Reshaping Manhood: The Beatie Debacle

So, by now every trans*person, and most everyone else has heard about Thomas Beatie’s controversial pregnancy.

Personally, I have to say that I am sick of hearing about it. The personal decisions of a man tens of thousands of kilometers away are of little interest to me generally. However, it has come to my attention that I can not simply ignore Thomas Beatie’s choice, that people are saying fucked up things, and other people are believing those fucked up things, and that this could be a very bad thing for queer and trans rights.

I skimmed over a thread on the FTM livejournal community the other day, where concerns were raised that this issue may effect the ability of FTM’s to register as male without full hystorectomy first. I ignored the thread, because mostly I don’t care, and thats Over There in the US of A, where everything sucks anyway. (Yes, I am a lefty Aussie, and I think that you peeps in the US have a really shit time of it).

Then I was talking to a fellow organiser in the Campaign for Civil Unions (the queer rights campaign I’m involved in), and heard a shocking story of someone who wanted to sign our petition, but “only if we don’t end up with any of those pregnant men running around here”. I am very proud to say that my friend refused to let them sign the petition, and kicked them out of the store where she works after calling them a bigot.

The next thing that came to my attention involved some of the Australian trans e-lists. OzGuys, an email list for Australian Transmen has a ’sister-list’ called ‘ATSN’ (Australian Transsexual Network). Both these lists are run by the same guy, who also runs the very wonderful FTM Australia website. Now kudos to this guy, and his hard work. I’ve got massive respect for him, and what he has done for transmen in Australia. (For example, if it weren’t for OzGuys I’d have never met my current bf *winks*)
He does however sometimes come out with ideas that I disagree with. He usually gets pounced on pretty well by the guys on the list though, so I’ve never actually felt the need to call him on his crap.
I’m not actually subscribed to the ATSN list, cos I kinda look at it as the Girly List, being dominated by transwomen. One of my friends is on it though, and told me that she had been quite horrified by a very negative post that this guy recently put up regarding the Beatie story. The thing that amazes me, is that the Beatie story had already come up on OzGuys, and he hadn’t commented at all.
The Beatie thread on OzGuys has just been revived (by someone else, but I also commented on it), and I am very interested to see whether he will be brave enough to talk insulting gender essentialist shit to transmen’s faces, and get taken down for it, or if he is just going to skulk over on the ATSN list.

Thomas Beatie is reshaping our understanding of manhood, and motherhood and whether those two states can intersect. We cannot afford to go gender essentialist on his arse, and start proclaiming him mentally unstable, or ‘a woman after all’. This should be just another story about human diversity, but its not, because we still live in a world that is heavily invested in the gender binary. Transmen live in glass houses, and cannot afford to be throwing stones at Thomas Beatie.

I want the lesson of Thomas Beatie to be one of hope, and compassion, and for it to challenge peoples ideas of manhood. I don’t want to see this encroach on my rights as a man to access the medical treatment I need to be recognised as a man by society. This shouldn’t be restrictive, it should open our eyes to other peoples experiences of gender. The media attention surrounding this shouldn’t be terrifying as transsexuals wonder if this will lead to harsher gender laws. This should be a good and educating experience.

Pity reality doesn’t match up to my hopes and dreams.