"This Isn't Even Wrong"

"This Isn't Even Wrong"

So said the email from a reader pointing to me something that reads like either a horrifying piece of 1930s science fiction (except that no one would have thought this plausible), or a satirical piece from The Onion. This, unfortunately, comes from the March 25, 2008 National Post of Canada:

An Oregon man who used to be a woman says he is pregnant with a baby girl.

Thomas Beatie's first-person story appears in the April issue of The Advocate, a Los Angeles-based newsmagazine for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people.

According to the story, Mr. Beatie was born a woman but decided to become a transgender male and legally changed his sex to male. He had his breasts surgically removed and started bimonthly testosterone injections, but kept his vagina.

Now identifying as male, Mr. Beatie legally married Nancy Beatie, the story says. The pair wanted a biological baby but Ms. Beatie was unable to carry a child. So they decided Mr. Beatie would carry the child.

"How does it feel to be a pregnant man," Mr. Beatie writes in the article. "Incredible. Despite the fact that my belly is growing with a new life inside me, I am stable and confident being the man that I am. In a technical sense I see myself as my own surrogate, though my gender identity as male is constant. To Nancy, I am her husband carrying our child ... I will be my daughter's father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family."

Before getting pregnant he stopped injecting testosterone, and his body "regulated itself after about four months," he writes in the Advocate piece.

One year and nine doctors later, the couple got access to a cryogenic sperm bank and purchased anonymous donor vials for a home insemination. Without the aid of fertility drugs, progesterone or exogenous estrogen, Mr. Beatie got pregnant, he says. But the pregnancy was ectopic, and rarer still, with triplets. After surgery, Mr. Beatie lost all his embryos and his right fallopian tube.

But the second pregnancy has been a success, writes Mr. Beatie: "We are happily awaiting her birth, with an estimated due date of July 3, 2008."

I think I disagree with my reader. If true, this is very wrong. Oh yeah, you can tell something of what the expectant couple are like from the name of the firm that they run:

Yesterday, the couple-- who run a T-shirt printing company called Define Normal -- refused to tell their story, citing U.S. deals with TV and print media outlets.

I won't "define normal" but I will certainly define sick, and this is it. Of course, if State Senator Tim Corder had his way with S.1323, an employer who refused to hire this pregnant "man" would be punished for discriminating based on "gender identity."