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Transgender Man’s Pregnancy Roils Family Members
The title above was not a headline in the National Enquirer; it was the title of an Ask Amy column, from March 9. In reading the column I shifted between shock and confusion; the letter writer was in distress because her son’s decision to become pregnant as a transgender male had created a rupture in her family that she didn’t know to heal.
I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I know that gender and sexual identities have been tampered with and distorted for many years, but I wondered: how in the world does a transgender man become pregnant, and more importantly, how does this kind of insanity take place in today’s society?
Let me explain briefly how transgender pregnancy usually happens: either a woman who has decided to change her identity to a man becomes pregnant because she still has all the biological tools to do so, or a he/she has a female surrogate carry the baby. If you want to know more about these situations you can go here or here. For this post, I would rather spend my time exploring how this bizarre and depraved situation has developed.
Secularists have spent centuries trying to distort and eliminate gender distinctions. In the last 50 years in particular, their focus has been on gender equality and equal rights. Their efforts were rewarded by society and in some cases by the government’s insisting that women should not be deprived of the rights extended to men. Unfortunately, to meet their agenda, the secularists insisted that men and women were the same. To many this declaration was preposterous, since common sense and innumerable studies counter this premise. But the argument persisted. Without recounting all the distortions and lies the secularists used to perpetuate their ideas, we have arrived at a point where women can now die on battlefields, and men can wear make-up, earrings and even women’s clothes. (In Thailand these men are called lady-boys; our Thai friends admired the courage of these men in owning up to their preferred sexuality.) If the arguments for the exchangability of genders were so ridiculous, how did they come to be accepted? The destruction of the credibility and sacredness of the Judeo-Christian traditions has been victorious.
I was studying the Torah this Shabbat and reflected on what a profound treatise it is. Although secularists try to argue that it is a book of myths and violence, G-d created a way of life that not only provided rules and laws to follow: He also designed a framework and foundation that identifies, through the creation of Adam and Eve, the genders of male and female. He made it clear that there are only two genders, which meant that we didn’t have to spend our lives figuring out what we are. Instead, He gave us free will to fully explore who we are, how we can be loving and compassionate human beings, and how to serve our friends, family, society, and of course, G-d. We have not been forced into gender roles; rather, we have been blessed to discover what it means to be a man or a woman.
The devastation that the secularists have wrought, in trying to distort and confuse what it means to be a man or woman, has destroyed what it means to pursue the sacred, too. Instead they have stated that gender identification doesn’t guide us in deciding our roles to be fully realized human beings; it has become a field of experiment, mendacity and the mundane. Instead of pursuing ways to elevate ourselves and realize that we are created in the image of G-d, we can re-create who we are. Instead of our focusing on how to serve others, we become obsessed with how we can best satisfy ourselves. And if that means degrading ourselves in the eyes of heaven, trampling social mores and desecrating our bodies, then why not do it? In fact, the acronym for LGBT has been expanded upon to accommodate this exploration. “At full throttle, the letters wind up something like LGBTQQIP2SAA.” (You can go to the article to get the latest definitions.)
As a last effort, I thought I would check on how medical ethics approaches the questions of transgender male pregnancy. The National Health Service in Great Britain has stepped right up to support transgender and sex change requests. To fund a patient through their sex change and fertility treatment, the NHS spends up to £34,000. On average, it costs women £29,975 for a sex change and men £13,867.
The abstract from a report generated by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists states the following:
Transgender individuals face harassment, discrimination, and rejection within our society. Lack of awareness, knowledge, and sensitivity in health care communities eventually leads to inadequate access to, underutilization of, and disparities within the health care system for this population. Although the care for these patients is often managed by a specialty team, obstetrician–gynecologists should be prepared to assist or refer transgender individuals with routine treatment and screening as well as hormonal and surgical therapies. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists opposes discrimination on the basis of gender identity and urges public and private health insurance plans to cover the treatment of gender identity disorder.
Although it doesn’t explicitly support transgender male pregnancy, wouldn’t refusing to assist this type of patient be discriminatory?
In a June issue of Scientific American, the main concern was not about the appropriateness of pregnancy for transgender men, but the risks involved. In fact, there was a discussion of uterine transplants for their patients.
So here we are. Transgender men can bear children, regardless of the impact on the children or society. The distinctions between men and women are meaningless.
Secularism has won.
Published in Culture
It is not a question of religious or secular beliefs; it is question of empirical fact: a male who is surgically altered to appear female is a surgically-altered male. Likewise, a female who is surgically altered to appear male is a female. There is no other conclusion that can logically reached.
The real tragedy is the number of well-meaning people willing to enable and facilitate this nonsense (i.e. permanent surgical mutilation of those suffering from a demonstrable mental disorder, particularly when occurring in children and teens) just to have the comfort of believing that they have “done something” to help those suffering.
It sounds like John’s “partner’s” family is much sicker, more confused and more controlling than this couple—these two people who are somehow stumbling their way back to a recognition of themselves and each other.
I can’t help but be happy and hopeful for them. And for their child.
This LGBTQQIP2SAA thing is a Tower of Babel. We should work hard to find ways to keep our children away from the indoctrination. But, other than that, we worry about it too much.
I agree! Thank you!
In the law we sometimes say “that argument proves too much.” Let me just suggest that back in the day, young people who wanted to enter into interracial marriages sometimes caused “real agony” for their parents and those hurts radiated out into society through their connections to other people as well. Ditto for people who entered into same sex relationships or marriages against their parents will (I can assure you of this one personally). The mere fact that I might do psychic harm to someone who simply disapproves of what I do just isn’t enough to say I should be condemned for it.
The thing that bothers me most is the insistence by the LGBT(etc, etc) community of teaching grade school kids (sometimes younger) about all of this before the kids have any sense of their own sexuality. Is the purpose to promote tolerance – or an invitation to experiment when they are older?
In any event, way TMI way too early.
Thank you; hoping some folks read this and begin using the correct word. Doing so would likely make the attempt of creating reality out of nonsense difficult and open a gap large enough to let in some truth.
Felt compelled to quote this because I am only allowed one Like.
I think it’s called indoctrination.
I simply can’t agree with this one, Cato. There is nothing that prohibits interracial marriage, and the laws that did have been eliminated. I see that you are touched personally by this whole discussion, and I’m very sorry if it is painful for you. I will stand by my points, however.
Excellent point, Barbara. Young children are discovering their sexuality, and I don’t think that kind of curriculum is appropriate; it is, I believe, propaganda.
I confess my attitude towards this thing can be summed up by an old Billy Joel song:
I don’t care what you say anymore this is my life
Go ahead with your own life leave me alone
and
Don’t get me wrong
And you can speak your mind
But not on my time.
The problem is they won’t leave me alone and insist on speaking their mind on my time.
Seawriter
That I introduced Susan to Fishbone right now is really what I love about this place.
Not yet. The battles continue; for as long as man exists, so will the war.
P.S. We already know the end. Hint: G-d wins.
That was basically non-responsive Susan. All true, but completely unrelated to what I said.
Although I don’t think that comparisons between LGB and T are helpful, it might be here. As with LGB, it doesn’t have to be a choice or a mental illness. As with LGB, there are some who argue it is one or the other or both, but the professional organization you cite is focused instead on the ethics of serving patients.
I’m not quite sure what you’re calling for. Should hospitals not help with their pregnancies? Should we demand sterilization as a condition of some element of transitioning (surgery, hormones, legal documents, etc.?)
Oh, thank god. I was worried that somehow a man had actually gotten pregnant. I did a bit of research and I found out there has been some discussion about uterine transplants to men, but I don’t think it’s been done yet.
But you’re right, @seawriter. This is just a woman who got pregnant, though sadly, she’ll miss out on breastfeeding, and worse, so will the baby. ( I guess that’s what “top surgery” means: mastectomies?)
I don’t have a religious objection. But I’d do feel the same way I felt about Omega’s bathroom edict, (about which I posted under the title “The Princeps and the Pee”, 6/9/16). This is wrong–by which I mean : not correct, not seemly, not appropriate, in light of everything we know about humanity, everything we know about human biology, everything we know about human culture, everything we know about the laws of human societies, about human cosmogonies. The fact is that our species has two biological genders and the purpose of that is reproduction of the species. This is the very zygote of human rationality. It’s what makes the world go ’round. It’s hard to even defend because it is so much a first cause of everything human.
As a holder of two degrees, in anthropology and in law,
here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.
I don’t want my tax dollars–my own funds–to pay for pregnancies of transgender people. I also want to protest efforts that encourage people to choose whatever sex they would like to be; I don’t believe that all of them find themselves in the wrong body. I protest churches who don’t find a way to express empathy for these folks, and also state that you are the sex you were born. I don’t believe sexuality is that fluid. I think it’s reasonable for people to pursue treatment for a mental illness.
I believe that there are many people who have to live with life conditions that cause them emotional or physical pain, but they learn to come to terms with them. That’s what I would wish for transgender folks.
This is a fair statement for all.
You are correct. I think we basically can’t find a common ground, because you believe that folks can be whatever sex they choose (for whatever reasons) and I don’t.
Wow. I thought CR was being sarcastic.
I did, too. (see earlier remark) We’ve agreed in the past on a number of issues.
Worth repeating, again. And, Louder (thus the bold letters).
The use of genders other than male and female is contrary to scripture and looks to eliminate distinctions. Those who transition within the binary mostly support the distinctions; biology makes an enormous difference to who we are, primarily through hormones. Someone with a female hormone profile is genuinely different from someone with a male hormone profile.
Coming to a different conclusion about the gender that God gave you is not the same as rejecting God’s creation. There are many profoundly pious Christian and Jewish believers out there, often attending conservative churches, despite the difficulties that some of them face in doing so. Denying someone’s faith (not this comment, but others in the thread) when one is ignorant of its contents is something that we should be slow to do. Just as there are leftists, Mormons, and Baptists who are profoundly wrong about critical elements of doctrine without also being wrong about the fundamentals of God’s sovereignty or his creation.
When I was talking classes at a state university in my late twenties, there was an article in the school paper written by a 21 year old girl who had her breasts removed in an attempt to become a man. It made me want to scream and cry and tear my hair out, and it still does, not so much because of the sex change, but because it was performed on someone so young. Although the sex change bothers me too. I read somewhere that the doctor who pioneered sex change operations at John’s Hopkins stopped doing them because research seemed to show that in the long term, it didn’t help. I don’t think it’s bigoted or uncaring to wonder if helping people to physically mutilate themselves irreversibly is really the best way of helping them.
Even if it were somehow proven that no mental illness is involved, and sex change operations definitely helped people, I am happy to live and let live, but I don’t see a live and let live attitude being espoused by the LGBT community. I don’t want to use a bathroom with men. If a transgendered woman who looks and dresses like a woman wants to use the woman’s bathroom, I am fine with that-no one will know or question or care, but I don’t want to share the bathroom with men. The LGBT community says this makes me a bigot; they can pound sand.
Only leftists, Mormons, and Baptists? I think not.
Also, the above seems like a strange set of groups; what is the common characteristic they share? If there is no commonality, what triggered you to put together this particular set of groups? Just curious.
Do you have any reason to believe that your tax dollars are being spent here? If not, I find your final paragraph implausible; they have not transgressed your boundaries but you nonetheless seek to condemn them.
If tax dollars are being spent, would your aversion extend both to prenatal and post natal care? Or, to be more explicit, would you want to deny care to the unborn or infant American, too, or is it only the wellbeing of the adult that you believe should be carved out from the currently neutral statute? If the latter, should the carve out extend only to sexual issues or to other chromosomal phenomena (e.g. no Medicaid for ovarian cancer), or to healthcare in general (if they break a leg, they should try to find charitable treatment)?
I actually don’t. I just think that transgender people are claiming to have an experience that neither you nor I understand, that it’s clearly one that results in a painful stigma, and that empathy and open mindedness is a more constructive response to it than condemnation and narrow mindedness.
Its events like this that makes Psychologists unwilling to touch this with a 10-foot-pole.
My point was that there are diverse groups of pious believers who are right that God created the universe, correct that He is sovereign, but wrong about other things. Any denomination other than those that I was addressing would have worked as well.
No, I was definitely not being sarcastic. I find the OP narrow minded, judgmental and cruel.