A “man” by definition cannot become pregnant. It’s physically impossible. This person is a biological woman undergoing various treatments to make themself more masculine, while still retiaining the capacity to carry a child.
If a biological man or woman has gone to the extreme effort of transgendering themselves I think they are due the respect of being greeted and treated under the gender they have chosen regardless of their genetic origin. However, if someone, like the person in the article wants to be a bearded man, and yet still carry a child like a woman I have some degree of difficulty in considering this person to be a “man” in either a social or physical sense. There’s a bit too much of the wanting your cake, and eating it too in that context.
You’ve reminded me of the other thing I meant to put into the minirants thread…
SHE IS NOT A MAN!
I realize you can be loose with definitions sometimes. But what irks me is tabloid newspapers making such a big fuss about a ‘pregnant man’ as if, for the first time, the laws of biology have broken down and OMG-WTF-BBQ A MAN HAS GOT PREGGERS. At best it’s a pregnant woman who looks like a Man and wishes she was one.
What’s next, are we going to have to feel guilty for saying somebody who thinks he’s a tree isn’t, in fact, actually a tree?
If someone mentally thinks they are Napoleon Boneparte, are they?
Edit: To my literal-thinking brain - Biology trumps psychology. A man who is mentally a woman is logically a man in my eyes.
He’s a man. Emotionally, psychologically, presentationally, societally and legally he’s a man. He happens to be a man who has the internal physiology to bear a child. He and his wife had the choice of putting the wife through a series of expensive and invasive treatments with little likelihood of success or utilizing his physiology to bear a child who is related to them. Why does it bother you?
Politics are changeable. Biology is much, much slower to change.
I’m an OB/GYN RN at a large high-risk birthing center and California. I’ve helped deliver babies and have been witness to several flat amazing events. One such event was featured on Maternity Ward, a reality show on The Learning Chanel. A child of indeterminate sex was born. There was much talk afterward in the media of choice and gender assignment. Waiting for the child to mature enough to make a choice as to which sex to be. Politics and politeness don’t take into account that if this child didn’t void urine effectively, this child didn’t survive, and genitals are not just sexual organs.
I believe the point of breakdown has now been reached.
Not only that, but this is the second thread I’ve noticed which astro has started regarding something that’s already been discussed to death in a long thread. Having trouble keeping up, darlin’?
But ‘‘man’’ isn’t just a word defining a person’s biological sex. It carries cultural connotations too–gender. A person may be biologically male, but that’s different than saying he is a man. Gender identity can be divorced from physiology. When we say this is a ‘‘pregnant man’’ we have come to an interesting convergence of the two different concepts. It would be more accurate to say this man is biologically a female.
I do agree that the article itself is misleading because it implies a male is pregnant.
ETA: Just realized Lobsang is a dude. :eek:
Biologically, a gay couple cannot conceive a child together. Are you going to use this as logic that gay people shouldn’t be parents together?
Really? You serious about that? Because, you know, you might actually end up researching the case and hearing his story and even becoming sympathetic to him as a human being…
So, I’m waaay late to the party. Is this one of those ‘If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a noise?’ arguments?
To me, gender/biology are seperate. Biologically, she’s a woman. Gender-wise, he’s a man, because gender implies so much more culturally and psychologically than simple genetics. What’s so difficult to understand?
If a Gay couple want to use a surrogate womb or adopt, or any other possible way to become parents I have no problem with that. I’m not homophobic. I just have a problem with how loose people are getting with definitions.
I am not unsympathetic. I just don’t have to research the case to KNOW that she is biologicaly a Woman (How else could she be pregnant?)
Bolding mine. THIS is what I have the problem with! I don’t have a problem with the person in the story, I have a problem with the sensationalism headline variants on “A MAN IS PREGNANT” In all realistic common everyday definitions of the word ‘MAN’ a MAN isn’t pregnant. A Woman who happens to be psycologically, legally, male, and male in appearance is pregnant.
In pregnancy - the most important thing is biology - In biological terms it is a WOMAN that is pregnant - hence completely normal - not as newsworthy as a MAN is pregnant. (Which if a biological, born with a penis, and no womb - MAN got pregnant, would be a story)
