I'd definitely make a comment about point 1 but then I am sure someone would whip printouts of them from a camera case in 16 years and I'd only have to apologize on TV.

All I can say about issue 4, with all due respect is: if you are born a woman, or a man, and the surgery you decide to have performed on you does NOT remove all of reproductive system and completely replace it with the other brand of plumbing, oh, and you don't find some way to change your chromosomes to those of the other team, then I have issues with you calling yourself one of the opposite sex. Regardless of how much facial hair you grow or how deep your voice.

Gotta concur with sean on the last point: its not really a man having a baby and the pregnancy is normal. We aren't into the medical miracle zone yet.

I heard an interesting piece of commentary during Michael Enright interviewing a good ol' boy from Kentucky (I think) on matters of American politics. It seems that with a war on (if you can call Iraq a war) Americans are unlikely to turf a sitting president. Blind loyalty or doggedness - you take your pick.

"then I have issues with you calling yourself one of the opposite sex. Regardless of how much facial hair you grow or how deep your voice."

Why? It's not your issue to have.

(Ok, that sounded snippy. But honestly, why does it matter what you choose to call yourself? The dude looks like a dude, and says he's a dude, he's a dude. It's not like his dude-dom changes any other dude's dude-dom. And what in society do dudes have a right to do that non-dudes don't (or shouldn't, at any rate?). There are some things that some chicks can't do that some dudes can, like snow-writing. And vice versa. And some possible structural brain differences. And a few more of this and a few less of that. But with the exception of these biological issues, dudeness is in the eye of the beholder. And the dude.)

(And those biological issues are not really all that important in overall external dude-dom, is my point, only internal dude-dom. And the structural brain things are all hormone-related, and change over time.)

I agree. If someone has personal biological characteristics, what do I care? Human dignity in inherent in merely being human.

Regardless of whether the person in question chooses to re-make themselves as a man, a woman, a multi-sexual or a eunich, doesn't matter, it's definitely their choice to do so. What matters to me is calling someone what they are.

A woman who has surgery to turn herself partly male who becomes pregnant through medical means is a pregnant woman, no news of the day there. I can remove all the Toyota logos off of my car, rip out the seats and replace them with Honda ones, change the paint and put in a better stereo, its still a Toyota.

Is the essence of gender physical or mental? I posit that that is an entirely answerable question for every animal except people - and pleeeeeze resist the temptation to be Canadian and say both.

The basis for human dignity is neither physical or mental. It is the fact of existence which had both physical and mental aspects.

And please don't be Swiss and disagree with me.

"lighting Brunswick"

Lo, I come to illuminate the matter.

The essence of gender is physical. If you have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome, you are male. If you have two X's you are female. There are a small number of genetic deviations and anomalies where this is not true, but this the way the code works for the vast majority of the human genotype. And it works regardless of whether you "feel" male or female.

The essence of cultural gender <i>role</i> is mental. But how you feel or imagine yourself doesn't change how your chromosomes act.

One of my captchas is a fleur-de-lys. How on earth do I type that?

Sean: Your Toyota isn't a person. There is a distinction between biologically-a-man and socially-a-man. The choice of pronouns is related to social, not biological, function. Unless you ask every guy you come across to whip it out before you call him "him." ...

There is no division between mental and physical. Each depends on the other for existence. Human dignity arises from the subjective experience of the interaction of the two.

Alan, why do you have to go around saying the things I'm thinking only way better? It's so annoying.

Further to Alan's comment, I have a trans friend who said that it was absolutely amazing the personality changes that arise from taking testosterone. Accross the board - mood, sexuality, perception, thinking. The mind is very much affected by the body, regardless of where the body is getting its inputs (ie: chromosomes or needles, makes no nevermind).

On the social front, he also noticed the way people related to him changed immensely when he started looking like a "guy." He said he'd always known that guys act very differently in social situations around other guys than they do around women, but he hadn't realized quite how different people treated guys.

(Women's lib side-note here: he said that, without a doubt, people, women included, treated guys much better - more respect, people listen to you more, people ask for your advice more, shop-keepers are more helpful, people include you more, etc... he was really shocked, because he was always a pragmatic "women are doing just fine, thank you" type as an attractive and successful woman, and never thought that he was at any disadvantage being a woman until he experienced advantage as a man).

Renee, don't you remember Schoolhouse Rocks? Your body IS a machine, like my Toyota. Granted, a smoother softer machine with nicer eyes and the capacity for emotions, but still, a machine. Fuel in one end, exhaust the other, etc.

If she can call herself a pregnant man, then I'm Green Lantern, socially, because I have the shirt.

"obnoxious men"

Renee: I agree that the mind is influenced by the body. But I do not agree that there is no qualitative difference between say, a rabbit which was born with a rabbit genotype, and a wombat born with a wombat genotype which had rabbit parts surgically added to it later. One is a natural rabbit and can do rabbity things effortlessly. One is an artificial rabbit that can not do rabbity things without surgery and ongoing anti-rejection pharmaceuticals.

For the sake of its dignity, when talking to the wombat-cum-rabbit, we will call it a rabbit. For the sake of science, we would refer to it as it is; a wombat with specific rabbit parts grafted on.

What makes the news story notable is that it is a man giving birth, heretofore a historic and biological impossibility. That is what makes it news. Except it's not at all historic because the man in question was actually born with woman parts, knew he wanted to utilise them for childbearing, and is now utilising them for that purpose.

There is a difference between compromises made for the sake of human dignity and objective fact as measured in the cold light of science.

All you need to know on this subject is in this song:<p><center><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/l7lFJAQzTUg&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/l7lFJAQzTUg&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object></blockquote>

Or is it this one?<p><center><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/u-269M7MzUI&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/u-269M7MzUI&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object></center>

Chris: Yeess... That's why the medical term for women who have transition to male "trans men," and not "genetically-born men with dingly dangly parts that grew there in the womb." I don't recall ever saying that, genetically, trans individuals were anything other than the sex they were born as. That's crazy talk. I just said that <strike>Sean</strike>The Green Lantern over there had no business taking issue with somebody preferring to be considered socially to be whatever the hell they want to be considered as.

And you're slightly wrong. Yes, biologically, what we have here is not a pregnant man, I agree. However, although he does biologically have female sex organs, it's actually a bit more complicated than that from a strictly scientific point of view. Even though he stopped taking hormones, there is an irreversible effect from a certain amount of prolonged testosterone exposure on the body after a certain point, an effect I would imagine no pregnant bio-women has ever experienced... probably very interesting, medically.

Nevermind that, anyway, I don't see anywhere in the story where he claims not to be biologically female. Indeed, he notes it. Indeed, he couldn't be pregnant without being biologically female. Um, yeah. What he did say was that he was refused medical care multiple times because he looks male and that this weirds out a bunch of bigoted OBGYNs who seem to think that it's OK to select their patients based upon their appearance, OBGYNs whose idea of "medical ethics" went only as far as treating people who are not socially unconventional.

... But I do go on.

Oh, hey! Check out a photo of the pregnant dude. He looks very ... dudey... to me. Wait, is that a word?

I knew she was a she the instant I looked at her, but I digress.

My whole issue was the media, and all other sorts of people emailing the tale around this past week, calling she a he. Sure, once can come up a with a newish chimera of a term to reflect the new biological being they have become and one can happily use it be it transexual or other, but so long as one uses the term HE when one is a SHE or MALE when one is FEMALE, it is incorrect.

My Toyota is now Toyota chassis with Honda Engine, Seats, carpeting, Radio and paint. Still a Toyota, call it a hybrid if you wish, just not a Toyota.

(Not fair Alan, using Moz)

Dudely. Related to chumley.

The law considers him male, and for all intents and most purposes he is...

And, actually, your example about your Toyota brings up an interesting question. Am I me? None of the material in my body right now is what I was born with. The cells are all replaced over a period of about seven years or so. OH NO. I DON'T EXIST!??

The inputs that go in are all different, too, from different places -- right now I'm biologically 4/7th Kingston inputs and 3/7ths Vancouver inputs, so am I a Vancouverite or a Kingstonian? I'd probably consider it kind of rude if I referred to myself as a Kingstonian and you insisted on referring to me as a Vancouverite even though I'd made it clear that I intended to live in Kingston for the rest of my life, had bought a funeral plot and ran for city council and raised my kids here, non? All the students I work with treat me as a townie - regrdless of what I am, how people treat me is what determines most of how my day goes. My point is that the down-to-the-mitrochondria biological issues are actually not as big a determinant in our lives as people seem to think.

Anyway. I'm just procrastinating now. Off to write about <strike>robots taking over the universe</strike> the philosophy of AI.

Silly Vancouverites and their crazy lefty views ;)

OMG this is awesome. From here.

The news reports on Thomas Beattie note that he’s a man.
He’s bearded, and he’s married to a lovely woman, Nan.
They’re planning on a family — how wonderful that is!
Oh, yeah, there’s one more tiny thing: the pregnancy is his.
Not his as in paternity, the papers try to tutor us,
But his as in he’s carrying the baby in his uterus.

In Monty Python’s Life of Brian, a character named Stan
Demanded that we recognize the right of any man
If he wishes, to be female, and to call himself Loretta,
And defend this right, by force, as in a feud or a vendetta.
And Loretta says that every man — no ifs, no buts, no maybes —
Possesses rights including each man’s right to carry babies.

Loretta did not have a womb, to utilize her right —
This futility of struggle was a symbol of their plight;
Thomas Beattie, though, in contrast, does not share Loretta’s gloom —
He’s the man Loretta wants to be — a man who has a womb.
If tomatoes can be vegetables, and also still be fruits,
Then a man can have a baby, if the situation suits.

How about a special Monday Morning Bullet Points highlighting the Blue Jays sweeping the Red Sox :=)

Did you know the Jays are on pace for a record of 107-55?
Did you know Jeremy Accardo is on pace for 81 saves?
Frank Thomas is on pace for 28 grand slams!

Oh, the joys of being a Jays fan. April is always so much better than September.

"If tomatoes can be vegetables, and also still be fruits,
Then a man can have a baby, if the situation suits."

Society and science defines things.

Society and science define a tomato as a fruit, regardless of how people treat, refer or use it.

But admire the rhyme! The scansion! The coolness of writing Gilbert-and-Sullivan style poetry about current-day events!

The test for dudeness always considers one's abililty to quote Monty Python.

I did, I did. It far surpassed my usual synopsizing of huget topics/movies/events with a haiku

A man or woman
Baby is in uterus
Methinks a woman