it didn’t catch on.

Now consider how much time those born transgendered, transexual,homosexual,bisexual, intersexed and heterosexual with questions, get. Huge portions of their lives get used up first just realizing who they are, then figuring out how not to be killed by the monkey-brained and lastly on how to get a share of a full life like all the so-called “normals” – that happen to approximate a fleeting social average ( an average that the average numb-wit assumes has been eternal).

You who think you have a right to judge, a right to determine what is “right” and “truth” are nothing more than thieves. You take the precious moments on this planet of those who were dealt a slightly different deck and spent them for nothing ,like malicious, wanton children.

Diatryma

AnnoyedCapitalist, what you may have done in ignorance, others do with malice. Having been corrected, it would behoove you to remain so.

On a related note, is there a preferred pronoun cue I can learn to figure out what to use? Dress doesn’t always help, nor hair, nor physical appearance. Is there a polite way to ask in an ambiguous situation?

Takuan

dear dear,…. I think you will be fine. Some sink under,some maintain, some transcend. If you would forgive the insolence, my impression of you based on our ever-so-slight acquaintance is that you fall into the latter category. My respects to Mom2.

Ceronomus

No Antonius, I think your grasp of what I am saying is an Epic fail. If you stop projecting your bias (or your defensiveness against perceived slight)you will see how wrong you are.

Honestly, it just looks like you are trolling for a flame war with me, and I have no idea why.

As for #47? Gender identity is VERY important to Transgendered people. Think about it, you are talking about a number of people who felt so strongly about their gender identities that they underwent surgery.

Of course they are going to be offended by the wrong gender pronoun.

Takuan

Billions go hungry, war rages, the planet fails…

yet some find it profitable to debate if others are fully human or not on the basis of notions of bits of flesh and social roles that have always been ever changing.

Xopher

Tim 133: We get ourselves some popcorn and wait for Teresa to come by with the disemvoweller.

Tenn

Takuan
It’s not insolence, but it’s surely not with an entire reference of me as a person. Which is not to say I don’t appreciate the compliment. However, when not in a political, somewhat impersonal forum, I’m an emotionally withdrawn individual. I really like Mom2, and all my friends and people here; but I can not find one person that I love or that I actually actively miss when I do not interact with them. I’m also irresponsible and lazy and myriad other things. All of which I can at least hide on the interwebz.

I think the worst of it is not the experience, but the uncertainty. Despite my awareness of faults I seem incapable of changing them.

And the interest in Tibet and global matters?

Yeah. I can only care if it’s macro.

I really appreciate talking to you and others here, though. I think if I can learn to be like I am here in an IRL environment that maybe I can be like these people. How else will I learn to be ‘human’ without talking to other humans?

That’s the core of it. It doesn’t matter what you are, as long as your values are good. These people are going to raise a kid that is not like me, on the outside looking in, because they (seem to) care.

mojo_jojo

what’s the big deal? this guy and his wife want a kid and are doing it in the most biologically feasible way. he has a functioning uterus, she does not… badda-bing.

besides, as a couple they discussed it, planned for it, have been through numerous difficulties to achieve it… sounds like this child is fortunate enough to be very much wanted.

what i find much, much more bizarre are “women” such as britney spears, who reproduce in the “normal” way, yet are not emotionally or mentally prepared, possibly not fit, to be parents… it is ill-advised pregnancies like these that i find revolting…

Bek

@44 for Mekkio:

Of course I cannot speak for them, but I think the couple’s desire to have a child overruled the father’s need to identify as a male.

One can argue the option to adopt, but their family profile might make it difficult (especially considering the doctors’ receptiveness) to find approval.

They had one perfectly good uterus & set of eggs between the two, so I think this was a logical decision to make. They are having a child (with very little in the way of artificial methods) that will inherit the genetic code of at least one parent.

As far as childbirth being a female experience, now being experienced by a man, I don’t think he could ever have forgotten that he was once female in gender & sex regardless. This could be treated as a temporary return to that state for the greater good of the family as a whole.

I hope that helps.

Takuan

I take the ringing silence as confirmation then

Takuan

I believe you will find many your age in what you may see as ideal circumstances that feel as you do. Sorry, a degree of existential angst comes with the territory. On the other hand, rejoice in the compensations of youth. (Hopefully) your knees don’t creak and you haven’t the gout, yet.

A pleasure to have met you, however long our conversation may last.

UnfunnyBoing

h, nd f crs, ndng th dscssn wth srcsm nd th ngmtc xymrn. T mch NPR r Th nn spps.

Lv th clvr lngstcs t th clvr.

ornith

#99: Even if you believe souls are strictly male or female, what if the body and the soul in it don’t match? And aside from that: I AM NOT A WALKING UTERUS. I AM A PERSON. Both my gender (identity, what you would apparently call my soul’s sex) and my sex (physical) are female, but I neither have kids nor want them, and I am not the only woman in that situation, so it’s pretty obvious that childbearing is not actually “inherent” to being female. And if you think my not wanting kids makes me some sort of freak, than how about these: is a 6 year old girl somehow not female to you yet? Is a sterile woman not ever female? Does a woman past menopause stop being female? Would an artificial womb be MORE female than me or any of those other three examples? Bearing children is a potential function of the uterus during early and middle adulthood. It is not the sole or even primary determiner of femaleness from either a biological OR psychological standpoint.

#102: They managed to get frozen sperm from a sperm bank, even if they couldn’t get a doctor to do the insemination, so I’m not sure that’s actually true about the donor being the legal father. As for the testosterone, he stopped it before the pregnancy in order to get pregnant; I’d figured he wasn’t taking it while pregnant either.

#109: “I’d only be concerned if someone I saw every day did it.” Which is exactly why trans people do care. They’ve spent their whole lives with their closest friends and relatives doing just that; it’s not hard to see how that would make someone a little more sensitive to it even coming from strangers.

#111: I’m sure there are some people out there who like having breasts+penis, or flat chest+vagina. But I think I’d consider those people less MTF/FTM than genderqueer. Those who don’t have the surgery (either direction) out of poverty or fear of complications or lack of sensation – but would have the surgery if they could afford it and were sure it would work – would clearly fall into the category of those who DON’T feel they have the right genitals. And when I say “right” genitals, I mean “matching their mental self-image”. But the point I was trying to get at is that even an FTM who is comfortable with their lack of penis in its own right, is going to have some major relationship issues as a result of that alone – and being cut off from that sort of relationship by your body because you have no choice in the matter DOES suck.

gandalf23

#61, Yeah, I did read the linked article at the Advocate. And I just re-read it right now to make sure I didn’t miss anything the first time. Nothing there about what’s below his belt, which is why I asked.

I suppose that if you know, already, that most female to male transgendered people do not opt for having a phalloplasty added then I guess you can read between the lines in the article. But for those of us who did not know, how were we to know?

Which is why I asked for clarification and answers. Jeezzz, sorry, will not let that happen again. Sheesh.

Apparently I was misinformed because I thought that usually female to male transgenders had functioning phalli. I also thought that most male to female transgendered people had their penis’ removed and/or somehow through surgery turned in a vagina. Is that also wrong? I freely admit that everything I know about transgenders, up till some point yesterday, has come from CSI, Better Than Chocolate, Grey’s Anatomy/ER and maybe some other shows on tv. Oh, and talking to some people up in Trinidad, one of whom drew a truly horrifying diagram on a napkin of how a penis becomes a vagina. Yikes. That’s cool if it’s your thing, but it is sooo not mine.

UnfunnyIsBack

Frgt t Trs.

Y try nd stll hr.

“nd wht wll y d f xpln nd y dn’t lk th xplntn?”

Wh crs wht thnk!? Frdm f spch ds nt cm ftr cnsdrtn f ffnsv mtrl. r y s frd f wht wll thnk r d bcs f wht y wnt t sy? Tht knd f thnkng s ncnt nd chldsh.

Yr gdlns n frdm f spch r hlrs.

t’s nt cnsrng rght? t’s dsmvwllng!

t’s nt gncd. t’s rmvng!

Pthtc. Hd bhnd yr gdlns, s thrs wh gv y thr frndshp nd shr smlr pnns n ths blg, TKN ND NTNS, s tht thy my b mmn t th lmghty pwrs f th mdrtr. Knd lk hw th cps r gttng spcl prvlgs frm thr cps.

Y dsgr wth m s wht d y d, y cnsr m, cll t wht y wnt, ts cnsrng.

Ths knd f slctv-lbrl thnkng s nthng bt bckwrds stp nt th prgrssn f r frdms. Stp rnng th wrld.

Ths gdlns y hv mk dbtng n ny ncnvntnl wy mpssbl, t’s lk y’v cpd Bll ‘Rlly’s wy f dbtng. ssntlly, f hst th shw, wn.

Grw p, hnstly. hp yr mnd sn’t t st n stn t ths ds.

n clsng,

T/\K()/\N /\ND /\NT!N0()S /\R3 CH!LDR3N /\ND !NT3LL3CT()/\LLY !NF3R!0R T R3T/\RT3D M0NK3YS.

Nw wll cmplt trmntn f ths pst rgstr t y s cnsrng? hp s.

tgjerusalem

I wonder how full of a gender experience any transgender person can every truly get. Can a transgender man without a penis ever experience life exactly as a genetic male? Can a transgender woman ever experience life exactly as a genetic female without even having the capability to bear a child?

A large portion of general male psychology is about the penis, and for most women their reproductive ability and the experience of childbirth is a significant aspect of their understanding and experience of womanhood.

But there are many people, including but very certainly not limited to trans people, who are exceptions to this general rule. Trans men are not the only people who have to figure out a way to assert an identity *as* men despite a lack of a penis. Trans women are not the only women who could never bear a child.

Injury and disease rob many men of male genital anatomy. There are men born intersex, neither physically male nor female. Penile cancer is rare, but exists. And the phalloplasty procedure has actually experienced a sudden surge of demand – thanks to the Iraq war. When a man’s leg is blown off, there’s no magic shield protecting the slightly higher extremities. All men in such circumstances have to consider either the imperfect and mind-bogglingly expensive surgical options available (if they can even possibly afford them), or have to learn to live with a reality in which they do not have a penis, and yet are men anyway.

And with regards to the ability to bear children – most of the women in my immediate family will never be able to bear children. We have a very high rate of infertility, and as a result, all of my cousins are adopted. While my aunts would greatly love to have the capability to bear a child, they can’t, and barring medical advances they never will. This is not a particularly unusual situation.
Our experiences aren’t the same as those of cisgender (ie, not trans) people. But everyone’s experiences of their gender is different. A straight woman is not going to have the same experience of being a woman as a lesbian. My aunts will not experience womanhood or motherhood exactly the same way my mother did. A man who has to undergo castration and estrogen treatment (a common last resort to combat aggressive prostate cancer) is not going to have the same experience of being a man as the average guy.

But these differences do not invalidate a given individual’s status *as* a man or woman. Just different kinds of men and women.

Xopher

Village Idiot 37: If the technology existed, and you were willing to pay, why not? However, transexuals live full-time as their gender of choice for many years before having surgery, which some never do.

I suggest you begin taking dolphin hormones at once, and take to the ocean. When the born-dolphins stop noticing that you were born human and accept you as a dolphin, then you can have the surgery. It will be painful and expensive, especially having the blowhole installed, though I’m sure there are many here who’d be happy to give you a head start on that bit.

Diatryma

A note: we can’t assume a damned thing about whether this man is genetically female. Could be XX, could be XXY missing the SRY bit, could be XY missing the SRY bit, could be just plain X, could be a chimera– what would that mean for those who say that he is a woman and has to admit that, if tests were done and it was found that the reproductive structures were genetically different from the brain? Could be intersex of some sort, though I think the article would mention that. We can’t say he’s genetically a woman; I can’t say I’m genetically XX either.

At Wiscon a couple years ago, I heard a panel on sex, gender, various issues pertaining to nonbinary systems, and the subject of historical transgender people came up. There was a book or something about being transgender before it was possible to change the body, and how some people didn’t want to change their sex even when it became possible… but lived as if they had. Sex is biology, gender is society*. There’s Elizabeth Bear’s “This Tragic Glass” with kind of the same situation.

*hey look another false dichotomy.

Antinous

UnfunnyBoing,

So far all you’ve done as a BB commenter is to blow snot all over this thread. You’re not in a very good position to critique anyone else’s linguistic stylings.

Sister Y

I think the only logically consistent outcome of the position espoused in #259 (there is a position there, however inarticulate its expression – that is, some births are wrong because we think the child would not want to be born, its suffering would outweigh its utility) is #261, that is, in a sense every birth is wrong, because there’s some likelihood that the child would not wish to be born in every case.

Yet there’s a sense in which the right to procreate is seen as so central and important that it’s guaranteed without regard to the utilities of the situation. (As, perhaps, it should be.)

Not so with the right NOT to exist – if we conceive of it as a right at all.

june

Is there some reason why adoption wasn’t considered? I don’t understand people’s insistence on reproducing their own DNA, even in the face of hundreds of good reasons not to, when we’re all virtually identical anyway.

Jeff

I’m just looking forward to that “healthy glow” of pregnancy! “I’m so pretty, oh so pretty, oh so pretty and witty and knocked up…”

Takuan

come back one day

Belac

Is there some reason why adoption wasn’t considered? I don’t understand people’s insistence on reproducing their own DNA, even in the face of hundreds of good reasons not to, when we’re all virtually identical anyway.

Because the fact that you don’t understand it puts you in a very small minority. Even most people who don’t want their own genetic kids understand why the large majority does.

rani79

Since trans people are still discriminated against, I can see why adoption may be a more difficult option than home insemination. The adoption process usually requires a very detailed background check. This would turn up the fact that Thomas is trans, and it is more than likely he and his wife would be discriminated against…

With understanding, many aspects of life will be open to trans people, but we’re not there yet, unfortunately

UnfunnyBoing

D nt mstk crtcsm fr sprrty.

Ths wh try t cnvy sprrty n wrtng t mnmlz th pnns f thrs r jst s fll f “snt” s th rst f s.

s fr y, prhps t wld srv yr thghts bttr f thy rmnd nsd f yr hd.

Will The Thrill

I don’t know what the differences are for Thomas, nor where he draws his lines. Generalizations are all we can make.

But your point about “clinical” and thus science in general is one I’d like to make comment on.

There is science and there is religion/spirituality. (There are others, too, yes, but those are two major and seemingly opposing themes/forces.)

If a person can’t find a “reason” in science, they turn to theology/religion. If they can’t find a reason in theology/religion, they turn to science. What about those things that are both and yet neither?

We like to discredit anything that cannot be proven. Unless we’re of the mindset to *like* living in the grey areas, having faith, etc. We think that nothing which cannot be “proven” doesn’t have to be believed. And if something is “proven” we can’t disbelieve it. The problem there is interpretation.

Which is what all of us are doing. We are interpreting his motives, who he is, etc. We’re filtering it through our knowledge and experience base.

I, for one, don’t care what “clinical” definitions are or mean. I also don’t care what mental health professionals have deemed to be true or false, “right” or “wrong”. Why? Because they’ve been incorrect before. They’re human, just like the rest of us, using standards to interpret what’s going on.

The rest is all arguing semantics. Does removal or breast tissue change your sex? Where’s the line? Who makes the line? Why do they get to make the line, blah blah blah.

The only sadness I feel for this child is simply that people are so obsessed that the media will never leave the child alone. And so, before the parents have the chance to explain things to their child in a loving, understanding environment, we’re going to rip that away from them and point fingers of blame.

“And people are saying here that what was true back in the day is not always true now. Honey, when it comes to physiology, unless there’s some mutation that I don’t know about, a woman who was a woman in the 1500′s is still a woman in 2008.”

Yes, a woman who was a woman then would still be a woman today. That is, if she felt like one. If she knew herself and knew what it felt like to fit into one role or another.

Do you know WHY people transition, or have you missed that? Do you know WHY we see therapists? Do you think we go “wheeee! I’m going to go spend thousands of dollars and possibly die on the operating table!” for fun?

We take as many steps on our path of transition that we need to take to feel whole, and to feel like ourselves, and feel like we might actually fit in our own skin – finally. We do it so we don’t go crazy, hurt and even kill ourselves. We do all of it knowing that with every step we may lose everyone we ever loved, our jobs, housing, everything we have. No one takes that lightly, whatever you may think, and if someone who starts this path managed to not consider it, they got slapped in the face the first time they ask for the correct pronoun or new name.

So I guess your argument that he’s not really a transsexual because he didn’t have every surgery, or planned to maybe one day use his uterus, etc, is based on your understanding of what the definition of transgender/transsexual is. I can see the confusion. But like many definitions that change and add on, this one is not so black and white anymore. There are many different versions of us now. Being gay used to mean you were certifiably insane. Being Christian used to mean any number of things that we view as “bizzare” today. This is just “new” and is just getting recognition.

Takuan

good bye, unfunny, good bye

CastanhasDoPara

Some of this is truly sad. Why do we have to share this increasingly small planet with all of these close-minded, bigoted, flat-worlders. If only I believed in hell, I could rest assured tonight that some of these dim-whited, hate-mongers would be going there soon enough. And to all the trolls spewing all this vitriolic bullshit, FUCK OFF, if you don’t like it then go the hell away and stop bothering all of us rational human beings here in the real world.

Logical Extremes

“Unlike those in same-sex marriages, domestic partnerships, or civil unions, Nancy and I are afforded the more than 1,100 federal rights of marriage.”

What we really need is to separate marriage from the legal aspects. When will a political candidate have the guts to propose that full legal rights are afforded to all couples of a generously defined civil union / domestic partnership, and marriage is an optional thing, perhaps religious or spiritual, that can be done in whatever way the couple feels appropriate but is wholly separate from any legal recognition?

Will The Thrill

As a transman who may one day find himself in a situation where having the child instead of my girlfriend may be the best option, I found myself here reading this thread with pure dread. But I was so pleased – as was my girlfriend and friends – when I read the first 3/4ths of this thread. And then it all turned to crap.

And how am I supposed to understand people’s feelings when they don’t use vowels? I’m serious, I’ve tried to read those posts and I can barely make out half of it. I don’t even type that badly when using my blackberry. Were there any strong arguments that were made in those? Anyone want to interpret it for me? :)

UnfunnyIsBack

Tkn
s mch s y wnt t blv tht y r ntllgnc ncrnt, y r nthng mr thn nyn ls. S f y wsh t cll m mmtr, d s, bt dn’t ct lk y r bv vryn. f ths s yr tr prsnllty, fl srry fr nyn wh ntrcts wth y.

Kp gvng yr pnns hr, bddy, bcs ‘m sr th rsn y rmn n ths thrds s lng s bcs n th rl wrld, ys th wrld wtht thrnt cbls nd mnthly f fr prtcptn, y r frstrtd mn wh cnnt fnd t n hm t xprss hmslf wtht kybrd nd dctnry.cm.

G wy n dy.

meadhbh

@AnnoyedCapitalist…

Gender is actually a little more complicated than genetics. Having a Y chromosome doesn not make you male, as people with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome or Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia can tell you.

Having a SRY gene on a Y chromosome will in the vast majority of cases result in “maleness” but it is far from universal. And I think it’s the “corner cases” that we’re talking about here.

Do a google or wikipedia search on “intersex”.

Antinous

Unfunny,

You’re toting a lot of attitude for a first time poster. If you don’t like it here, don’t hang around on our account. Because we’re not about to shut up on yours.

jay radical

#54- This may seem laughable to you, but have you thought about it? The dr won’t treat him due to personal discomfort- it’s like those pharmacists who won’t dispense birth control pills to a woman they believe or assume isn’t married. What place is it for them to judge?

To address several other things:
-Being transgender has nothing to do with hating one’s gender. It’s more with feeling and being of another gender.

-Sexual identity is not defined by genitalia, nor is it a simple binary system. Far from it. Many biologists believe rather than two genders, we should be more on a scale of five genders. This man not having a penis has nothing to do with his identity. He says he’s a man, that is fine by me.

-I refer to someone how they prefer to be addressed. It’s not my judgment call. If I don’t know, I ask, the same way I would ask a professor what title they would like to be addressed as.

-It’s easy to say ‘oh, that kid is gonna have a messed-up life! that kid has weird parents! how could they do that to their child?’ A mother of color, a person with a disability, a parent who is ‘too young/too old’, all of these people have probably experienced discrimination for who they are and there have been programs from time to time that have sought to limit these people’s reproductive choices. If a mother of color is going to have a child, do we say ‘no, your child will have it too rough!’ or do we say ‘screw it if the naysayers have a problem, it’s the world that has to change’

Pro-choice. Your body, your decision.

Smjor

#7 – When will not wanting to breed be considered normal? Probably not ever. Propagation of the species is a biological imperative. That doesn’t mean that if you don’t want to breed you are wrong or broken somehow, but it is the norm. As a woman who has chosen not to breed, I am often frustrated by people’s lack of understanding regarding my choice, but I also get that it will always be considered unusual. We aren’t programmed to NOT breed, and it’s a good thing because we wouldn’t be here if we were.

#8 – There are a number of endocrine dysfunctions that can cause severely unbalanced hormones in women. Untreated, they can cause most or all of the effects that a transman would be shooting for with hormone therapy. Women who suffer from this often get treated and then go on to breed, without any more risk than other healthy women. I can see no reason why the same thing wouldn’t apply to a woman who purposely raised her testosterone levels artificially as to a woman whose testosterone level was raised because of a dysfunction within her body.

#16 – Did you read the article? It states pretty clearly exactly what he has going on in his pants.

#19 – I think that it is unlikely that he will breastfeed. I think it mentioned somewhere in the article that he had reconstructive chest surgery which would have removed much of the mammary tissue that produces milk. Even if he still has milk-producing mammary tissue it is possible (maybe even likely, don’t know, not a surgeon) that there would be scar tissue and other damage that might prevent breastfeeding. When doing a breast reduction (or removal) they often take the nipple off completely during the surgery and then sew it back on at the end, and I would assume this would interfere with getting the milk to and out of the nipple.

#32 – Even thought I think you are being purposely inflammatory and provoking, I will explain why you are way off the mark on this. A pronoun that references one’s gender identity is inherently more personal and sacred than a title like Dr. Your gender identity is not bestowed upon you by a university.

Addressing a transgendered person by their “genetic pronoun” is inconsiderate because that person has obviously chosen to identify as a different gender, does not want to be identified by their “genetic pronoun” and for you to continue to refer to him or her as such is showing no respect for his or her wishes. The concept of respect in this situation is not much different than if you told people that you preferred to be called by your middle name, but they insisted on calling you by your first. It’s not the end of the world, but it shows that those people have an inherent lack of respect for your choices.

#39 – You ask if a transgender male or female can ever experience life exactly as a genetic male or female. I think that this question is a non-starter, even if you take into account the ability to bear children or the lack thereof. There is no official male or female experience that biological men and women have. My experience as a female is different from the experience of every other woman on this planet. Because each of us has our own unique experience, it doesn’t make any sense to think that even if a transwoman could carry a child she would be given to having the same life experience as biological woman who can have children. Of course women and men have shared experiences within their genders, but that doesn’t mean we all understand everything about all the people who share our gender. As a childless woman, there are a lot of life experiences that my friends with babies have that I just can’t even begin to relate to. The unusual girl who had a hysterectomy early in her life doesn’t understand the experience of menstruation, but that doesn’t mean that her experience as a woman is less full.

UnfunnyBoing

ddn’t rlz tttd ws smthng rnd thrgh xprnc n th fld f cmmntry.

Myb m ttng s mch s tht m ntcd nd th bss gvs m prmtn.

Bt d nt wrry, wn’t hsh my pnns n th fc f thrts. Thn wldn’t rlly hv pnns :).

Takuan

Lullaby and good night
With roses bedight
With lilies bespread
Is baby’s wee head
Lay thee down now and rest
May thy slumbers be blessed
Lay thee down now and rest
May thy slumbers be blessed

UnfunnyBoing

ddn’t rlz tttd ws smthng rnd thrgh xprnc n th fld f cmmntry.

Myb m ttng s mch s tht m ntcd nd th bss gvs m prmtn.

Bt d nt wrry, wn’t hsh my pnns n th fc f thrts. Thn wldn’t rlly hv pnns :).

fightcopyright

All this discussion about rights and gender has me a little confused. On the one hand we have an emphasis on gender that is so strong that people are traumatized by it. But at the same time we maintain that gender really doesn’t make any difference.

So what about the gender identification needs of children? Is it such a radical idea to think that kids need both a mother and father? If someone wants to make their own lifestyle choices that’s one thing.

But to insist that gender is so essential to your identity that surgery is the only answer and then to claim that gender is so irrelevant to your children that it makes no difference seems like trying to have it both ways.

Antinous

Oyasuminasai.

Transgender man is pregnant

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