Man has baby

[vegeta rocker]

[URL="http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2008/07/23/2008-07-23_pregnant_man_thomas_beatie_unveils_first.html"]http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2008/07/23/2008-07-23_pregnant_man_thomas_beatie_unveils_first.html[/URL]

While I'm sure you guys have already hard this story in some capacity over the past few months; i was curious what your opinions were.

I honestly have no problem with gay men and women adopting children. I mean I think as long as a child has a happy home than I don't think it matters.

But this is a woman who had surgery and then took lots of hormones/drugs to become a man than have a baby.

And her female partner is going to breastfeed the bay.

I just can't help but feel this as an abomination of nature...I don't mean to be harsh but thats how i feel.

I feel bad because I like to think of myself as a tolerant person...so my reaction kind of bothers me.

So how about you guys?

Happy for them?

[chibi-master]

So the "guy" had a baby. Goody goody gumdrops for him. He was originally a girl and he became a guy, I don't really understand how he got pregnant, but then again I don't really care. Seeing as it was a gender switch, irony demands that something like this would happen.

If they're happy with this, okay. I'm happy too. And the kid? Eh, it's a kid, same as any other, I'm sure. I'm a little surprised at my reaction too...my reaction when I first read the article? "I don't give a ******* about a pregnant guy.":animesigh

[James]

[font=franklin gothic medium]My only issue would be if the hormones negatively affected the child (assuming they were also being taken during pregnancy - I'm not really sure on that).

But yeah, as long as the baby was healthy/happy, I personally don't really care. As long as they are good parents, good luck to 'em.[/font]

[Aaryanna]

[COLOR="DarkGreen"][FONT="Book Antiqua"]I really don't see the fuss. So long as they did everything necessary to ensure that the baby was healthy then my response is best of luck with the new addition to their family.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[visualkei]

As long as the parents have the mental capacity to take good care of a child, then I think it's all right.

Don't meant to drive this issue off topic, but I remember watching the Oprah episode of this, and just wondering why this person is considered a guy. "Man has baby!" I think it's quite misleading.

Sure "he's" taken male hormones and all, but the uterus is still there. I don't think this person has a penis either. From what I remember the hormones enlarged his clitoris to resemble a small penis. Other than that, blatantly put, I think she's just a hairy girl who had her breasts removed.

[Darren]

It is a bit strange, but oh well. If they can have a child, let them. I mean the guy still has a uterus so nature allowed them to give birth. The only thing I have a problem with was the fact that the media had a field day with the story. "Man has baby."

Under normal conditions, everyone would be like "WTF?" But then once they find out the details, they're like, "Okay, it's a woman, who wanted to be a man, but decided to be a woman again for 9 months..."

MAKE UP YOUR MIND! But it's hard for a GLBT couples to adopt, so I can sympathize with what they were doing as well. All in all, I really don't think it's that big of a deal. Essentially, it was a woman (who looked like a man) who had a baby. Not a big deal.

But no, to answer your question, I'm not repulsed or disgusted by the news. Just indifferent. And I'm kinda wondering how that child is going to be raised. I wonder if his/her parents will tell them. Could you imagine when the kid finds out that a baby is normally born from the mommy?

[eleanor]

[font=trebuchet ms] I agree with James, the only part I'm concerned about is if the hormones had some sort of negative effect on the baby.

Just think of the baby as you would any other baby, something born out of a sperm and egg and grown in a uterus. Not a huge deal.[/font]

[Horendithas]

[COLOR="Indigo"]It doesn't really count if they started out as a woman. lol The media is just using the fact that they had a partial sex change to hype the story more than it's really worth. Now if they had started out as a man first, that would be interesting. My opinion would still be the same though. If the kid is healthy and properly cared for, I see no issue with it or any reason to feel like it's an abomination. [/COLOR]

[weedeater]

Yeah, a man did not have a baby. A woman with man parts(to some degree) had a baby. That's not the same thing.

Homosexuality is one thing. That's all fine and dandy. But transgenderism, while not anything I'd look down on an individual for, is something I simply do not agree with. Gender confusion is a mental state that should be dealt with as such.

But at the same time, I'mn not saying it should be illegal. It's their body. I'm just saying I think other options should be explored more thoroughly on an individual basis.

I'm one guy; what do I know anyway?

[Lady Aura]

[CENTER][FONT="Palatino Linotype"]Gosh, this topic is mentioned everywhere I go.

I honestly don't see a problem with it. As long as the s/he is happy with the female partner breast-feeding, and the female partner is happy doing it, there should be no problem.

I'm just wondering how the s/he had the baby. o.O I haven't been told how that happened, yet.[/FONT][/CENTER]

[Sandy]

[quote name='Darren']Under normal conditions, everyone would be like "WTF?" But then once they find out the details, they're like, "Okay, it's a woman, who wanted to be a man, but decided to be a woman again for 9 months..."

MAKE UP YOUR MIND[/quote]

[quote name='weedeater']Homosexuality is one thing. That's all fine and dandy. But transgenderism, while not anything I'd look down on an individual for, is something I simply do not agree with. Gender confusion is a mental state that should be dealt with as such.[/QUOTE]

I sympathize transgendered people in this day and age, it most likely isn't easy to not know whether you're Eve or Steve. I think those people are going through enough hard time in struggling between their inner, biological and social self without the rest of us going all judgmental on them. It's not like transgenderism can cause physical harm to anyone, it's not a disease. The emotional aspect is a more complex matter, though.

[B]Weedeater[/B], I just want to ask you, how would you propose people "deal" with gender confusion? With medical treatment? Compulsory therapy? Locking transgendered people into mental care institutions? They might be confused, but that doesn't make them [I]crazy[/I].

As for the baby issue, every (biological) woman has a right to do whatever they want with their womb and ovaries, even though in some cases (like drug addicts and alcoholists) the result can be unfortunate.

[Gavin]

[SIZE="1"]I genuinely feel sorry for the child in this case, not because of what the mother/father/parent did in deciding to have a child part way through a sex-change, but because this poor girl is most certainly going to have identity issues.

I mean we've already had one person refer to the child as "[I]an abomination[/I]", and that's pretty much as harsh as you can get with an insult as to someone's existence. Regardless of whether she's healthy, and her parents love her, which I don't doubt, or at least I would certainly hope not in this situation, she is going to have to deal with terrible levels of ignorance and prejudice growing up. I wouldn't even like to guess at how many times this girl is going to have to hear the words "freak" or whatever thrown in her face, it's certainly very sad, and it's certainly going to happen.

As for the whole "male pregnancy", genuinely I'm on the fence about it. I wouldn't call it wrong, so much as strange and I'm still have trouble processing the whole idea, the movie "Junior" keeps coming to mind. I would chide the parent slightly on the choice of timing of the pregnancy to be honest. It would have been a better idea altogether to have the child either when he was still a woman, or to have his partner have the child after the surgery was completed. Or at least, that's just my view on it.[/SIZE]

[James]

[font=franklin gothic medium]While I don't entirely agree with weedeater, I'm kind of glad that his view is generally fairly well-rounded (in that it doesn't contain the basic "OMG transgendered people are all horrible!)

One thing I do agree with is that people who are interested in gender reassignment surgery should go through a very thorough mental evaluation (not to determine whether or not they are "sane", but to make sure that they are making a choice that is right for them).

A lot of people have this type of operation and then regret it later and it can drive them over the edge. So they do need to make sure that it's what they want.

In cases where people have been properly evaluated though, it does seem to work - at least, it does seem to essentially fix the confusion.

I did hear recently about some of the newest brain studies here in Melbourne, where one of the scientists was being interviewed on a local radio station. And this very issue came up. He basically said that men's brains and women's brains are actually physically different in some fundamental ways.

So the theory is that, quite literally, a man can develop with a "female brain" and that this fault can be caused during early development in the womb.

I know that's kind of only slightly related to this topic, but I thought it was relevant. We know so little about the brain...it will be very interesting to see what developments lay ahead as doctors learn more over time.[/font]

[Allamorph]

[FONT=Arial]I think I'll just be the completely insensitive guy and go chuckle to myself in the corner. And I'm really not sure why, but I find the situation incredibly amusing.

So yeah.


<_<


>_>




[I]WHOOOO[/I] babies!!! [I]*shot*[/I][/FONT]

[Rachmaninoff]

I don't have an issue with someone like that deciding to have a child. As Indi pointed out, it's not like a man had a baby, but rather a woman who had her body, other than the obvious parts, altered so she'd look like a man. The thing I'd be worried about is what Gavin pointed out here:[quote name='Gavin'][SIZE="1"]I genuinely feel sorry for the child in this case, not because of what the mother/father/parent did in deciding to have a child part way through a sex-change, but because this poor girl is most certainly going to have identity issues.

I mean we've already had one person refer to the child as "[I]an abomination[/I]", and that's pretty much as harsh as you can get with an insult as to someone's existence. Regardless of whether she's healthy, and her parents love her, which I don't doubt, or at least I would certainly hope not in this situation, she is going to have to deal with terrible levels of ignorance and prejudice growing up. I wouldn't even like to guess at how many times this girl is going to have to hear the words "freak" or whatever thrown in her face, it's certainly very sad, and it's certainly going to happen.[/SIZE][/QUOTE]Whether or not she had the right to do as she pleases with her body, that's something that the kid will have to deal with and I'm not sure wanting a kid is a good enough reason to put them through that kind of deal.

I don't consider it an abomination but I'd still be concerned about the difficulties the kid will face. You can only hope they'll be good enough parents to prepare them for that. Only time will tell I guess.

[Retribution]

[quote name='vegeta rocker']And her female partner is going to breastfeed the [B][I][U]bay[/U][/I][/B].[/QUOTE]

[font=Arial]Wow, that's gotta be tough. Just imagine, an [i]entire body of water[/i] depending on one person.

But more seriously, how is a woman who is not naturally lactating going to breastfeed a baby?[/font]

[Raiha]

[quote name='Retribution'][font=Arial]Wow, that's gotta be tough. Just imagine, an [i]entire body of water[/i] depending on one person.

But more seriously, how is a woman who is not naturally lactating going to breastfeed a baby?[/font][/QUOTE]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][FONT="Times New Roman"]Well strictly speaking it is a: impossible and b: a pipe dream. Actually that's not true. It's possible to induce lactation but it involves a lot of hormone therapy, which isn't necessarily healthy for either party involved in the process. This kid is probably already full of hormones of the unnatural sort.

Either way she's not going to have an easy time of it and is going to have to find some form of wet nurse or start mixing the formula. To be fair there is absolutely no replacement for breast milk no matter what people say, but formula will keep a baby alive, just not as healthy as it could be.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[James]

[font=franklin gothic medium]Yeah, I kind of think that breast feeding is the last of their potential problems. In other words, I'm sure they'll find a solution there.

I just think the bigget issue now is ensuring that they are left to some sort of privacy. Hopefully, for their baby's sake, they will do their best to keep the media at arm's length.[/font]

[Sabrina]

[FONT="Tahoma"]This makes me wonder if they really should have bothered with the attempt to be a man if they are going to turn around and have a baby anyway. I don't think it's an abomination, but I do see it as being very confusing for the kid growing up.

In this case I agree with James, if someone is going to do something like this, they need to be evaluated to make sure they're making the right choice and are mentally prepared. I'm not sure how you would do that though, or rather what standards would be used to consider the person ready for the change. Or if they really needed it or not. XP[/FONT]

[Nerdsy]

[color=deeppink]Eh, It's been done.[/color]


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