PARENTING: Pregnant man, child might pay

It’s not unusual for my wife to rush in from work and announce that she must immediately turn on "Oprah.” An episode last week also piqued my interest.
That is a semi-rare occurrence. I’m not an Oprah-hater like lots of guys, but it’s not like I’m tuning in right at 4 p.m. every day, either.

But as someone who keeps up with stories about fatherhood, I did spend an hour watching an Oregon man talk about pregnancy.

HIS pregnancy.

And I don’t mean that in the sense that some couples say, “We’re pregnant,” though it’s the woman doing all the hard work.

No, I mean the guy is actually pregnant, as strange as that sounds. He’s a transgendered male who kept his female reproductive organs though he had chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy.

Since he’s legally a man now, he was able to get married to a woman — that is, a woman who’s always been a woman — and because she can’t have children, the couple decided that he would bear a child.

“Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire,” the man, Thomas Beatie, wrote in the April 8 issue of “The Advocate,” a magazine targeting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender readers.

He’s right. In my family, my wife and I both wanted to bring a child into the world. And I’m sure you know of couples in which one spouse was more excited about having children than the other. Indeed, sometimes the one who’s most excited is the man.

It’s just not usually the man who…well…carries the baby. And there’s the rub.

If you think of bearing a child as one of the most selfless of acts — enduring the weight gain, hormone shake-up and sheer pain of the birth — this story has got to rank among the tops in terms of selfishness.

Yes, these folks wanted to have a child. But have they thought about what kind of life that child, a girl, will have? No matter how long she lives, or what she does in her life, her obituary will begin with the fact that she was born to a man.

Let’s even assume that the couple will be great parents. They’re still subjecting an innocent kid to undue scrutiny, to an existence that most of us wouldn’t want. Though I saw the couple on “Oprah,” this tale is really more “Jerry Springer.”

Think about how it will be for this girl to go to school. Kids are cruel enough to fat kids, or nerdy ones. What verbal abuse will the daughter of the pregnant man have to take?

More seriously, consider the physical danger. After having their story — and faces —splashed across national TV and in national magazines, including the widely circulated “People,” don’t you think that will motivate crazies of all stripes?

I mean, I don’t think this is a good idea, and I’m normally someone who would be on their side. I have caused uproars with family, friends and one ex-boss with my defense of gay rights and civil rights, so I’m not someone who believes that the only valid family is one with a mother and a father and where everyone is of the same race.

But here’s what I want to know: Why did these people feel like they had to have a child with the help of a sperm donor and artificial insemination? Are we to assume that every adoptable kid in the entire world is now with a loving, caring family in the suburbs, eating three squares a day, playing video games and hoping to be selected for the traveling soccer team?

See, adoption’s cool because it’s one of those solutions that everyone can appreciate. The liberals who want to help everyone can dig it, and the conservatives who don’t want anyone to have an abortion can get onboard, too.

Thing is, I don’t have a problem with Thomas, who used to be Tracy, becoming Thomas. (Incidentally, I should mention I’m fascinated by the fact that Tracy was an attractive woman, and that also the bearded Thomas really looks masculine - a bit effeminate perhaps, but still basically masculine.)

And I don’t have a gripe with Thomas marrying Nancy, and the couple wanting a child of their own. (Nancy has two older daughters from a previous marriage.)
But it just doesn’t seem right that while loving, responsible gay and lesbian couples are still for the most part forbidden from adopting kids that no one else wants, a man who used to be a woman has chosen to give birth. Just because he can.

“Our situation ultimately will ask everyone to embrace the gamut of human possibility,” Beatie wrote in his “Advocate” essay, and he said something similar on “Oprah.”

However, what’s possible and what’s right can be two different things. Apparently Beatie has already learned one thing about parenting: How you can claim authority for anything just by saying, “Why? Because I’m the parent. That’s why.”

Fredericksburg resident Jonathan Hunley is a columnist for Media General’s Stafford County Sun, and father to a nearly 2-year-old son.