Notasteelersfan's Blog

Labor of Love Thomas Beatie gives The Advocate a first-person account of how it feels to be pregnant and carrying a child for his wife and himself. Thomas Beatie From The Advocate March 26, 2008

To our neighbors, my wife, Nancy, and I don’t appear in the least unusual. To those in the quiet Oregon community where we live, we are viewed just as we are -- a happy couple deeply in love. Our desire to work hard, buy our first home, and start a family was nothing out of the ordinary. That is, until we decided that I would carry our child.

I am transgender, legally male, and legally married to Nancy. Unlike those in same-sex marriages, domestic partnerships, or civil unions, Nancy and I are afforded the more than 1,100 federal rights of marriage. Sterilization is not a requirement for sex reassignment, so I decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights. Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire.

Ten years ago, when Nancy and I became a couple, the idea of us having a child was more dream than plan. I always wanted to have children. However, due to severe endometriosis 20 years ago, Nancy had to undergo a hysterectomy and is unable to carry a child. But after the success of our custom screen-printing business and a move from Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest two years ago, the timing finally seemed right. I stopped taking my bimonthly testosterone injections. It had been roughly eight years since I had my last menstrual cycle, so this wasn’t a decision that I took lightly. My body regulated itself after about four months, and I didn’t have to take any exogenous estrogen, progesterone, or fertility drugs to aid my pregnancy.

Our situation sparks legal, political, and social unknowns. We have only begun experiencing opposition from people who are upset by our situation. Doctors have discriminated against us, turning us away due to their religious beliefs. Health care professionals have refused to call me by a male pronoun or recognize Nancy as my wife. Receptionists have laughed at us. Friends and family have been unsupportive; most of Nancy’s family doesn’t even know I’m transgender.

This whole process, from trying to get pregnant to being pregnant, has been a challenge for us. The first doctor we approached was a reproductive endocrinologist. He was shocked by our situation and told me to shave my facial hair. After a $300 consultation, he reluctantly performed my initial checkups. He then required us to see the clinic’s psychologist to see if we were fit to bring a child into this world and consulted with the ethics board of his hospital. A few months and a couple thousand dollars later, he told us that he would no longer treat us, saying he and his staff felt uncomfortable working with “someone like me.”

In total, nine different doctors have been involved. This is why it took over one year to get access to a cryogenic sperm bank to purchase anonymous donor vials, and why Nancy and I eventually resorted to home insemination.  

When I finally got pregnant for the first time, I ended up having an ectopic pregnancy with triplets. It was a life-threatening event that required surgical intervention, resulting in the loss of all embryos and my right fallopian tube. When my brother found out about my loss, he said, “It’s a good thing that happened. Who knows what kind of monster it would have been.”

On successfully getting pregnant a second time, we are proud to announce that this pregnancy is free of complications and our baby girl has a clean bill of health. We are happily awaiting her birth, with an estimated due date of July 3, 2008.

How does it feel to be a pregnant man? Incredible. Despite the fact that my belly is growing with a new life inside me, I am stable and confident being the man that I am. In a technical sense I see myself as my own surrogate, though my gender identity as male is constant. To Nancy, I am her husband carrying our child -- I am so lucky to have such a loving, supportive wife. I will be my daughter’s father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family.

Outside the local medical community, people don’t know I’m five months’ pregnant. But our situation ultimately will ask everyone to embrace the gamut of human possibility and to define for themselves what is normal.

 

Go ahead and finish the sentence with a relevance to politics. (Some of you may have said reporter, others republican and most libral. Ive been watching a lot of these blogs and there is a very common trend. A lot of bloggers wear their political views on thier sleeves. It is expected and appropriate in certain topics but now its becoming the main topic of every subject. It takes away from the topic itself.  None of us know each other personally. We are not the same online as we are in real life. We dont have to deal with consequences online.)

(Back to the main line)

No such thing as a good_______?

Why is that?

Why cant you find a good Libral?

Why cant you find a good Conservative?

Why are these words which used to mean a certain view now turned into a slander of some sort?

Simple

We have replaced the meanings of these words with our own preconcieved ideas. We all have opinions and we all see one way as the right way. Now when that view is challnged you generalize everything you and your media disagrees with into one common word. One challenged opinion cannot be tolerated and because they dont agree with me that must mean they, the enemy, are 100% ________.

So why cant you find a good libral, conservative or ______?

Easy

You wont let yourself find one because they all think the same and oppose you.

Sounds twisted if you ask me. Whats your view on it and is this healthy?

This weekedn the USS New York was unveiled this weekend. The ship is a tribute to those who died on 9/11. The ship's bow itself is constructed from the steel grindes salvaged from the fallen towers. The ship is going to be issued into commition next year. 2 more navy ships are to be built to commend those who died at the pentagon and penslyvania.

I dont know about you but something about using the desris from the twin towers to build a ship rubs me the wrong way. I dont know what it is but it just seems wrong to me.

 

I have a weakness for music since Ive studied it for a great deal of my young life. I am not a big fan of country music or rock so those stations dont have a spot on my 6 station buttons in my car. My radio is full with my 3 favorite stations: XL 106.7, Power 95.3 and 102 Jamz. I had a MP3 which I used on a regular base in the car for a year because I was getting tierd of the constant slide downward in music on these stations. The greats were being replaced by the imposters who "claimed" they were insierd by the classics only to have horrible songs that reflected horribly on the hip-hop, rap and (surprisingly ) R&B community. Well my music player was stolen so Ive had to resort to radio to keep me from bordom in the car. I was reminded nothing changed when I was finding myslef changing station to station. I even had to resort to rock and now I like the beetles (haha). But in the last moth something intresting has happend. I belive this is due to an amazing vocalist by the name of Alicia Keys. Other R&B artists have contributed to this matter but I believe she has started a change in the hip-hop community for the better. Those song which have gained  notoriety in the hip-hop community have been slowly dissapearing and the classics like Luaren Hill, Fugees and amoung other have been slowly appearing on these stations. It is also refelcted in the new music that has been making its way over the radio. More songs about life, real life, real people and real situations are abundant now than ever before. If you are not used to these stations then you might not hear the diffrence but trust me it is there. I belive that there is a great and silent movement and the hip-hop community is being changed for the better. They are going back to the foundations and dropping a lot of their nonsense. R&B and Soul is taking over and it shows that the fans want a change because these new songs are highly requested. Its about time.

Short attention span watch the video on this link

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/12/13/60minutes
/main3615278_page3.shtml#

(CBS) One of Bill Clinton's first acts as president was to propose that gay servicemen and women be allowed to serve openly. That was 15 years ago, and it almost derailed his presidency.

Instead, the military adopted a policy called "don't ask, don't tell," where gays can serve as long as they remain in the closet. The Pentagon says it's been a success. But 12,000 military men and women have been discharged under the policy.

Now something curious is happening. As correspondent Lesley Stahl reports, discharges of gay soldiers are dropping, dramatically: from over 1,200 a year in 2001 to barely 600. With the military struggling to fight two wars, there are growing calls to repeal the policy and growing evidence that some commanders could care less about sexual orientation.

---

Army Sergeant Darren Manzella, a medical liaison for his division, is in Kuwait on his second deployment of the Iraq war. He spoke to 60 Minutes without permission.

Manzella served as a medic with a field artillery unit in Baghdad back in 2005, earning a combat medal for rendering treatment under fire. "I've treated everything from blast injuries to gunshot wounds," he tells Stahl.

Manzella was out to his Army buddies and even introduced them to his boyfriend A.J. But then, he started getting anonymous e-mails, saying he was being watched, and warning him to "turn down the flame."

"As in flamingly gay?" Stahl asks.

"Yes," Manzella says.

He went for help to his commanding officer, and in the process, told him - as in don't ask don't tell - that he was gay. The officer in turn told Manzella he'd have to report him.

"He did report me, yes," Manzella says. "I had to go see my battalion commander, who read me my rights."

"So, what you did, in effect, by telling him, was trigger the investigation you feared was underway?" Stahl asks.

"I did. And I felt more comfortable with that. I felt more comfortable bein' the one to say, 'This is the truth. This is what is real,'" he says.

"What a Catch-22. You go and tell your lieutenant the truth and now you violated the Army's rule," Stahl remarks.

"I didn't know how else to do it and keep my sanity," Manzella explains.

Manzella didn't hold anything back in the investigation, submitting photos of himself and A.J., and a video of a road trip, including passionate kissing. But when the investigation ended, Manzella says he was told to go back to work. "There was no evidence of homosexuality and go back to work," he says.

"Wait a minute. You've given them photographs of you and A.J.," Stahl remarks.

"Yes, and then they're like, 'Go back to work. You're not gay," Manzella says.

"So, no one ever said anything to you about the -- I don't even know what word to use, absurdity, confusing response?" Stahl asks.

"The closest thing that I was given by my superiors was, "I don't care if you're gay or not."

Cholene Espinoza was an Air Force Captain who flew combat missions. Now she works with the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a group pushing to repeal "don't ask, don't tell."

"Darren is in a critical field. He's a medic. His commander needs him," Espinoza says. "He's a known quantity. He gets along with others. He does what he's supposed to. He goes above and beyond. Why do I want to lose Darren?"

Espinoza, who's now a captain for a commercial airline, left the Air Force after eight years so she could live openly as a lesbian.

"You're saying that you think these commanders are looking the other way?" Stahl asks.

"I think they have to," Espinoza says.

She says she knows of at least 500 such cases. To her mind, retaining these soldiers especially in Iraq is a no-brainer. "Something that's often overlooked is the number of deployments, you know. I met a man who missed the birth of his child and he's been there three times. It's like, 'Why not allow a gay soldier to ease that burden?' They want to serve. They can serve," she says.

"Our purpose in the military is not social engineering or whatever else you want to call it. It is about fighting and winning the nation’s wars," says Army Major Daniel Davis, a Gulf War veteran and now a specialist in battlefield tactics.

Davis says allowing gays to serve openly would hurt unit cohesion. Davis came to the 60 Minutes interview out of uniform, emphasizing that in defending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" he was not speaking for the U.S. military.

His view is that military troops are generally conservative and allowing gays to serve openly would offend them and jeopardize battle effectiveness. "If you introduce something in there that's going to cause chaos and division, then that's going to prohibit that unit from forming the bonds and the cohesion and that teamwork that's necessary to really win and do well in hard combat," he argues.

"What do you think would happen if a unit with a gay person went out into a combat situation?" Stahl asks.

"In my view, men are going to die, units are going to fail that would otherwise not fail, that would otherwise not die," Davis says.

"Didn't they say exactly the same thing about blacks?" Stahl asks.

"You know, I’ve heard that many times," Davis replies.

"And then cohesion was achieved," Stahl says.

"However, if you have a moral or religious issue, you cannot order me to bond and cohese with that person," Davis says. "Because he's morally repugnant to me."

But Espinoza says if the policy were changed, the troops would have to fall in line. "You can believe that black people are not as smart as white people - you can believe that and still serve in the U.S. uniform. You can believe that women should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen - you can believe that. But you cannot bring those beliefs to your job front," she says.

Each of these gay men was, to some degree, open in their units: Steve Lorandos was a nuclear submarine mechanic with the Navy; Brian Fricke, a Marine Corps avionics technician who served in Iraq; David Santos, a Navy-trained Arabic linguist, and Army-trained Korean linguist Jarrod Chlapowski.

Chlapowski says "at least" 100 people knew he was gay, but that he wasn't discharged.

"The only thing that ever happened to me was my leading petty officer came up to me and he said, 'You know, I think that everything about homosexuals is disgusting. It makes my skin crawl. But, we still love you,'" Lorandos recalls.

"Why do you think the people who knew didn't tell on you?" Stahl asks Fricke. "That was required."

"They don't care," he says. "You know these are our peers. This is the generation that also -- like the 'Will and Grace' generation," Fricke says.

"Yeah. That's what we kind of refer to them as; they grew up with it in the media. Gays and -- they understand -- they see gay people as people. As humans, as Americans. They don't see gay people as people with a disability or a disease," Fricke explains.

These men say the military's top brass is out of touch with the troops, and with the American public. Recent polls show three-quarters of the country now favors allowing gays to serve openly, which is what the British military has done since the year 2000.

"I don't believe for a second it's affected the fighting capability of our forces," says Admiral Sir Alan West, who was head of the Royal Navy back then and is now an anti-terrorism minister in the British government.

Asked if the process was smooth or difficult, West tells Stahl, "Actually, to be quite honest, there's been almost no trouble. The people who have said, 'Oh, well, you know, young soldiers and young sailors will never accept this'…they actually accepted it much more easily than silly old blighters like me."

"You actually told us that you think that the product or the outcome of this is actually making the military better," Stahl remarks.

"I think it is better. I think it is better," he replied.

Asked why, West says, "Because people feel they can be open about who they are. And they can really throw themselves totally into what you want to achieve with your force."

Talk about being open, the Royal Navy now allows sailors to march in gay pride parades, in uniform. And gay couples are even eligible for married military housing.

"We aren't the Brits. We're not the Europeans. We're not the Swedes," says Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter, who is the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Hunter argues that gays do not belong in the U.S. military because American troops need to be hardened warriors, unlike soldiers in the 15 NATO countries where gays serve openly.

"The Fallujahs of the world, the Ramadis of the world that require heavy combat and lots of fire-fighting capability - those are the places the Americans go. The other countries tend to go to the so-called peacekeeper zones, where they have fewer fire fights and less contact with the enemy," Hunter says. "And the European nations show little will to send large contingents of their military people into dangerous places."

West responds: "I think American troops are very brave and I think British troops are very brave. But we do it in a little bit of probably a quieter way generally, you know? We don't have to go 'Huh, huh, huh' and shave our heads off and shake hands very hard. You can still kill someone without having to do that."

"But there is a culture of conservatism and macho-ness that goes way back," Stahl remarks.

"You read about the Spartans, they were all homosexuals, the whole lot of them," West says. "And I don't think anyone would suggest for a second that the 500 Spartans fighting against the Persian Army were not pretty macho."

But introducing openly gay troops into gung-ho U.S. combat units could be difficult. That David Santos, the Arabic interpreter, was gay was no secret at his home base in Georgia, but he went back into the closet when he was assigned to a combat unit of Marines in Fallujah.

"When it comes to those kind of places, there's a lot of homophobic remarks made," Santos says.

Like what?

"Never directed at me," he says. "Just anything that a high schooler would say negatively about a homosexual."

Santos says the remarks weren't aimed at him because he was in the closet at that point, but that he heard remarks "all over the place."

"Are you guys being a little naïve? I mean there is hostility. David's the only one of you who's admitted it so far. But there is," Stahl asks Chlapowski, Lorandos and Fricke.

"I never experienced hostility," Chlapowski says.

"Yeah, but you know it's there," she says.

"Oh sure it is. Sure it's there. But there's also still sexism in the Army. There's still racism in the Army. It still exists," Chlapowski says. "But you have harassment policies to cover that."

Harassment policies notwithstanding, Steve Lorandos, the submariner, Brian Fricke, the Marine, and Jarrod Chlapowski, the Army linguist, did not re-enlist because of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," like an estimated 4,000 other gay soldiers a year. After David Santos was caught chatting about being gay on a government computer, he was discharged.

Congressman Duncan Hunter says with the Pentagon starting to meet its recruiting goals, now is not the time for change. "Would we risk doing away with this system that works, where American families sit around the dinner table and they make a decision that their young man or their young woman is going to go into this military because they share the values of that military. Or should we experiment at a time when our military is totally volunteer, when it’s extremely capable and perhaps lose that capability and perhaps lose those numbers? Perhaps lose those re-enlistments and perhaps lose that effectiveness?" he asks.

But Cholene Espinoza says "Wait a second. In 2006, the Army -- the only way they could meet the recruiting standards was to give waivers and allow convicted felons, lower mental standards, lower physical standards. We are giving twice the number to enlist of bonuses financially, three times to re-enlist. Thousands of gay people go out the door voluntarily."

"Like you," Stahl remarks.

"People like me. I'm gone. Never to come back. You spent $2 million training me to fly airplanes. Thank you very much. And what do you get for all this? What do we get as a country? Because we've thrown out an Arabic linguist or because we've thrown out a medic. Are we any safer? Are we anymore secure?" she asks.

---

Army medic Darren Manzella says he thinks he will probably be discharged now because of the interview with 60 Minutes.

So what is your view on this topic. Should the military keep enforcing its policy or is it time to just break the boundry?

Are dogs who chace their tails dumber than the ones who dont?

TO BE A GOOD CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN...

1. You have to believe that teenagers shouldn't learn about safe sex because ignorance is the best way to prevent pregnancy, and besides,only those homos get AIDS and you thank God for that.

2. You have to believe that the same teacher who can't teach 4th graders how to read is somehow qualified to lead all kids in prayer regardless of their faith as long as it's your faith. 

3.     You have to believe it is intelligent to buy a gun to protect your family and home despite the fact that you are 40 times more likely to kill your own family member than an intruder. 

4.     You have to believe that it's OK to have an affair as long as you divorce your spouse after you've been caught and marry the mistress. (Dole, Reagan, Gingrich, Barr, etc.)

5. You have to believe that your SUV should be exempt from emission standards even though it spews out 4 times the pollution of any car, because you enjoy sitting high above the congested traffic.

6. You have to believe abortion is always wrong because all lives are precious and you'll kill any doctor who performs one.

7. You have to believe that the minimum wage should be outlawed because thanks to the extreme generosity of corporations you are overpaid. 

8. You have to believe that your children will have a well-rounded education by banning books in the public schools and libraries.

9. You have to believe that in case the government goes bad, you'll need your handgun to successfully fight off an organized army that has tanks, aircraft, battleships, missiles, satellites, and 2 million well-trained soldiers.

10   You have to believe that the NRA is good because it supports a self-serving portion of the Constitution, but the ACLU is bad because it supports all portions of the Constitution, even the right for your fellow Klansmen to have a parade in a Jewish neighborhood.

11. You have to believe that a woman cannot be trusted with decisions about her own body, but that large multinational corporations should make decisions affecting all mankind with no regulation whatsoever.

12.   You have to believe that diversity on your presidential ticket means two Texas millionaire oilmen from different corporations.

13.   You have to believe the Hate Crimes Bill is bad because it gives "special protection" to a group of people, but think that laws that prohibit citizens from suing Tobacco Corporations, Gun-makers and HMOs are not special protection.

14.   You have to believe that freedom of speech is cherished as long as you like what is being said.

15.   You have to believe that over the past 20 years, no Presidential primary is complete without the name Dole and/or Bush on it.

16.   You have to believe that trickle-down economics works because the rich surely won't keep all that money to themselves.  Look how well it worked during the Reagan-Bush years.

17.   You have to believe Clinton is bad because he lied about a private sexual indiscretion under oath, but Ronald "I don't remember" Reagan and George "I wasn't there" Bush are heroes because they lied under oath about illegally selling arms to Iranian militants and giving the cash to drug-smuggling Nicaraguan Contras.

18.   You have to believe that its OK for government to sanction religion just as long as it's your religion.

19.   You have to believe the homosexual agenda is to get a purple Tele-Tubby to turn our children gay.

20.   You have to believe that hunters need assault weapons to assist in natural selection, because they shoot only the starving and sick animals and will not shoot that magnificent 12-point stag.

21.   You have to believe that Reagan's tripling the deficit was good for the economy.

22.   You have to believe that the best leaders to espouse family values are those with one or more failed marriages (Dole, Reagan, Gingrich, Barr, Limbaugh, etc.)

23.   Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you are millionaire conservative radio jock, which makes it an "illness" and needs our prayers for "recovery."

24. You have to believe that the members of your national convention represent a good cross-sectional and diverse group of Americans.

25. You have to believe that a national sales tax is better than income tax because everyone uses the same proportion of their income to buy food, clothing, and housing, but really, the only good tax is one which only the poor pay. 

26. You have to believe Jesus was a Conservative and shares your hatred of AIDS victims, homosexuals, and President Clinton. You also ask yourself "What would Jesus Do?" and completely ignore the fact that he stayed out of politics, never tried to get a law passed, never tried to obtain wealth, nor spoke of divisive drivel.

27. You believe that charitable organizations should take care of the poor and then give nothing to charity (i.e. Dick Cheney).

28. You believe that a rape victim should be forced to raise her attacker's offspring and then fight her attempts to get welfare when she tries to do so.

29. You have to believe a poor, minority student with a disciplinary history and failing grades will be admitted into an elite private school with a $1,000 voucher (Dubya doesn't count, because he's not a minority. He just became President with the minority).

30. You have to believe that a great way to lower air pollution is to get others to ride mass transit; that way you can get to work in your SUV much faster.

31. You have to believe the talk of Randy Weaver and David Koresh are more important than actions of Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, and what happened at Ruby Ridge is more important than what happened at Selma, Alabama.

32. You have to believe that Hillary Clinton was crazy for talking to spirits in the White House, but Nancy Reagan is OK for consulting astrologers to help her decide U.S. policies while Ronnie was in the hospital.

33. You have to believe everything that is said by right-wing wackos on talk radio.

34) You have to believe that Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him with chemical weapons to fight Iran, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney was doing business with him for Halliburton, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

35) You have to believe that the lumber from the last one percent of old growth U.S. forests is well worth the extinction of several species of plants and animals therein. Besides, it will prevent forest fires.

36) You have to believe that Aid to Mothers with Dependent children is wasteful, but giving tax breaks to companies moving American jobs overseas is just what government is for.

37) You have to believe that trade with Cuba is wrong because it is communist, but trading with China and Vietnam is good.

38) You have to believe that the public has a right to know what the government is doing but that Bush was right to censor those 28 pages from the Congressional 9/11 report because you just can't handle the truth.

It's been a while since I've seen such a diffrent and original movie. Cloverfeild was more than what I expected it to be. Usually, when most movies hide the identity of a monster or killer they  fall short but this movie delivers. The "monster" is not dissapointing nor do iIstill know what it really looks like.  This movie is being compared to The Blair Witch Project. It has its similarites like the first person view with the camcorder and the fact that the main character is rarely seen but Cloverfeild far surpasses BWP in my opinion. What I couldnt help but notice is that this movie had a feeling of reality to it. Its not just because of the shaky camcorder (by the way may cause some motion sickness) or the NY 9/11 aftermath backround but the reality comes from the actors and their story as well as real life choices and decisons which are sometimes over the top but so over the top that it isnt suprising at all. The comedy aspect is great as well and come at all the right times. This movie will no doubt have split opinions but if your looking for an amazing thriller with a classic monster movie feel I highly recomend Cloverfeild. Is there anyone out there who didnt like it?

It is stories like these that make me happy I live in the U.S.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,11829
91,00.html

Which is better. Now adays it seems that box office hits are becoming repetitive, political and just cliche. Same superhero movie where the superhero wins, remakes of remade movies, actors remaking movies they were made famous with (rambo), same actors with the same expressions, same war movie with the same ending, . To me it seems like there really isnt any original movies and stories in holywood anymore but it is completly opposite with movies in the Inide (independent films) world. There stories are shocking, riviting, unique, unpredictable and no remakes = absolute originality. I've made the switch to the indie scene. It has been a while since ive seen a really good cinimatic movie but its only been a day since i've seen a riviting ,original indie.

So what is it going to be? Hollywood or underground indies