Thomas Beatie, The Pregnant Man, In The Public Sphere

Thomas is a female-to-male transgendered man without "bottom" surgery. He is legally a man and legally married to his wife, Nancy. He stopped taking testosterone and was artifically inseminated. He is now about six months pregnant:



I'm not sure what to make, sociologically, of the attention that Thomas' pregnancy is receiving in the mass media, but it is ripe for analysis. Below I've collected a bunch of different takes from various media outlets. I'd love to hear what ya'll think.

CNN:



Fox News:



On David Letterman:



MSNBC:



More MSNBC:



The Oprah Promo:



The Beginning of the Oprah Special:

Where Are The Multiracial Americans?

Over at the New York Times, Peggy Orenstein wrote a light article about the social construction of race, ethnicity, and culture through the lens of multiracialism. This figure (in Hawaii, Hapa means "half") shows the states with the highest percentages of people claiming to be multiracial:


For background: 2000 was the first year that the Census allowed us to mark more than one race... talk about the social construction of racial categories!

While The Women Are Enhancing, The Men Are Reducing

Since we're on a plastic surgery kick...

Below are some before and after pictures of breast reduction for men. The latter two are just boys. According to members of the American Society of Plastic Surgery, breast reduction is the most common cosmetic procedure among 13-19 year olds (girls and boys combined). Members performed 17,269 in 2006. What I think is most amazing about the pictures below (borrowed from here), is how trivial the difference is between the before and after pictures. These men were diagnosed with "moderate" gynecomastia. The belief that men are flat chested and women are breasted is not based in biology. In reality, there is a great deal more overlap between men's and women's bodies than we're comfortable with... so off to the plastic surgeon.

Patient One

Before and after front view:




Before and after 3/4 view:



Patient Two

Before and after front view:



Before and after 3/4 view:



Patient Three (Adolescent)

Before and after front view:



Before and after 3/4 view:



Patient Four (Adolescent)

Before and after front view:



Before and after 3/4 view:

Who Gets To Decide What Counts As A Name?

Fascinating example of both social construction and state control:

Sweden fines parents for naming their child Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116.

Described on boing boing by Cory Doctorow, originally here.

Crap, that wasn't an image at all. I'm not sorry.