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I saw a small spot in one of the US papers the other day (I LOVE US newspapers since you can skim them in about 20 minutes and they are only about 50c!, unlike the monstrosities that even the smallest Irish tabloids have crept into) regarding Thomas Beattie, the professional F2M who retained a few little female organs so he could become the "first" trans "dad."  Well actually, incredibly so, since the age of the internet makes such things easy to find, he's been outdone by others and was by no means the first.  It seems Beattie has become a parent one more time and given birth again.  I sighed a breath of relief that there is a bit less of a hoo haa this time over what is really a fairly normal thing now.

A lot of people given the lifetime opportunity to transition at a much younger age are faced with an increasingly debate - what about children?  10-20 years ago this was less of an issue as many gender disphoric folks daren't risk their chances of transitioning by asking to hang onto a few bits for a while longer so they could produce children, the medical gatekeepers just were not quite ready for this.

But a lot of the community, especially in the F2M community, found themselves with far bigger challenges.  One of the outputs of the closed and exclusive nature of the lesbian world, which I have already ranted at length about the deliberate exclusion tactics used to remove or dissuade males, bi women, political undesireables, sex radicals, and varies others considered in some way threatening to the usually very locallyized dyke establishment (be it radical feminist, butch and working class, or late bloomers, parents and lady golfers - there are always a handful of common bonds that determine who is "welcome" and who is social undesireable) is that the women who find themselves accepted into such communities find them very "safe" and comfortable, and generally are very unwilling to challenge the social status quo, even when they discover something about themselves that is "taboo" within their local society.

A common one I notice a lot is simply bisexuality.  This is hugely taboo in such social circles and generally best handled by total secrey, as it is likely to received as a complete act of treachery.  Therefore, most of such groups usually consist to the naked eye of exclusive lesbians.  If bisexual women do arrive, they tend to be extremely marginalized, and often for reasons not exclusive to their sexual diferences.  What can be amusing sometimes is that occasionally, groups that also function as resource centres make space for bisexual groups, but remain deeply uncomfortable on a social level about bisexual women.  This is gradually changing as most groups mature and realise that cannot simply cater for a minority within a rapidly changing demographic.

Anyway, Thomas Beattie was in no way the first transman to have a child.  Even the L-Word caught onto this years ago.  Many years ago I used to enjoy the sex advice of S&M queen Pat Califa who had been living in SF for quite some time.  In the late 90s, like my photographic idol Della Grace, Pat started to not only transition and become Patrick Califia-Rice, but also started to challenge his own sexual preferences and now regards himself as bisexual.  His partner Matt also was in transition, and here's the clincher, over 10 years ago, Matt and Pat had a child together.  Patrick wrote about this here.  Yet the entire media for 2 years has conveniently ignored the fact that its not uncommon for transitioning people to have children while they still can.  After all we all still live in a world where gay adoption is difficult and legalities surrounding reproduction complex.  Basically Thomas Beattie was no big deal and the product of a bored media.

The reality is this - queer folk, trans folk, people who are different - we eat, we play, we read books, we have sex, yes.  And we have children and raise them responsib;y just like any other parents do.  We think about it more deeply because things like that are very much more rooted in carefully selected choices than two kids drunkenly fucking in a tent at a music festival (if you believe the slightly amusing ads currently on Irish TV for the not bad Think Contraception campaign).  These things don't just happen for us, we move mountains to bring them about.  There is somehow a mystique about gender disphoric people because no group of people has been more objectivised than the M2F, written off as sex objects for the gratification really, of deeply troubled men who cannot deal with the depths and caverns of their own sexuality and attitude to other men/women.  This is why this form of pornography is in one sense distasteful - its somehow done in the same disempowering way that a lot of maintstream het porn is done - the woman's desires only exist for the pleasure of the voyeur.   (In fact when I think about these, the one thing thats really disturbing is the deliberate lack of emphasis on the male pleasure-giver in mainstream porn - the viewer is clearly invited to take his place, to imagine, this is me.  The transference is far less direct in porn involving transpeople, and utterly removed in the case of fake-lesbian-porn - this is the ultimate in voyeur purity.  But I digress).

Ultimately, the sudden interest in the case of the "pregnant man" is about a decade out of date and totally out of kilter with any real understanding of the complexities of a gender disphoric persons life.  The debate thats ensued has tended to see the issue as thats of sheer vanity and personal selfishness.  Yet this is all happening in countries with huge levels of unwanted pregnancies and unhappy parenting among heteros.  So why pick on a very small cohort of people who are making the most of what they have while they can?