http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=6244878&page=1
Thomas Beatie, a transgender, who had been taking male hormone pills and started changing her appearance to a more socially accepted "male look" decided that she and her partner wanted to have a baby. Thomas was artificially inseminated and 9 months later gave birth to a baby girl. Though Thomas may look like a man to society, he still has female sexual organs and was able to have a baby. He is quoted saying in the article that he has stopped taking his male hormonal pills so that he can have a second baby, and is in fact pregnant again.
The reason I was interested in this story is because I think it has a lot to do with "Dueling Dualism's". Thomas Beatie was a woman, and then became transgender and considered himself transgender/on her way to becoming a man, and then had a baby. The reason this story is so controversial is because like Patino, it deals with female gender and the typical social norms about being female. People were outraged by Beatie's pregnancy because it was deemed as unnatural for a "man" to have a baby.
Looking at these two stories together, I think it is evident how the definitions of male and female are becoming more and more confusing in the modern world. What would you consider Thomas Beatie to be? He acts as a father, looks like a man and relates to himself as a man, yet is able to have babies because he was born a woman. Does this make him transgender? He seems to not fit into any sexual group society has created. He is not seen as a woman or as a man. Social definitions of male and female are not as black and white as they used to be. There are many people who identify themselves as neither male nor female, or as transgender, or some in the process of becoming the opposite sex. The world has become more complicated and there is no strict definition of male or female anymore. I think that this problem will only become worse because more and more people like Thomas Beatie will break societies normal expectations for gender and sex. I am also interested to see what the class would think of Thomas Beatie and whether they consider him more male or female.
I agree with Caroline that in society today there is a less clear distinction of gender norms. Her example of a man giving birth to a baby is definitely an instance of a defiance of societal ideas and what a man can and should do. Much more mundane examples such as women working in male dominated careers or men as stay at home parents are instances of variations from what is expected or considered normal for each gender, yet I believe that they recently have become more accepted. I think that extreme cases of gender defiance gain public attention because they lead to discomfort. As we have discussed in class, society values clear definitions and simplistic gender categorizes; when people dismiss or ignore these norms we often feel uncomfortable. Still, norms have proven to change with time and it will be interesting to see how gender norms further transform in the future.
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