'Pregnant man' on Doctor Who

[junebedford82]

Anyone catch this? Sounds like usual BBC bollox. Insulting to women.

www.dailystar.co.uk/showbiz-tv/hot-tv/740560/Doctor-Who-tonight-pregnant-man

I'm so bored of Ryan and Yazz. Yazz is completely pointless
They do seem terrible companions so far. Ryan's gran seemed the most interesting character but didn't make it past the first episode.

Did anyone else get scared of the giant spiders?
No, but I was surprised and disappointed the Doctor didn't mention having been killed by spiders in a previous episode.

I’m old enough to remember the giant maggots. They lived in an old coal mine too.

Ryan's gran seemed the most interesting character but didn't make it past the first episode.

She'd have been too strong a character for an ensemble.

I’m expecting Chris Noth to come back as a bigger villain - possibly President - before the seasons out.

I think this as well, I think the whole episode was set up for this

I was properly rantingly outraged that the doctor seemed to be doing religion at the end. WTAF and NONONONO STOP IT

I actually think this was more to do with respect, based on the fact that they are both mentioned in the same book, the doctor had a volume

I wondered if it would annoy me, but it didn't. It was very clear about human sex and reproduction. The whole series has been pretty clear on it to be honest. So no issues with it. My dd is enjoying series as is ds.

I didn’t find the pregnant man thing insulting to women, it being fictional and very clear about being an alien etc.

I did think that the (exo)biology didn’t stack up very well. And it is an interesting thought experiment - what would a society be like where men gestate males and women gestate females?

My main bugbear with that episode was that if this civilisation has long range teleports (the promise is that when they get back to the space station they can easily teleport back to where the Tardis is), why are they bothering with spaceships at all?Why are they not just teleporting everyone everywhere?

current threads:
International WPATH conference discussion of possibility of implanting uteruses:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3414279-Can-we-talk-about-WPATH

Fox & Owl produced video:
OP SignMeUp wrote:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxMcGRZCz24

"70 year old and 11 year old transgender conversation. Both lovely people I'm sure. It's heartbreaking watching the younger fucking validating the elder with kindness, while they are literally wring their hands and smiling for the camera.
The part that infuriates me: Old Josie says "Who knows what miracle technology can bring. Maybe one day it will be possible for you to have your own baby. I always think that's a possibility. That's what I dream for."
Young Poppy, no doubt affirmed into sterilization soon, just nods,
Perhaps you'll get one of the uteri that transmen don't want... "

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3414624-Josie-and-Poppy-video-Longing-for-a-Magdalen-style-take-down

I’m old enough to remember the giant maggots. They lived in an old coal mine too.

Me too. In Wales. The Green Death.

Spiders?

Seeds of Doom when TB regenerated.

Wish they'd repeat that.

I haven't seen it so I'm basing this purely on the discussion here, but like a PP, I don't quite understand the premise. If everyone could have babies (so they can do sperm/eggs?) then why would they have anything like a concept of male or female?

UK Gold used to repeat the classic series regularly. All the surviving episodes are available on DVD and some of the ‘lost’ episodes have been released as animations using the original soundtracks. All the soundtracks survive because fans used to tape them off-air in pre-video days.

‘Women’s libbers’ (as they were then) rarely rose above the feisty reporter type (though I lived Sara Jane’s ‘’There’s nothing ‘only’ about being a girl’’) but Liz Shaw from the early Jon Pertwee stories was a Cambridge scientist and Tom Baker had the ‘savage’ Leela as a kick-ass companion.

It wasn’t all screaming, fainting and twisted ankles.

NopeNi the idea was that for this alien species, men have male babies only and women have female babies only. Both female and male are needed to get pregnant. So still two sexes needed for reproduction, but both with (presumably) an equal chance of getting pregnant.

I haven't seen it so I'm basing this purely on the discussion here, but like a PP, I don't quite understand the premise. If everyone could have babies (so they can do sperm/eggs?) then why would they have anything like a concept of male or female?

That’s what I don’t get. And because there’s only of these aliens in the show we have absolutely no idea how their society is organised.

There was a 70s episode called The Robits of Death which was set on a mining vehicle. We never actually saw their home planet but we saw enough of their culture to see that it was egalitarian as regard to sex and race - but built entirely on exploitation of robots.

That’s what makes science fiction interesting: not the gadgets and fancy ideas but how those gadgets and fancy ideas shape society.

This episode had the fancy idea but didn’t explore how it would shake society.

Anyone read Anne Leckie’s books? She’s done a series about a culture that doesn’t have gender. It’s quite well thought through, and when the lead character does encounter a society with gender she’s* baffled by it. Being able to see gender from the outside gives us a better understanding of just how it is culturally constructed rather than a biological given.

*I say ‘she’ because all the characters are referred to as ‘she’ although formal titles such as ‘Lord’ are all male.

Agreed about the spiders.

I was moved by the Rosa Parks episode but if they could teleport the baddy away, why didn't they earlier.

I think it's clunky. I'm so sad about it

NopeNi the idea was that for this alien species, men have male babies only and women have female babies only. Both female and male are needed to get pregnant. So still two sexes needed for reproduction, but both with (presumably) an equal chance of getting pregnant

That still doesn't make sense. If both "sexes" can get pregnant the distinction between the "sexes" is nothing more than physical appearance.

I know it’s a kid’s programme (yes it is, and I’m a fan) but the subject of menstruation is overlooked too. Just... how?

Male seahorses have ‘brood pouches’ to incubate their young. They don’t get ‘pregnant’ in the sense this character did.

I would assume that there is a difference in the gametes produced by each sex, and maybe some difference in how they gestate.

Apologies wrong regeneration. It was JP to TB, planet of spiders

If both "sexes" can get pregnant the distinction between the "sexes" is nothing more than physical appearance.

No - the distinction is the gametes (and probably mating behaviour). Think about birds, in which neither sex can get pregnant but in some species they share incubating the eggs - it's not the gestation stage which differentiates the sexes. Some are almost identical in appearance, others very different. But still, in all cases, they're males and females.