I don’t think anyone ever contested that this was scientifically interesting. It is unusual, though, because of its cultural shock value. You don’t often see a person who’s chosen to dress, behave, and identify as a male undergoing arguably the most traditionally female thing in the world.
Also, I don’t think people would be tripping on this so much if the guy didn’t look so much like a normal guy. Even though we all know he’s not a biological male, it’s just disconcerting for many people to see two gender binaries combined in a single person, which is what makes it interesting.
I agree. And I know nobody here is contesting the science. My problem is with the way that the tabloids have carried the story (at least in the main headlines) as if it is a scientific first, in other words - as if a man has become pregnant.
I hate when newspapers do things like this. People see the headline and they go off a tiny bit stupider than they were beforehand. With just about everything - they mislead with the big print, explain with the small print. I am against that whole aspect of news coverage. News is supposed to be information, fact.
p.s. My apologies astro for getting so heated in your thread.
And thanks Soapbox Monkey for defending me :). I am not a homophobe, just a little bit anal about science and semantics, and traditional use of language.
Lobsang, for what it’s worth, I completely agree with you. I don’t see this as newsworthy. It’s two people who love each other, one of whom has decided to have a child. Whoop-dee-shit, good for them, but hardly worthy of shocking headlines, you know?
But, then, I have a pretty pronounced distaste for stories that are done for nothing more than, as nevermore put it, cultural shock value. I mean, if these articles were going to go into some of the nuances of being transgendered, that would be one thing. But, right now, it seems to be nothing more than an excuse to post pictures that people would find intriguing.
Also interesting–the father was once a beauty queen. He obviously has pretty good bone structure, and a very nice frame; even as a woman, he had a handsome face. He passes well, and is an attractive man. I bet you dollars to fucking donuts though that, were the pregnant individual a man who, perhaps, didn’t pass as well, or a man who was, say, overweight or kind of dough-faced, then this story would be a complete and utter non-starter. Because, hey! No pictures for people to stare at!
((Edited to respond to Guin))
Well, I don’t think that astro personally gives much of a shit, but I think that he (IMHO correctly) assumes that individuals who have gone through SRS and hormone therapy (which is what I think he was referring to when he said “become transgendered”–poor choice of words, but I know what he meant) or even who are simply living full-time as the opposite gender without medical intervention, would prefer to be called by the gender that they live as, and not by their chromosonal affiliation. Ergo, he’s endeavoring to be proper and polite.
Immediate genetic studies were drawn and the child sent to the Children’s hospital for surgery. A little girl emerged from the surgery suite and she got girly-er with additional sugery. And she could pee.
I think the difference is between thinking you’re something and being it.
A person can think they’re a really lovely, generous person, for example, but actually be a bastard. Likewise a person who thinks they’re Napoleon Bonaparte may not actually think like Napoleon Bonaparte. The difference between thinking you are something and actually mentally being it.
Of course the two can look the same to us on the outside. That’s where it gets tricky. But I think there’s a difference between being something and thinking you are something. And I would say that while a person that just thinks they’re something is not, a person who truly thinks as that something pretty much is.
Wouldn’t help much. Chromosomes are just one component of what determines physiological sex and mental gender. There’s a whole battery of developmental cascades that do this, and just knowing the karyotype wouldn’t tell you if the child has developmentally skewed to one side or the other.
It’s not at all unheard of for a woman to come see her Ob/Gyn about a lack of menstruation or inability to conceive, and find out that she’s actually XY.
EDIT: But clearly it helped in this case, sorry for jumping the gun Cyn. :smack:
I’m pretty sure this is at least in part a tongue-in-cheek reference to a Sunday Sport ‘story’ of bygone years, up there with the WW2 bomber found on the moon.
Judith: [on Stan’s desire to be a mother] Here! I’ve got an idea: Suppose you agree that he can’t actually have babies, not having a womb - which is nobody’s fault, not even the Romans’ - but that he can have the right to have babies.
Francis: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother… sister, sorry.
Reg: What’s the point?
Francis: What?
Reg: What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies, when he can’t have babies?
Francis: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
Reg: It’s symbolic of his struggle against reality.[right]Monty Python’s Life of Brian[/right]
Stranger
Though biologically female, we call him a man because, A, he wants to be called a man. B, he fits into our gender binary as a man. What else would we call him? I guess we could say “female-to-male transsexual person”, and that would be less confusing, but then he probably wouldn’t have agreed to make any appearances or have his story told.
Generally, when people go to all the trouble to change their gender, they want to be treated fully as that gender and called by their preferred nouns/pronouns. Sure, having a child is an unusual choice to make in his circumstances, but he still walks/talks/looks like a dude to me and prefers to be called one, so I’m not gonna be the one to stand on some bullshit principle and call him “she”.
But he identifies himself as a guy. He’s taking hormone treatments and suchlike to become a guy. He wants to be a guy–he believes himself to be a man, in a woman’s body–so why the insistence he’s still a ‘she’ because he wants to carry a child?
In the words of mine that you have quoted - I am insisting that he is a she biologically. Nothing short of an actual scientific anomaly will make that basic fact untrue.
The fact that he has taken steps to become a man is not really relevant to my argument - Biologically ‘he’ is female and the newspapers which say ‘pregnant man’ are misleading (deliberately).
I am not saying he is in the wrong by wanting to become male, and taking steps to become male. Hell if it were scientifically possible for a person born completely male to bear children then I’d have no argument in this thread. He was born female - that is scientifically fundemental, and his maleness is more cultural/personal than scientific.
But what makes a person completely 100% biologically female? The person still has female genitalia, but if he’s taking hormone therapy and so forth to remove other secondary sexual characteristics, does that make him less female? Can you be 100% completely female or male?
His gender is male, his sex is female. Any arguing beyond that is a misunderstanding of the difference between sex and gender.
I personally think it’s a little weird, and probably done to get attention, and the people who act all giddy and sooo happy for them and insist on pretending they’re sooo normal are pandering and being disingenuous - BUT - I have no problem with the fact that someone biologically capable of having a baby is having a fuckin’ baby. It just shouldn’t be news.
I’m torn between continuing down this road of debate, and backing out apologising for starting off badly - only to explain myself too late in the game. (my original post in this thread was only meant to express my annoyance at the tabloid headlines I’d seen today)
I could have been more specific about what my objections were in the beginning. I apologise for not being.
In answer to your question: Yes I accept that there are ‘levels’ of how female/male someone is… but I have a hard time thinking of a born female who has made every effort to ‘become’ male as more male than female. As a scienticifally thinking person I can’t help but consider the fundementals (what sex you were born as, what sexual organs you posess naturally, your gender-related abilities -such as being able to bear children) to be more important than culture/personal/psychology.
