An unprecedented human condition.

Issues of gender in the U.S. are generally approached with the same kind of schizophrenic doublethink normally associated with abortion, election, and race. I can only imagine how the public will react to this news.

Paul Raven at Futurismic posted this article just a few minutes ago in which he describes a unique case where transgendered male Thomas Beatie (who did not elect for sterilization when 'she' became a 'he') has successfully become pregnant. While the main article can't be reached at the moment, most likely due to the slashdot effect, Grinding.be adds to the report that he has been in contact with doctors and the pregnancy is so far without complication and sets the due date at around July 3, 2008. Since Thomas has been legally recognized as a male by the state, he's been able to legally marry his wife, Nancy. Together, they spent more than a year trying to get access to a sperm donation.

Discussion of male pregnancy has been brought up before. Some scientists have considered the possibility of an abdominal pregnancy, a rare case in which a fertilized egg becomes implanted outside the uterus. Only 5% of these pregnancies successfully come to term. Another possibility examined by science is the implantation of a uterus into a male, which has been tested successfully on lab rats.

This is a wonderful advancement that should hopefully get lots of people thinking about what gender and pregnancy mean in an increasingly fluid society. We've already seen laboratory research that made sperm cells from female tissue, and it wont be too long before we see a male, who was born male, becoming and carrying a pregnancy.

Things you can expect from this news; The liberal, body mod, and left-wing communities will generally acknowledge this case as something unique and might even go as far as to suggest that it's a significant step for both transgendered people and alternative-gender issues. Right wing and fundamentalist factions will, if they take notice at all, decry it as yet another harbinger of depravity and doom for society.