I remember after Thomas Beatie did the Oprah interview there was much discussion in this community about our thoughts about the "Pregnant Man." I was not terribly kind in my thoughts and comments. I thought a lot about the privacy of the yet unborn child, and in my mind Beatie's decision to do the Oprah interview reeked of "I see a book in this somewhere." My sense was that Beatie was motivated by financial gain in his decison to come out with his story.
I will never know if my insticts were correct about Beatie. But here is what I do know. After Beatie came out with his story, many states and some countries made the requirments to become a man legally, much more restrictive. Now it took more than T shots and psychological counselling. Now to become a male legally, it also required a surgery. (For the record, years before Beatie in the media I had a hystorectomy.
For me I felt it was the first step to take in my transition.)
I met quite a few Transmen who could not finacially afford a surgery such at top surgery or a hystorectomy to meet these new surgical requirements to transtion.
For better or for worse, Beaties actions and decisions are not done in a vacum where there has been no impact on the fate of many others. In all fairness it is not only Beatie's actions and decisions that can impact a great deal of people, it really is a possibility for many of us to have the same or similar impacts.
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Judge Rejects Divorce for Transgender Pregnant Man
By PAUL DAVENPORT and FELICIA FONSECA Associated Press
PHOENIX March 29, 2013 (AP)
Gerlach said he had no jurisdiction to approve a divorce because there's insufficient evidence that Beatie was a man when he married Nancy Beatie in Hawaii. He said the Beaties never provided records to fully explain what Thomas Beatie actually had done and not done to become a man.
"The decision here is not based on the conclusion that this case involves a same-sex marriage merely because one of the parties is a transsexual male, but instead, the decision is compelled by the fact that the parties failed to prove that (Thomas Beatie) was a transsexual male when they were issued their marriage license," he wrote in Friday's ruling.
Beatie is eager to end his marriage, but the couple's divorce plans stalled last summer when Gerlach said he was unable to find legal authority defining a man as someone who can give birth.
Gerlach's ruling didn't address whether Arizona law allows a person who was born female to marry another female after undergoing a sex change operation.
A separate ruling issued Friday by Gerlach sets guidelines on how the Beaties will co-parent their three children and grants them joint authority in making legal decisions. Thomas Beatie is required to pay nearly $240 a month to Nancy Beatie for child support, but she won't get alimony because the marriage was declared invalid.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/j...t-man-18840262