to be confused? Transgender pregnancy.

[troisgarcons]

In the papers today.

In short, a woman commences the transgender process into a man. She becomes/lives as a gay man. But keeps her womb and overies. Stops taking her medication, gets pregnant (deliberately) by her gay male lover.

I'm a bit lost here. Clearly she isn't a man? And I have to ask where the gay male boyfriend thought the was popping his sausage?

Lesley33 I can't imagine that sort of surgery is cheap, and it can be very difficult getting a job when you are trans, let alone getting sick leave for your surgery, plus it is very risky operation.

I think it's a bit dubious having a hierarchy of how male or female you are depending on surgery, it's disempowering to the person, who for many reasons may not be able to access that surgery.

troisgarcons - why on earth was your father asked about sexual orientation in the hospital? Surely non of their business.

No idea - it was the whole, name, address, age, next of kin, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, religeon, dietry needs, allergies - it was just an obsurd question to ask someone. It was a whole tick box exercise in PCness I suppose upon admission.

The facility for it is in our data base at work though - sexual orientation - although its quite obviously NOT included in the parental update forms. So clearly who ever wrote the programme thought it was a important. It's a blank box BTW incase anyone thinks school staff go around willy-nilly updating school records.

You can't make new gonads, that's impossible. Nor can you make breasts, penises or vaginas. They come with the body we're born with or not at all. The articificial ones are like my whittled orange tree as a carrot example. Not real, cosmetic.

You can only change hormones in your body artificially.

Who has xx chromosomes and a penis, I've never heard of that one. But there are a very small number of intersex people. People who don't fit into the xx-ovaries category or xy-testes category are intersex (which has nothing to do with trans).

Birds - Thanks for mentioning Two Spirit people.

Many cultures have more then a gender binary, it's not a new thing.

Of course you can make breasts, and vaginas and penises. How arrogant are you to decide that man made ones are not real?

Have you never heard of gender reassignment surgery? Look up things like metoidioplasty and phalloplasty.

Perhaps you should ask yourself why you have a need to tell other people they are not what they think they are, that you know better?

Nyack - actually having an indeterminate gender at birth is more common then you might think, but many intersexed cases were brushed under the carpet. People were quickly (and often wrongly) assigned a sex and left to get on with it.

Cultures who traditionally don't have a gender binary also have pretty strict gender roles e.g. India. Having more than 1 gender allows those who don'tfit into this strict gender role to have an alternative. But it is noticeable that traditionally it is only men who have this option.

Lesley- that isn't exactly the case in Native American life, or every people's and it depends on what time you go back to.

I just wanted to make the point that as we became "more civilised" sexuality and gender became rigid, that hasn't always been the case. The gender roles, like everything else, became a social construct.

When we were more spiritual the physical body did not define "us".

There were "sworn virgins" in some of the Balkan Countries who lived as men and I'm sure there have been transferred people throughout history.

Silly autocorrect *trans

Yes there have been women who lived as men and dressed as men throughout history e.g. joan of arc - but this is not the same as claiming they are a third gender.

tbh my personal opinion is that if transgendered people want surgery, want to be seen as a particular gender, etc, then thats fine and we should be accepting of that. After all it makes no difference to the rest of us. But what I can't accept is some of the "explanations" that we are asked to swallow.

I would be happier with - no-one really knows why people feel this way, but surgery, etc does make people generally happier.

If you're definition is XY chromosome, then what are you going to do with the hundreds of people in the UK who are Male with XX ?

YABU to think your school biology defines a complicated situation - it's dumbed down.

Transgendered people are not a third gender, as such, because usually they define themselves as male or female.

Transgender people are mentioned throughout history, in some cultures they were killed very quickly, so the whole thing wasn't as explored as it could have been.

Because the some cultures didn't box off sexuality, there was no need to try to explain it.

Do we really think that spinster women, or men who were good to their mothers lived together in same gender couples, just for company?

You know I have always thought it is impossible to look back at history and say this person was a lesbian, or was transgendered, or bisexual. We just don't know. And certainly many lesbians who did identify in the 50's as lesbian swore mens clothes.

The third gender was in response to a comment about how traditionally some cultures don't have a strict binary role. I do understand the definition of transgender.

"But what I can't accept is some of the "explanations" that we are asked to swallow. "

Why do you need any explanations at all? Why is it your business how other people identify themselves?

I think I made it clear that people can identify themselves however they want and I think as society we should be accepting of this. However I have been told by a number of transgendered people and read as well about explanations that are presented as fact that are I think rubbish.

Like what?

I have a MTF friend who did this. His partner had cancer and couldn't have children so he stopped taking hormones and carried the baby. He always was a bit eccentric

Like it is caused by a miswiring in the brain which means that for example although a person's physical body is male, their brain is female.

Do we really think that spinster women, or men who were good to their mothers lived together in same gender couples, just for company?

Just refering to the female element here, It's too late (at night) to google, but I have read there were a larger than normally proportionate amount of 'lesbian' relationships post WW1, due to the lack of males in society. The women of that age group had no alternative for comfort/relationships to turn to each other. \However, given an equal playing field where a generation of men hadn't been removed, they wouldnt have entered into same-sex relationships. I suppose one could probably apply that to any same sex arena today - prison, armed services, that there are pseudo comforting same sex relationships which may not reflect your true orientation.

I just find it a total non story. Person with ovaries, womb and vagina gets pregnant on purpose. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff. So what if the person in question has had their breasts removed and dresses like a man, they still have femal reproductive organs so it is no great shakes that they can reproduce in the usual female way. Why are they printing this crap?

I think thats true. The truth is as well we don't know how many of those were sexual and how many really were friends living together for companionship.