I'm confused - pregnant man

[PrettyCandles]

www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2008/07/04/noindex/nmanbirth.xml

Surely this person is still a woman?

How can you define yourself as a man if you can bear children? That ability is unique to women.

Genetically female
Physiologically female
Emotionally male
Socially male

But the above is still a gross over-simplification I suspect.

agree

am getting cross at the man gives birth headlines

the person has fully functioning uterus and ovaries, ffs....

A WOMAN (who wants to look like a man)

Message withdrawn

But this person is 'legally' male.

I wonder how thta works. In an article elsewhere they say that you don't have to have your reproductive organs removed in order to become male. So how is a male defined, by law?

attention seeking perhaps

I meant to say "in order to become a differen
t gender"

Emotionally male

He feels like a male. He *feels like he is a male in a female body - oor at least he did pre-surgery.

Actually on reflection...maybe the best description is the legal one....transgender

Does it matter? PrettyCandles, it sounds like you are getting all territorial over giving birth. Who cares how 'male' is legally defined. This person has become a parent - jolly good for them.

No, I am genuinely confused. This sort of thing distorts my view of the world, and how we fit in it. One day I'm probably going to have to discuss these issues with my children.

A story about a man breastfeeding a baby wouldn't bother me. I'd say "fantastic", but that's because men are physiologically able to breastfeed, just as women are physiologically able to ejaculate. It's nothing to do with choosing to change gender yet retain the original gender at the same time.

Anyway, why shouldn't I be territorial about giving birth. Only a female can give birth.

Not really true PC

You could technically grow a placenta/fetus on any living tissue, I believe, but obviously the uterus is best designed for the job

And how a man or woman is defined varies - genetics, genitalia, social conditioning ... ?

I find his desire for publicity a little odd but I think that about anyone who courts press attention for their personal lives!

I adisagree about the publicity thing. I thought he was doing the interviews etc because they recognised that there would be public attention and this way they had their say and their personal take on it considered.

I am a big believer in fate and this seems quite fitting in a way from the little I can glean from it all. Very happily married couple, wife unable to concieve after a hysterectomy but both very very keen to create a family together. What a wonderful unexpected twist for them to be able to have the father carry their baby for them thanks to his medical past. Wow.
Good luck to them both.
I agree that it is a little confusing with all our long term little mental "boxes" of what is a "daddy" and what is a "mummy" - but if people find it tricky to get their heads round, it is not this particular couple?s problem! I suspect many of the potential "objecters" and quietly horrified or disapproving people out there may find that their real issues are about themselves and not this couple at all if they are honest about it: "I" am confused "I" find it weird, what am "I" going to tell my children when confronted with transgender issues etc etc etc So often with these types of things (if there is a "type" LOL) people?s worries and concerns are about themselves and the fear of their own "world" of ideas being challenged and threatened.

I truly hope that they are able to overcome any prejudice/issues that society or media chuck at them and are able to raise a happy and emotionally settled family.

There are quite a large number of chromosomal and hormonal conditions which cloud the male/female dichotomy though aren't there? Some people would view it as a dimensional thing perhaps? And that doesn't even take into account social constructs of gender. Tricky thing, classification.

at least he won't get flamed for not breastfeeding

he has a pretty good excuse.

I mean, relying on biological definitions of sex and gender fails to give the whole picture.

Have they booked the kid in for therapy yet?

I would imagine he/she will need it.

I suppose s/he didn't really want to be a man if s/he kept her plumbing intact. Sorry that it is raining on their parade and not toeing the pc line but seriously, did they think this through properly? On what impact it would have on the child?

This whole transgender thing just passes me by. I was asked on a job application if I was male/female/transgender and got so fed up I wrote - which one would get me the job?

Dittany -"Most people do fit very neatly into either male or female. Exceptions don't make a rule."
Well, perhaps most people do fit somewhere on to a very wide spectrum of gender alignment / identification, there is a huge range of how far people subscribe to 'femininity' or 'masculinity', millions who cross boundries, transvestites, 'butch' homosexuals of both sexes and the opposite, all sorts of hormonal, physical, psychological extremities either side of fitting neatly into the middle average. So what if most people are within a certain section of a spectrum? What does that man for those who fit further along? You brought limbs into it - yes, 'most' people have most of the expected quota of limbs - that doesn't man thos without are NOT human beings. 'Human beings' encompasses the most typical as well as the least typical.

'Had uncomfortable gender alingnment issues (hardly an unheard of condition), decided to go with feelings rather than biological kit, then found that desire to be a parent was stronger than need to remain entrenched in all the usual constructs of chosen gender alignment so toothe pragmatic solution' sounds very simple to me, really.

I hope the children are OK. But when I was a child people used to say 'it's the children I feel sorry for' about children in inter-racial relationships, now it's children wih two Mums, or Dads...and of course, the children are usually just fine as long as they feel secure and loved with their primary attachment.