Yesterday I happened to catch Oprah. This is a pretty rare occurrence in our household as that’s normally a busy time. I turned it on after it had been on for a little bit, and saw that it was about a man who is pregnant. Needless to say, I was a little confused at first. As I watched the show, I became fascinated by the pregnancy itself and the challenges it issues to society’s stereotypes of “mothers”.

Thomas Beatie gave an extensive interview to The Advocate. To sum it up, he lives in Oregon with his wife Nancy. Thomas is a female to male transsexual who kept his female reproductive organs when he became a man. His wife was unable to become pregnant after having a hysterectomy. They decided that Thomas would try to become pregnant through artifical insemination.

People’s reactions are not surprisingly all over the place as they confront the moral, political and religiouis aspects of this situation. Visible Vote ’08 suggested the hubbub around this pregnancy is merely one example within the problem of routine discrimination against transgendered people in the area of health care. In particular, Visible Vote was concerned that everyon focuses on transgendered people needing sex hormones and reconstructive surgery while ignoring their need for the same type of health care as non-transgendered people. Yet, this is rarely in the media. Visible Vote ’08 wrote But what I do blame the media for is their — at best — sporadic attention to the pervasive discrimination that transgendered people face on a daily basis in attempting to access health care for everything unrelated to gender transition.”

Digital Cuttlefish also criticized the media, arguing that they sensationalized what would still have been a thought provoking and newsorthy story. "'pregnant man' is a wow of a headline. The more accurate story--that a transgendered man loves his wife enough to bear a child when she cannot--is not merely more accurate, but more detailed and less 'wow'. Unlike a sound bite, it takes more than a few seconds to comprehend. So I guess the news outlets didn't want to take that sort of risk.”

While I do enjoy watching Oprah regardless of subject matter in the rare instances that the TV is going while she is on the air, I certainly admit that the pregnant man did catch my intention.

Of course not all the posts are positive. Some bloggers expressed concerns that it might be unhealthy for a transgendered person to be pregnant, but his ob gyn confirmed that he stopped taking testosterone two years ago. Before I Forget questioned the reasoning behind Beatie and his wife’s decision to go public, holding them responsible for creating the public spectacle and generating any stigma. Several bloggers questioned Thomas's gender identity. The Glamourous Life of Jennifer, for example, suggested Oprah should not have referred to Thomas as a man because he still has female reproductive organs. I was personally impressed by Oh, You’re a FEMINIST who did a great job responding to this sort of question by explaining the difference between sex and gender. She also responded to many other questions she had heard asked or written about Beatie.

Personally, I feel that people have a right to identify in any fashion they choose. Thomas has taken hormones and gone through surgery to be a man (breast removal surgery), and he is challenging medical and social norms to build the family that he and his wife want. All labels aside, Thomas is having a baby. This is a wanted, celebrated pregnancy. This child will be welcomed into this world with love from her parents. Sadly, that is the part of the story that seems to have been ignored. As a mom myself, I can imagine the joy they must feel and I wish them all the best.