There's an article in a recent issue of The Advocate about Thomas Beatie. Publicly, he's a mild-mannered husband in a sleepy Oregon community. He's also pregnant with his first child.
It's not a typo. Thomas Beatie, a legal male who is legally married to a woman, is pregnant with him and his wife's child.
Well, that's not entirely true. I kind of omitted a crucial piece of information - Beatie is a transgendered man (female-to-male). He had chest reconstruction surgery and testosterone therapy but kept his reproductive rights.
The idea of a pregnant man is not new. You've seen the notion acted out in "Junior," that unfunny Schwarzenegger vehicle. It has also been touted about in myth and fiction, like in Marge Piercy's "Woman on the Edge of Time" or in "Alien," when a titular bastard erupts from Kane's chest.
According to the very professional-looking Web site www.malepregnancy.com, Lee Mingwei was the first man in the world to be pregnant. Viewers can track the progress of Lee's pregnancy up to the birth via a live camera feed and occasional blog posts from Lee.
How is it possible for a man to be pregnant? According to the site, Lee underwent a process called ectopic pregnancy, in which the fertilized ovum is gestated in a different location than the uterus - in Lee's case, in his abdominal cavity. Lee was also given hormones to make him receptive to the pregnancy.
At the end of the gestation period, the Web site reported that Lee gave birth to a healthy boy via Caesarean section.
If you're wondering why you haven't yet heard about these monumental happenings - about a man giving birth - the reason is ... it's a hoax. It's merely the project of a conceptual artist.
Even Beatie's Oregonian neighbors are calling shenanigans on his claims of being pregnant. Some cynics think the entire pregnancy is a publicity stunt for his T-shirt printing company. But The Advocate magazine has insisted that the pregnancy is real and doctor-confirmed, Beatie is due to give birth in July.
But nature suggests that male pregnancy may be possible. The Syngnathidae family of fish, which includes seahorses and pipefishes, is the only family in which males have the capability to incubate eggs that the females deposit. British physician Robert Winston has theorized that it may be possible to surgically induce abdominal ectopic pregnancy in men, just like the purported surgery on Lee. The risks (internal hemorrhaging, being on Pastor Phelps' crap list) are high, though. But if everything were to fall into place, it's possible to see the first male human with Syngnathidaen qualities in the near future.
Is society ready for something this radical? Right now, Beatie's pregnancy is hampered by religious gynecologists who refuse to treat him. The idea of a male giving birth is repulsive and unnatural to many, never mind that Beatie was all woman in the reproductive area to begin with.
We are generally unaccustomed to things outside the status quo. So comfortable in normalcy, we fear change and resist change when it happens. I'm interested in how this will pan out. If history teaches us anything about our attachment to the old ways, progress seems to always find a way through the cracks of a stubborn viewpoint.
For now, Beatie's is burdened with those who can't look past the whole "transgendered male giving birth" label and see the beauty of bringing another human being into this world.
"Wanting to have a biological child," Beatie told The Advocate, "is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire."
Cheong is a screenwriting graduate student.
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