He's Having A Baby

An Oregon man who used to be a woman says he is pregnant with a baby girl. Does that mean there's one or two baby showers?

Thomas Beatie's story appears in the upcoming issue of The Advocate, a Los Angeles-based magazine for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people. Like you didn't know. According to the story, Mr. Beatie was born a woman but decided to become a transgender male and legally changed his sex to male. He had his breasts surgically removed and started bimonthly testosterone injections, but kept his vagina. Because wanting to be a man shouldn't get in the way of having a vagina.

Now identifying as male, Mr. Beatie legally married Nancy Beatie. The pair wanted a biological baby but Ms. Beatie was unable to carry a child...so they decided Mr. Beatie would carry the child.

"How does it feel to be a pregnant man," Mr. Beatie writes in the article. "Incredible. Despite the fact that my belly is growing with a new life inside me, I am stable and confident being the man that I am. In a technical sense I see myself as my own surrogate, though my gender identity as male is constant. To Nancy, I am her husband carrying our child ... I will be my daughter's father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family."

Before getting pregnant he stopped injecting testosterone, and his body "regulated itself after about four months," he writes in the Advocate piece. One year and nine doctors later, the couple got access to a cryogenic sperm bank and purchased anonymous donor vials for a home insemination. Without the aid of fertility drugs, progesterone or exogenous estrogen, Mr. Beatie got pregnant, he says. But the pregnancy was ectopic, and rarer still, with triplets. After surgery, Mr. Beatie lost all his embryos and his right fallopian tube.

But the second pregnancy has been a success, writes Mr. Beatie: "We are happily awaiting her birth, with an estimated due date of July 3, 2008."

While the tale could not be independently confirmed, an editorial assistant at the magazine verified the pregnancy with Mr. Beatie's gynecologist. Oh, unidentified gynecologist - that's reliable. She said a photo on the site of a shirtless, heavily pregnant man sprouting facial hair is indeed Mr. Beatie.

Yesterday, the couple-- who run a T-shirt printing company called Define Normal -- refused to tell their story, citing U.S. deals with TV and print media outlets.

"It's a big deal and we want to be able to tell our story...We'd love everybody on board as long as they're understanding and are going to tell our story and not their own."

Mr. Beatie writes in The Advocate that "wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire.

"Our situation ultimately will ask everyone to embrace the gamut of human possibility and to define for themselves what is normal."

Anybody want to buy a bridge in Brooklyn?

If you believe The Advocate is going to break the story of the year, guess again. Nice April Fools issue. What's really for discussion is the idea of gender, marriage, and parenthood. There are too many holes in the story to believe it, but the attempt to spur thought is what they are going for, not accuracy. Like a gender reassignment and years of hormone therapy that are not mentioned...because all that testosterone and lack of fertility aids that "Mr. Beatie" took wouldn't allow of an easy, natural conception. Or still have that facial hair. Overlook all that and you can try and pontificate the societal ramifications of it all.

Gender role are in flux and the revolutionary moment will be when a "man" has a baby - but that could be be years or decades away from being any sort of reality. Y - The Last Man touched on it, Junior made fun of it, but there are transsexuals already blurring the line of male and female. Take Buck Angel, a female to male transsexual. He kept his vaj, but went quite seriously towards becoming a man. He has done plenty of porn, and famously appeared in a sex scene with Allanah Starr, a male to female transsexual who kept her junk. As you can see, they both look the part, but they have a little surprise in their pants. I have seen some crazy things in my life, but one that stands out as the craziest is watching the two of them fuck. It's pretty mindbending.