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Radar Online reports that transgender male Thomas Beatie is ready to give birth any day now, as he’s passed the due-date for his third child. Yes, his due date.
Thomas, born Tracy, had “reassignment surgery in 2002 but kept his female organs in the hope of one day becoming a parent.” He’s legally a man, legally married to his wife, Nancy, and is about to become a Dad… and a Mom… for the third time.
That’s right. Beatie is the father of his children because he functions as such, but technically he’s the biological mother of his children as well. He says he sees himself as his own surrogate. Continue reading »
Two years ago, the world (and Oprah) was introduced to Thomas Beatie, the former woman who became the first known transgendered man to give birth. Now Mr. Beatie and wife Nancy have a third bun in the oven.
In case you were wondering why wife Nancy hasn’t taken a turn at the mothering post, she is unable to have children due to hysterectomy.
How’d this guy’s pregnancy stay under wraps for so long?
The world’s second known pregnant man, Scott Moore, is preparing to give birth for the first time next month.
He and his partner, Thomas, are excited to add another boy to their family, which already includes Thomas’s sons Logan, 10, and Gregg, 12. The couple adopted the boys from Thomas’s ex-girlfriend, their mother. Continue reading »
Is Gender Identity Disorder a real problem in children, or a ‘disorder’ trumped up by sexist experts intent on maintaining the status quo? Regardless of the answer to that question, how should we treat kids who are different from their peers when it comes to being a boy or a girl?
Gender Identity Disorder is the clinical name for feeling like the gender you are inside does not match your biological sex. People who are transgender are given the diagnosis prior to starting hormone therapies or pursuing surgery to change their sex. Many people feel it should be done away with, because transgenderism is not an illness to be cured. Others feel it’s a necessary tool to get access to necessary medical treatments.
In a guest post on BoingBoing last week, Andrea James took aim at a group of ‘experts’ in the field of childhood gender identity disorder. Looking at a group of doctors in Toronto whose methods for treating the disorder include aggressively limiting the child’s gender expression to mainstream stereotypes.
Parents are instructed to go through all the child’s possessions and remove anything inappropriate. This includes, if your kid is a boy, obvious things like dresses but also the pink and purple crayons from a box of Crayolas. Don’t even get me started on whether an unholy affection for pink is a fundamental biological trait of being female (hot tip: it’s not. pink was a ‘boy’s color’ until a few generations ago).
The questionable methods of treatment are only half the story here, though. Another important question seems to be: why are little kids being diagnosed with “gender identity disorder” at all? Isn’t early childhood exactly when you should be trying on different identities as a way to learn about the world?
A little over a year ago, the Atlantic Monthly ran a long complex piece about the many approaches to gender identity disorder in children. That Atlantic article talked about kids as young as 3 who were being diagnosed with GID and “treated” either by being renamed and dressed as “the opposite gender” and given very gendered toys that way, or by being forced to play out a sexist adult fantasy of what children of the kid’s biological sex do.
If I rushed my kids’ to the therapists office every time one of them grew an imaginary penis, we’d have to live in the waiting room.
As many as 90% of children with extremely atypical gender identity grow up to be comfortable with the sex they were born into. Many effeminate boys do turn out to be gay, but not girls trapped in boys bodies. On the other hand, for those who do have a lifelong desire to live as the opposite sex from the one they were born into, early medical treatment around the onset of puberty can be a blessing.
How do you think the mental health community should handle these kids? What would you do (or have you done) as a parent with a kid who wants to change genders?
Like nearly every one of us did way back when, 17-year-old Zikerria Bellamy applied for a job at McDonald’s. Lots of teens appreciate the free food, the experience, and, most of all, the money that comes with the job. Unfortunately, Zikerria wasn’t hired. That wouldn’t be of much interest were it not for the reason she was turned down — Zikerria is transgendered. And if that weren’t bad enough, one of the managers of the restaurant actually called her and left a voice message saying “We don’t hire faggots.”
Earlier this year, Alameda Unified School District, just across the bay from San Francisco and, undoubtedly, home to many school children with gay and lesbian parents, approved a curriculum that teaches tolerance of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered members of the community. Two board members, however, voted against the program, one because the curriculum is not comprehensive enough — she felt it should have included race and religion — and the other because there was no opt-out provision. The latter issue prompted the Pacific Justice Institute to file a lawsuit on behalf of parents who, I guess, want their children to think it’s okay to bully kids based on sexual identity and gender preference.
Back in the age of the dinosaurs, aka 1995, I went to prom with a charming young man. I wore a long, lacy purple dress. He wore a black miniskirt and a baby-doll t-shirt with the words “Prom Queen” stencilled across the chest in frilly lavender script. Guess which one of us got to dance with the captain of the football team? Hint: it wasn’t me.
I guess we were trendsetters, because the New York Times now reports that schools are cracking down on kids’ cross-dressing to proms – or just to class. Are these teens finding a clever new way to stick it to the dress code, or just exploring their honest gender expression? Does it matter?
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