Media: The Good, The Bad & The Transtitutes

Once again, Thomas Beatie, is in the media. The issue this time is that an Arizona judge refuses to grant the Beatie's a divorce because the judge is not sure if Thomas is a man. Same-sex marriage, is of course, not legal in Arizona. But the Beatie's were married in Hawaii, where he is considered a man, and why they were allowed to marry. It's all a sticky situation.

But here's the kicker...rather than concentrating only on the issue at hand, and the ripple affects this judge's actions (or non-action) can cause, Beatie continues to allow himself to be billed as the [world's first*] pregnant man, and everytime he appears on any show, pictures of him with his "baby bump" are flashed across the screen.

Today, on Anderson Live, Anderson Cooper's new daytime talk show, pictures of a pregnant Beatie were continually flashed on the screen -one which shows him sitting on a bed, naked and "embracing" his pregnant belly - along with one pre-transition photo, and even a couple of photos of him at the doorway of men's restrooms.

At one point, Cooper asked Beatie about all the publicity over his divorce and the controversary surrounding it. Beatie's answer was that part of the reason is that the tabloids have their way of getting information. While the tabloids might have been able to dig up court records and perhaps jimmie information out of family and friends, I'm sure most of the intimate images and video we have seen of Beatie could only have come from him - like the video he made allegedly to document his wife's domestic violence. It's just my opinion, but the vid appeared staged to me.

So once again, we have a transperson in the media, and once again, the issue and we as a group, are devalued because of the circus-like handling of a story, and what seems to be a transperson media-prostituting himself. I think the Anderson Live segment would have served transpeople, and society in general, much better had the discussion revolved only around the Beatie's divorce, how it affects transpeople, their families, possible legal precedents and current laws. Not whether he intends to give birth to more children in a future relationship, and looking at pictures of what he looked like before transitioning, or what he looks like butt naked and pregnant with pit hair, body hair and beard!

*Beatie is not the first transman to have a child after transitioning - he's just the first one to go public.