From the ArcaMax Publishing, Ellen Goodman Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/ellengoodman/s-376559-147315
BOSTON -- One of the expressions my grandmother uttered with feeling
and frequency was that "one man should have one baby." I never knew if
this was a wish or a curse, but I'm pretty sure she never imagined
Thomas Beatie.
For those of you who do not watch Oprah or read tabloids, Beatie is
"The World's First Pregnant Man." While the title of "first" is in
dispute, Beatie is certainly the most public transgender poster parent
to have a baby bump plastered across the media.
Pictures of him in such gender-bending poses as shaving while his
elbow rests on his bump and outside mowing shirtless have appeared
from here to Australia. And now -- pass the cigars -- he has delivered
the baby.
Unlike Oprah, I will spare you many of the medical details. Let us
just say that Thomas was born Tracy and socialized enough into a
traditional female role to be a finalist in the Miss Hawaii Teen USA
contest. Then, a decade ago she had what we used to call a sex change
operation but what we now call sexual realignment surgery. She had her
body realigned to fit her self-image.
At this point, she changed pronouns and so will I. Sometime after the
surgery, Thomas married Nancy in Oregon, a state that would have
banned Tracy from wedding Nancy, but never mind. Nancy, who had two
grown children, no longer had a uterus but wanted to be a mother
again. Thomas, who had retained a uterus and ovaries, wanted to be a
father.
Here is where the story becomes less of a freak show -- Bearded Man
Gives Birth! -- and more like an inevitable next step of medicine on
the march, or on the makeover if you prefer.
It is only recently that we began to look at the human body as a
template to be altered as we please. I'm not comparing sexual
reassignment surgery to liposuction, but if Thomas removed his breasts
to fit the male model, how many women enlarge them to fit the female
model? For that matter, it's only recently that we could reach into
the pillbox and pull out male and female hormones.
Add to that the expanding gamut of reproductive technologies. Over
Beatie's 34-year lifespan we have subdivided the word "mother" into
its many parts. We now have genetic mothers, gestational mothers and
birth mothers, as well as the mothers who actually raise children. We
have egg donors and surrogates. Grandmothers have carried their own
grandchildren. Sisters have delivered their own nieces.
Indeed, on the list of reproductive technologies, the Beatie
baby-making project was as basic as a turkey baster. The sperm came
from an anonymous donor. They used artificial insemination and natural
childbirth. But from a social point of view, Thomas and Nancy are
going to have an awful lot more 'splaining to do to their child than
will Nicole Kidman, who named her baby "Sunday" even though she was
born on Monday.
"In a technical sense, I see myself as my own surrogate," said Beatie.
But in a technical sense, he is not a surrogate. He's the genetic
mother and the gestational mother. He told Oprah that he has "a right
to a biological child." But what he actually has is a uterus and
ovaries.
So, in the same technical sense, this baby has two mommies, the birth
mother and the social mother. The baby also has two daddies, the sperm
donor and the social dad. In a technical sense, Thomas is both birth
mother and social father.
There's no way to opt out of the medical march even if we wanted to.
But what made Beatie tabloid fodder is that in a he/she world of
opposite pronouns and sexes, he represents the trans in gender, the
mind-spinning possibility that gender is not either/or but both/and.
In the end, the most bizarre part of the story may be the Beaties'
retro insistence on their titles. "He will be the father and I will be
the mother," said Nancy. Having twisted all the biological roles,
having bent all our biological images of what it means to be a father
or mother, they seem to have asserted old social roles. Let us hope he
changes diapers.
Call Thomas a man with a uterus or a woman with a -- never mind. But
Sigmund Freud notwithstanding, this is another way in which anatomy is
no longer destiny.
As for the baby? It's A Girl! At least for the moment.
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Ellen Goodman's e-mail address is ellengoodman@globe.com