Thomas Beattie: self promotion or trans ploy Part 2

[dirtywhiteboi]

The current media frenzy both public and in private communities across the net surrounding the pregnant "man" brings to mind two questions, the first being is Beattie's (Tracy Lagondino) public narcissistic plea for 15 minutes simply a stunt at self promotion and the second question being is this a trans ploy at revenge leveled at the gay and lesbian community because the trans agenda was temporarily left off of ENDA in better efforts of getting it passed?

Before I address the second question, let’s first establish if the Beattie/Lagondino debacle has the criteria for trans ploydom, which I believe it does.

The most current principal issue being addressed by the gay and lesbian community is the right to legally marry. Does the Beattie/Lagondino fiasco have the capacity to harm the gay and lesbian quest for legal marriage? Yes it does and I'll explain why.

Its fairly common knowledge among Joan Q Public that the trans community is currently part of the gay and lesbian community largely because of the commonly used acronym LGBT, T standing of course for trans. Joan Q Public may be ill informed where the LGBT is concerned, but they are aware of it. Throughout this debacle it has been stated in the media by Beattie/Lagondino herself that she and her female partner are legally "married". The legality of the marriage was made possible because despite Beattie/Lagondino's lack of "bottom surgery", she has had her healthy breasts cut off and was injecting T which granted her the legal right to change her birth sex from female to male, this then also granted her the convenience to marry another woman.

Before I delve any further into the gay and lesbian ramifications, let me point out some of the illegalities with the Beattie/Lagondino situation. Beattie/Lagondino claims she has not been on "male" hormones (T) in over two years, currently she is a pregnant woman whom has had both breast removed like thousands of other breast cancer survivors. So should other women whom have had double mastectomies be given the legal rights to willy-nilly change their sex from female to male if they so choose? Maybe in the process also enjoy some of the many many many wonderful male privileges that go with, such as having a legal standing to demand making the same amount of money males do a crossed the board rather than the current 74 cents to a man's dollar, or if the double mastectomied woman happens to be lesbian, she could legally wed (like Beattie/Lagondino) her girlfriend? Or should Beattie/Lagondino's "marriage" have been terminated because her state does not legally recognize "gay marriage"? Was/is Beattie/Lagondino given special privilege/rights by choosing to legally forfeit herself as a female?

Getting back to the question at hand, could the Beattie/Lagondino fiasco be a ploy created by the trans community to quash any chance gays and lesbians have at gaining the right to legally marry? And if this is a ploy, why would the trans community want to harm a community (LGBT) they are supposed to be a part of? The short answer to the later is ENDA! Briefly, ENDA is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which in varied forms the gays and lesbian community has been laboring to pass federally for over 30 years. This bill would prohibit employers from discriminating against "sexual orientation". When the bill was introduced again in spring 2007, along with prohibiting "sexual orientation" it also included prohibiting the discrimination of "gender identity". By fall of 2007 ENDA was deemed more likely to pass if "gender identity" was stripped from the current bill since the general heterocentric representatives voting has enough difficulty understanding "sexual orientation", and that by including at this time "gender identity" would have not only been pushing the needle to far, but an out right mistake. Which given the ignorance that can be deduced by the questions alone asked by the general public surrounding the "pregnant man", that even had Oprah asking when Beattie/Lagondino was discussing changes made by her injecting of T, "did you grow testicles" make perfectly clear the suppression of "gender identity” from the ENDA bill WAS in fact the right thing to do.

Since the exclusion of "gender identity" from ENDA the trans community has all but taken up arms against the LGB. Their staunch stance has selfishly been (not surprising given that pathological narcissism is a prime factor of trannyism) ALL or NOTHING! This brings us back full circle to Beattie/Lagondino's publicity stunt as a potential trans attack against the LGB's struggle for the right to marry. As suggested above, there is a great deal of assumptions and ignorance garnered by the heterocentric binaried general public concerning LGB issues and more specifically T(rans) issues. Beattie/Lagondino's stunt could easily muddy the waters for the LGB's "right to marry" by raising such questions by the uninformed as "if gays and lesbians want to get married why cant one of them get a sex change like Beattie/Lagondino did"?

There has long since been the assumption that gay and lesbian relationships are nothing more than the mimicry of hetero relationships in that one partner is "the man one" while the other partner is "the woman one". These assumptions are in part because feminine males and masculine females are the visible minority of the greater gay and lesbian community. They can easily be read as gay or lesbian by the general public which is still relatively privy to little info regarding gays and lesbians. Given these heterocentric binaried assumptions its easy enough to see exactly how the general public could question after their acquaintance with Beattie/Lagondino the need for "gay marriage" when all gays or lesbians have to do is conform to the hetero binary, receive a "sex change", and thereby open up the "right to marry" as Beattie/Lagondino did.

Taking into account the trans rage over ENDA coupled with the given that the Beattie/Lagondino "pregnant man" stunt was sure to be a freak show three ring circus act is it a stretch to ponder if this exploit was a trans ploy at "revenge" against the GLB. Some could argue why would the trans community choose to hurt the LGB's potential for legal marriage when many trans individuals ID as gay, lesbian and bi themselves, simple the trans community has already proven they will cut off their collective nose to spite their face!

dirt

[ophelia]

i hesitate to reply because it will probably only encourage you but --

apparently in your world there is a sinister conspiracy in which transpeople have nothing better to do than to try to undermine the GLB community. and to do it by having a transguy get pregnant!? it seems to me you've been smoking too much weed - its making you paranoid.

and why can't a transguy have chosen to transition just because they don't feel right in the bodies they were born in - does it always have to be about trying to get societal privilege? how do you explain transwomen then? and even if it was just about getting some privilege, if an individual feels their life will never be right, and they'll never stop suffering, unless they transition, then why shouldn't that person do it? what has that got to do with you anyway?

you're a hater. just as bad as any other hater. i'd no more want to be in a room with you as i would want to be in a room with pat robertson.

[MasterAmazon]

Dirt asks questions nobody else is willing to answer, and why is it that when the trans community is put up to task to answer for the illogic of many of their positions, including the whole "man having a baby" thing and parading themselves in front of the media, while lesbians and gays still don't have equal rights in the workplace. Flaunting just these kinds of things that 'men have babies too', and 'anyone could be a man' or 'anyone could be a womon', is just the kind of crap that gets me soooo tired of the trans community.

Perhaps LG should separate ourselves again from the B and T. After all, B's get heterosexual privilege, and can marry their opposite sex spouses, and can easily go for trans in that they're part man, part woman. And trans, well that's a crazier and crazier category on it's own, pushing more and more insane limits, making the rest of us LG's look like fools.

Yeah, it has gotten to me that trans can marry, enjoy hetero privilege, then turn it all back around again by going off hormones ect. Says to me once a trans, always a trans, there is no switching sexes....biology overrides all else, in the sense, that one could be questioning of any and every gender role, I have no problem with that, and fighting the discrimination that exists by being one sex or the other, well, especially born female. There IS a factor that many who become FTM or identify as genderqueer male and NOT as Butch Dyke Lesbian, masculine FEMALE in a bio FEMALE body, but having to hate that body, or be at war with it, rather than loving and accepting it and finding a way to be empowered despite discrimination in that body(similarily the case with highly effeminate men), that instead of changing the societal oppression and roles, one instead gives into the medical institutions, the hormones, the surgeries, ect. or the legalities of 'becoming' male or female by changing i.d.'s and such. It really doesn't change ultimately the biological reality one is warring against in the first place.

If it did, and the trans movement made any sense at all, one wouldn't own "the man who gave birth" or would have highly censored this individual for being a betrayer of said community by switching back when it's convenient, i.e. having birth, and still declaring oneself male...makes absolutely no sense at all...and makes EVERYBODY in the alphabet soup community look like a goddamned fool.

What would make far more sense is to declare oneself honestly and with full integrity a third or fourth gender. I have no problem with this...somebody born female who has a more male expression, owns her/his female history/herstory, and reality, honors it, and makes the choice to live differently, whether it be by dress, hormones, surgeries, but eliminating those as much as possible unless absolutely necessary....going for the fullest acceptance and love of one's body/mind/spirit as it is...instead of denying one's past, including it fully, and OWNING one's both masculine and female natures, in unique combination. Perhaps more MTF oriented individuals, or highly effeminate men who combine both dressing male at times, and dressing female at times, depending on mood, circumstance, what have you, would be a third gender, and those who are more FTM in nature would be a fourth gender.....no need to lie about pasts, body parts or surgeries, or mislead people. Perhaps this FTM wanted to reclaim his/her female bodily Self again, and have a child....in a truly more fluid understanding this could be ok, but with modern legalities and responsibilities the way they are now, it is not....it is fuel for the media's fire to cook the rest of the Lesbian/Gay communities, trying so hard for our civil rights, while Trans trod all over them, making fools of us all, and yet as they have preyed upon the Lesbian communities, from imitiating or crashing our Dyke Marches(not just MTF's but FTM's as well) and intimating themselves into ALL our spaces, whether it be Michfest, or FTM's insistence in dyke/womon only spaces as well, you won't be respected by us.

Go create your own realities, leave us out of it, and quit whining and bellyaching about it. There is no accountability or accomodation for those of us who have gone before and done the work while you come behind and wreck it all.
It is hard enough to accept lesbians and gays, much less those who neither pass for male or female, are not truly male or female in their switched sex, or some imitation thereof. Again, that creates another 'binary', another role someone has to fit into, that being an effeminate man or masculine Butch womon is not good enough...somehow the youth especially need to go further, to hormones, and surgeries and the lot...to be 'accepted' either by mainstream straights, or by other trans......I've heard many times of this pressure especially for those who are masculine/butch/boyish females, immense pressure to begin the transition process....and become FTM's from pressure from other FTM's.

And nobody ever, ever talks about what all these hormones and surgeries actually do to the body. Dirtboi has pictures of failed surgeries, horrifying to look at, but information that nobody, but nobody in the trans community will talk about.

Either you're truly a mensch, and own up to it, if you've changed your i.d., identify fully as male, even married a womon, and quit crashing womon only space, and DON'T allow yourself to be impregnated, taking the proper precautions, or you're a third or fourth gender that straddles the fence....just OWN UP TO IT...BUT DON'T PLAY THE REST OF THE LBT COMMUNITY FOR FOOLS, ENDANGERING OUR ABILITY TO GATHER OUR RIGHTS. Work for your own, and quit whining how we should 'support you'. When you obviously DO NOT support us in our struggles, especially us bio Female lesbians, the misogny, the body hatred, the lies that come out of trans politics, and the anti-feminism and active Lesbophobia...after all, to you, we're merely 'genetic females'....such disparaging shows your further male sexism at the root.....Don't take this crap to the media and let them have a field day with it....because if you're a 'pregnant man' you're not a man.....you're ultimately a bio female and all that implies...own it.....and at the same time own your masculine nature as well....we all have both inside.

-M.A.

[PLANETEARTHGIRRL]

please take this thread to the forum in which it belongs, the "Female identity and gender politics" forum.

thanks, PEG

[mags8888]

Oh I am so tired of the hatemongering some lesbians due around trans issues. Stick a fork in it. It's so 1990s! Trans people are making their way through the world the best way they can just like everyone else. I'm ecstatic about a man giving birth--he certainly wasn't the first and won't be the last, but good for him for putting himself out there to raise awareness. The anti-trans crap makes me think of how some elements of the Christian right devote so much energy to stopping our perversion despite the fact that we're not going anywhere--and in fact, we're loving stronger and better everyday. Transfolks aren't going anywhere, and I'm glad. It makes our world a more interesting place.

[MasterAmazon]

It makes a mockery of every woman alive who is facing or potentially facing her right to an abortion if need be, or the misery of her life tied to the reproductive cycle because right wing religions have convinced or control governments, including our own, that abortion or even birth control should not be permitted...."if men could have babies, abortion would be a sacrament"(from a 1970's poster).

All a womon has to do to truly have her rights now, is 'become a man'. The phallacy of so much of the trans movement is anti lesbian, anti-bio female, and anti feminism in many, many ways.....some of us are up to exposing their lies...cut the 1990s comparisons...it's pretty much when all this insanity started anyway. And the doctors who prescribe sex changing hormones, or do the surgeries are laughing all the way to the bank....
-M.A.

[JAL]

How is it ‘Hate Mongering’ when a person born female simply states that being born female creates a lived experience that cannot be purchased at a later date nor consumed/assumed by a mental fantasy of ‘feeling like’ a woman.

Reality does not equal hatred.

[PLANETEARTHGIRRL]

please STOP the bait-taking, and take any further discussion/commentary to where it belongs, which is NOT in here!
i KNOW you long time bb-ers understand this and i KNOW you know which forum this type of thread belongs in.
so please, if you feel you MUST comment, head on over to the "Female identity and gender politics" forum and make any comment/s there.

PEG

[bintalshamsa]

[bintalshamsa]

[case333]

[bintalshamsa]

[mags8888]

I hate to create an even more dichotomous construction, but why are you anti-trans folks so mean and so angry? Why can't people live their lives as they see fit? It is hate mongering. It's hateful and cruel--just like the crazy bigots who protest at funerals with "God hates fags" signs. Just stop for a second. Take a deep breath. I would strongly encourage you to watch the videos on trans kids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Utpam0IGYac&feature=related Trans folks aren't trying to take over the world. They aren't even trying to take over the lesbian world. It's so painful to see such bigotry coming from "my community." Please listen to their voices...and hear them.

[MasterAmazon]

Yes, thoughtprovoking video, and we've discussed this before here, but there is a difference between those who transition at a very early age, and those who are autogynaphilic and transition in their 20s, 30s, 40s, with many male experiences and male attitudes and assumptions of privilege. The narcissicistic it's all about them, even though they may have had male military experiences, played football on a men's football team, been a male husband to a wife, and impregnated her and had kids, was a CEO or power broker in a company, cutting deals like men do, then one day falling in love with himself in female clothes....it is way different than with these young, young kids.

Even these kids need to know what situations are appropiate for them, and which ones are not. And how many would have had to hate their bodies and transition if there were far more accepting attitudes that did not straitjacket girls into pink(which I notice everytime in the girl section, how much abysmal pepto bismol pink things there are, you can't get away from it and there are few other choices of young girls' things without that abysmal color), and boys into blue, red or other bright "masculine" colors. Just look at kids sections in the dept stores and the brainwashing is already there. It is amazing how powerful their determination is from such a young age, perhaps the boys were more exposed to estrogens, the girls to androgens/testosterones....but there's also emotional proclivities as well. I love that the parents in this story don't shame these kids, but allow them to be who they are, at least around the house, till they can figure out the situation outside of it. I really loved the unisex movement when I was younger, so there were more choices and I could wear more androgynous clothes, clothes either boys or girls could wear, or very similar styles.

I hated it too, from a young age, but learned to accept my femaleness once the kind of female I was was honored, and that was once I came out as a Dyke....before I NEVER fit in, and still do not. My family hated having a masculine female, and I was constantly belittled for it, by family members and schoolmates.

Nonetheless, despite these anamolies, our need for our space is still so important, and it doesn't mean we're "mean and angry". It means we have boundaries...and we are determined to protect them, not letting nonbio females or nondykes run roughshod over them. It is NOTHING like asshole Fred Phelps and his insane family protesting funerals or all our gay pride events with big hateful signs, and threats of violence.
-MasterAmazon

[Brenda]