There has been much hoo-ha about the "pregnant man" who has now had another baby.

Check this amazing YouTube video of the first pregnancy.

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No man has become pregnant. Initially with the first baby, people suspected a hoax. In fact, Beatie is a reproductively normal woman, who has been partially mutilated so as to resemble a man, who has become pregnant.

Suspicions of a hoax grew last year when Fox News revealed that the story of the first baby was allegedly bound by a confidentiality agreement with media companies, ending on April Fool's Day 2008 (maybe this was just an unfortunate coincidence). Still there he was after April 1, on the Oprah Winfrey Show, in the flesh.

Summary of the case in 2008
Widely reported, and with details apparently confirmed in a major article in the US gay magazine The Advocate, the claimed facts are these: a woman chose ten years ago to have partial gender reconstruction to become able to claim the legal status of male, so as to be able to marry her female partner, otherwise not allowed by the state in which they lived.

But instead of having the usual surgery that would precede a claim for legal status as male, she chose only to have her breasts removed, and to take major doses of male hormones, so as to induce facial hair. Usually, there would have been a removal of the uterus and ovaries, too.

I am curious that a mere mastectomy and hormone therapy was sufficient to be able to be legally declared male, when the person remained female both genitally and genetically. But the law in their state of Oregon, for instance, merely states that the person shall have had sex changed "by a surgical procedure" without definition of which procedure.

It appears, then, that the motivation for the only partial surgery was not the urge of a genuine transsexual to change their body to a form that feels more right with their own sense of gender identity (usually described as "feeling like a man trapped in a woman's body") but the wish to do just sufficient to comply with local laws so that a primarily lesbian woman could legally marry her lesbian lover. The patient is quoted as emphasising very clearly the wish to qualify for the "more than 1 100 federal rights of marriage".

The "female" spouse was unable to carry a child: she had had a hysterectomy due to endometriosis 20 years beforehand. Thus the "male" spouse, while retaining the claim to be legally male, stopped taking hormones until menstruation resumed. It then appears that ovulation wasn't on track, so there had to be an egg donation (according to some sources) followed by artificial insemination with another donor's sperm. Several fertility doctors declined to accept the couple as patients, so in the end it was a do-it-yourself insemination. A previous attempt had led to an ectopic pregnancy with triplets, and thus a miscarriage at some risk, and with the loss of a Fallopian tube.

In quotes, Thomas (born Tracy) Beatie sounds angry, at doctors who refused to help the pregnancy along, and at friends and family who have not supported them. Most of his spouse's family don't know he is transgender. When I read his comment about how he's "confident being the man I am", I can't help recalling the quaintly clumsy cross-dressing pair in Little Britain, always referring to themselves as being "ladies".

The rights and wrongs of having kids
"I'm a person and I have the right to have a biological child," he has announced. Not so. Having a biological child is not a human right. Maybe others have a very limited right (or ability) to interfere with your ability to have a child in the natural way, but you cannot insist on any right to have a biological child under all imaginable circumstances, especially if it might be at the expense of others.

Nor is it reasonable to demand the eager technological co-operation of doctors and others in order to remove obstructions you chose to place there, or to serially revise your biological and gender status as you change your mind. There is no right to artificial insemination, or egg donation, even though there are many circumstances in which it appears right and just.

The rights of the child
Above all, I am severely troubled by the way such declarations wholly ignore the rights of the child. How can you insist on a right to "have" another human being, without straying firmly into the territory of slavery?

A child must never be treated as a fashion accessory and not as an ego accessory either, and certainly not as a political tool. Why, simply because these issues lie within the gender and reproductive area, should we assume different expectations? I would like a Rolls-Royce and chauffeur - I might find that at least as satisfying as someone else would find having a biological child. But I wouldn't claim that I have a right to the Rolls, nor expect others to arrange for me to have one. There is something profoundly selfish in this degree of insistence so solely on what you want, and in so comprehensively ignoring the potential impact on others, especially on the child.

The rights of doctors
Beatie was rude about a doctor who apparently refused to become involved in carrying out his wishes, after properly referring the issues to an ethics committee and asking him to see a psychologist, an entirely correct procedure.

We tend, fortunately, to hear more about patients' rights, these days. But we seem to forget that doctors and nurses have rights, too, and are not required to be unthinking and uncritical servants, to do our bidding irrespective of whether they think it would be safe or good for us, or whether they consider what is requested to be ethically or morally wrong.

The issue of abortion is a relevant example. Many people have understandably strong views on this subject, and a strongly argued moral, ethical, or religious case can be made out for and against abortion. But most sensible and ethical laws on the subject allow for doctors and nurses to refuse to take part in such procedures, if to do so would violate their personal moral and religious beliefs. We always need to be vigilant against allowing the expression of one person's claimed "rights" to trample someone else's equally dear sense of rights.

In cases such as this recently over-publicised one, any doctor has an absolute right not to agree to help, and indeed, if seriously and reasonably concerned about potential risks to the foetus and infant, may be ethically required to refuse. It is not discrimination for a doctor to refuse to take part in such procedures.

Curious issues
One wonders about the motivations involved, not in the pregnancy itself, but in so carefully publicising it. With the birth of the second baby, matters have been no less seceretive. Presumably this could all have been done in secrecy, as even current neighbours are now quoted as saying they don't believe the reports of a pregnancy.

I note that the couple apparently run a T-shirt company called "Define Normal". They were formerly gay rights advocates with an apparent emphasis on the rights of gay couples to adopt. I find that interesting. Could this be, as some have suggested, a publicity stunt?

According to several reports, Thomas Beatie isn't the first man to have a baby, and another American, Matt Rice, gave birth to a son, Blake, in October 1999. He and his partner, both transgender males, apparently decided to become parents by using donor sperm, after side-effects led to Rice stopping taking testosterone for a few years. But I find remarkably little material about this family accessible on the web.

Whatever reality underlies the story, so many interesting questions are raised: where does your sex and gender lie? In your anatomy, in your genes, or in your internal psychological concept of yourself? Where do the limits lie to the duty of medicine and individual doctors helping someone to achieve their desires to revise the form and physical capabilities nature provided for them? If such elaborate and curious choices are allowed and enabled, shouldn't one stick with the natural consequences of the choices you have made?

We must neither neglect nor exaggerate the rights of homosexuals and similar variations of the usual; and we may not insist that doctors must, willy-nilly, carry out the instructions of their patients.

(Professor M.A. Simpson, aka CyberShrink, April 2008)

References include:
The Advocate, Issue 1005, April 8, 2008
Pregnant man: truth or hoax? Julie Mccaffrey Mirror.Co.Uk 29/03/2008

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	hermaphrodites. See the Contradiction 2009/06/10 01:46:16 PM HIS/HER MOTHERS VAGINA AND HIS' HER FATHERS PENIS TO GROW UP ' NORMALLY"  JUST ILLUSTRATES THE BIGOTED NATURE THT PERSISTS IN SOCIETY. AND YES, IT IS POSSIBLE TO BE BORN GENETICALLY MALE AND BE ANATOMICALLY FEMALE.. THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH SOCIETY, NOT WITH SOMEONE WHO SIMPLY WANTS TO HAVE A CHILD, AS ANY PERSON WOULD. IF THIS PERSON WANTS CHIILDREN FOR THE WRON REASON, THEN I AGREE THAT IT IS WRONG, BUT PEOPLE HAVE KIDS FOR THE WRONG REASONS ALL THE TIME. - CHRIS   hermaphrodites. See the Contradiction 2009/06/10 01:51:47 PM WHAT IS THE BIG ISSUE ABOUT GENDER ANYWAY, DO PEOPLE SUUDENLY NOT HAVE RIGHTS IF THEY ARE CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE? PLEASE BASE YOUR REASONING ON A RATIONAL, LOGICAL THOUGHT PROCESS BEFORE YOU SPEW DRIVEL... - CHRIS   Never a man ... 2009/06/10 02:02:20 PM I wish that the media would stop referring to " man falls pregnant, man has baby"  because it is not a man. It menestrates, it ovulates, it has a womb and a vagina ... therefore what should it be ....? As a woman who is over 8 months pregnant with my 2nd child I am sickened by the continuous reference to a man being pregnant and giving birth. This privillege was given to woman. If you want to be a man then be man and stop manipulating your body and the people around you just to get what you want. - MOM   Transsexual or self-mutilation? 2009/06/10 02:07:21 PM Keep in mind that CS' s discussion of the case rests on his judgement that the person is not a transsexual. I' m not sure he has enough evidence to conclude this - but it does put the matter in another light. So both Julia, who makes a case for transsexual rights, and CS, who argues people sometimes (want to) " mutilate"  themselves for no medically accepted reason, can be right. As a shrink, he would probably have experience of this. Transsexuals who seek a gender change are not sick, however. - Anonymous   @MOM 2009/06/10 02:08:37 PM MOM, We are not all religious, hence we dont all believe that we as woman were " given'  privelages. If this woman want a chil, then she has every right to have it. Are you the superior authority that prescribes which people are allowed to have kids and which people not? Please explain the rationality behind your statements, and I' d like to hear your opinion about the " hermaphrodite"  question, which is exactly the same as this scenario, are they allowed to have kids? This should be interesting, - CHRIS   @ ALL 2009/06/10 02:14:51 PM lets start out simply.... Do transexuals have the right to have kids, if no, the why not. Then later, we will get to discussing this scenario.... - CHRIS   Right to a Biological Child 2009/06/10 02:20:55 PM Regardless of what one may mean by the phrase " right to a biological child" , the question is simple. Fertile heterosexual couples are not interrogated about their motives or fitness to be parents before being permitted (or assisted) to have biological children and infertile couples (regardless of their sexual orientation or gender choices) should not be held to a higher standard. - Gemma   OBVIOUSLY!!!! 2009/06/10 02:25:15 PM You have a problem, chris - you' re barely rational and attack indiscriminately.. But then, you ARE about as sensible as a woman who had her breasts removed and took hormones to grow a beard - whatever way you look at the creature, it' s still physically a woman. Perhaps you don' t understand the medical condition categorised as ' hermaphroditism'  - or, more likely, are being deliberately and blatantly obtuse. Either way, your contribution here is nothing short of hysterical and quite useless. - @Chris   This is crazy!!!!! 2009/06/10 02:49:06 PM this is crazy this is a woman not a man even though her breast are are removed she is still a woman and the ovaries are the that is why she can produce - vuyo   @ 02:25:15 PM 2009/06/10 02:50:03 PM Weould you then be so kind, and explain to me where I am making rationally flawed statements? Also, please explain to me the difference between the following: 1. A woman (possibly transgender) who wants to have a child, and 2 A hermaphrodite (who is genetically female) who had her half developed penis chopped off and wants to have a child. I am waiting for your response in anticipation... - CHRIS   @ 02:25:15 PM 2009/06/10 02:55:30 PM Your whole post contains nothing that is constructive to the argument. You should base your argument on consistent rational argument, not on how much you despise me... - CHRIS   @ 02:25:15 PM 2009/06/10 03:01:21 PM hehe, I had genetics as a subject at University, and am quite aware of the condition known as hermaphroditism.... Never once, dis I imly that this woman is a hermaphrodite, dunno where you read that part into my posts... I am simply comparing the 2 scenarios, and am eagerly awaiting an answer. - CHRIS   PREGNANT MAN 2009/06/10 03:19:12 PM I really don' t see what the fuss is about. The fact is he was born female and still retains all his female organs. Therefore he is not a male (at least not reproductively). Unless he was born a male then got pregnant then people can fuss about that!!! - Gillian   male / female blah blah blah 2009/06/10 03:34:45 PM please people, this person is using the pregnancy as an publicity stunt. i agree that were it not that, you would not have read much about it. lots of lesbians are having babies. these people wanted the whole world to know - bytjies   ??? 2009/06/10 04:28:03 PM who cares?! really.. Man, woman, whatever - let her/him/IT have a baby. As long as the child is in a loving home, and grows up well-adjusted and has a lot of support... Publicity stunt? Maybe.. He' s making dosh. And he' ll hopefull invest it in his child' s education and/or psychological costs. MOVE ON! It' s not the biggest crisis or issue in the world. Let' s concentrate on the HIV crisis, or worry about children starving or being abused... sheesh! - jules   PREGNANT MAN/female 2009/06/11 02:24:05 PM People really do not care about their creater,it' s all about them,what they want not what God wants.Anyway the time is comming which is the judgement day - DOREEN
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