The media circus has begun! Good Morning America today featured some People magazine pictures of trans man Thomas Beatie and his baby girl, Susan Juliette.
Watch the Towleroad-provided video about the baby’s birth and other precious details, after the jump. Be sure to note that Beatie didn’t have a c-section, as previously reported. This man did it the old fashioned vaginal way, which takes serious balls.
Amber LeMay
Immediately after the birth, the parents began transitioning the baby to become Thomas Jr.
Mother/Father, daughter/son, half-sister/half-brother are all doing well.
Leland Frances
A loser as a teen in a cheesy Hawaiian female beauty pageant, the older Thomasina is getting the ultimate revenge that Carrie would envy. Forget blowing up the prom with your telekinetic powers.
And what perfect timing! Which story do you think is going to get more attention today from Vern & Vernella America: the first Congressional hearings on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell since it became law or Story #114 on The “Man” Who Had A Baby? Scheduled to testify today gay Marine Eric Alva and his leg blown off in Iraq or the latest posed topless pictures of Thomasina “What? You want to take another set of pictures of little old ‘all we care about is our privace'” Beatty and her/his breasts cut off by surgery holding the baby “delivered via ‘his’ vagina”?
There is no whore like an attention whore [is it true Reichen is taking female hormones in the hope that….?]. Enjoy the back of the bus, kids. Better bring your own food and water. Because of attention whores like Thomasina we’re going to still be there for quite a while.
This evening on Nightline: Exclusive pictures of Tranny baby’s first poo.
Leland Frances
PS: Before any shallow thinker kneejerk a hissy, self-righteous but irrelevant retort: do NOT broadbrush my comments as anti-transgender. My comments are directed solely at this specific transgendered person AND his parter who are apparently narcissistic pigs that they care more about POINTLESS attention to themselves [is there a huge movement for FTMs having to fight for the legal right to bear children that we haven’t heard about?] than branding their child in the unenlightened public’s eye as a freak herself—GUARANTEEING a life from preschool to kindergarten to grade/middle/high school in which she will constantly be interrogated/tormented about the nature of her birth over which SHE had no choice. This is a kind of criminal child abuse that laws could not foresee. Short of actual physical abuse, I never thought I’d consider Britney Spears a better parent than someone else. Britney meet Beattie.
The second “crime” is one of failing to consider the ramifications on other transgenders as well as LGBs of purposely parading this [in the eyes of the general public] freak show again and again around the media world. Do they have a legal right to be self-centered asshats? To chose to figuratively finger fuck their bottomless egos in front of cameras. Absolutely. And I and others have an equal right to denounce them for it.
And NO this was not their only option to “create a family” as some submit. Beattie’s eggs could have been harvested, fertilized, and carried to term by someone else.
That would have been problematic, procedurally and financially [in addition to eliminating all those irresistible opportunities to be photographed bulging bearded and shirtless], but the PRIMARY option we’re talking about which they CHOSE not to employ was absolutely effortless and entirely free: keeping it all PRIVATE.
Instead, their [BOTH Beattie’s and “his” “wife’s”] unprecedented megalomania is ricocheting on ALL of us, INCLUDING other Trans people, reinforcing an uneducated voter population’s fears and confusion. And delaying our LGB AND T equality is the collateral damage. And fuck anyone [and not in the good way] who doesn’t understand that.
Beattie is effectively a cultural terrorist who cares about NO ONE but himself. Anyone wishing to contribute to the Susan Juliette Beattie Therapy Fund, call me.
mark
Congrats on a beautiful baby
Brandon
Leland i completly agree with you
lana nieves
I fail to see what makes this story newsworthy. A biological female have given birth to a baby. It happens every, single day, without fanfare (or a pay-off from the tabloids.) And the business of how brave it was for him to push the baby out? What the hell is that about? When every female who gives birth starts getting kudos in the press and being called brave, maybe THEN it’ll make sense to pat this guy on the back. Pushing a baby out doesn’t take balls – it takes a female reproductive system and a good, wide pelvis – these things are every bit as important and potent as testicles, thank you very much.
This couple would do well to disappear from the spotlight, get over their obvious love affair with the media, and get on with the business of actually raising this child. Making a baby, pushing her out, and parading her around on press junkets is not the same as parenting.
Scooter Bangs
It’s so strange that so many gay sites that feature reader postings and feedback are being overwhelmingly crushed by negative responses to this story. by looking at the net you would believe that gay folk around the country are not buying the “man has baby” crap but STILL the mainstream media keeps telling me this is a ‘gay-interest’ story.
That’s the most damning aspect for me. That as a gay man I have to see this freak show played out and sold as a story relevant to G/L experience.
fri
leland, you’re an asshole. you accuse this couple of being self-absorbed etc, but then you think you have the right to judge how they decided to rear a child. if youre going to criticize how the whole thing has been made into a media spectacle, thats one thing (and blame for that would go to both them and the media). but youre saying that they shouldnt have even had the baby, dictating how other people should use their bodies. this is the same attitude that accompanies homophobia, anti-abortionism, and in the way that you try and tell em how they should use their bodies, transphobia.
Fay Dunaway
He’s my father [SLAP] My MOTHER! [SLAP SLAP] He’s my father and my mother!
Fay Dunaway
“Come on, infant child, it’s Tranny town,”
Leland Frances
No, FRI, if you had read more closely, you would see that my comments are NOT “transphobia” but “Beattie & her partner in slime revulsion” which has NOTHING to do with transgender rights and EVERYTHING to do with exploiting children in such a way GUARANTEED to cause them unnecessary emotional trauma at some point.
The first transgender person I ever met [and totally respected] was a FTM who was rearing the two children “he” had borne before transitioning with “his” wife who’d decided to stay with “him.”
The difference? They weren’t parading those children in front of the world solely for their own ego gratification, making them mere props in their Attention Whore Circus. I believe one basically has a right to do with his/her own body whatever they wish, from drug use to tattoos to piercings to gender reassignment to suicide. BUT those rights stop at the threshold of forcing others into your psychodrama. While I can’t imagine any “point†this narcissistic couple was trying to make, even if they had one beyond their own selfishness and need for attention, they COULD have chosen to use pseudonyms to protect some of their child’s future privacy. But NOOOO. And we guarantee you they’re writing a book; negotiating film adaptation rights; and, year-by-year, event-by-event we’ll wake up to yet another media freak show feeding frenzy. Baby Susan’s first Christmas. First birthday. First steps. First day in school. Ad nauseum.
A few years ago there were stories in the gay press about some deaf lesbian couples who were seeking only deaf sperm donors to increase the likelihood that their children would BE BORN DEAF! Is saying that was CRIMINAL equated with condemning lesbianism itself. Or the deaf? Of course not.
Beattie’s child abuse falls short of that, but not by far.
mark
This infant has a parent that obviously adores her, that is better than THOUSANDS of infants start their lives.
so shut up with the trans-hate crap, it diminishes YOU!
lana nieves
I’m with you, Scooter. The media fascination is puzzling. I honestly think there are a lot of people who don’t understand that Thomas has made the transition to living as a male without having anyof the surgery which would alter his reproductive organs or genitals. They hear “pregnant man” and think some guy with a penis and testicles is carrying a baby (in his “stomach”) and it’s on with the freak show. The plain truth is, Thomas is still biologically female, even though he has transitioned to living life as a male and seems to have taken on a very traditional male role in a male/female relationship….except for the whole getting pregnant and giving birth thing. The news clip makes a big production out of pointing out that Thomas is a a typical “dad”, which I don’t doubt. However, from a biological viewpoint, Thomas is, in fact, a mother.
What’s more, he’s not even the first FtM transgender person to have a baby – just the first to make a point of parading his belly around on national television, selling his story to People magazine, and otherwise making what should be really special, private family bonding time into a freak show to which all are invited. If you check out the SF Bay Guardian’s article “Pregnant Men”, (April, 2008) you’ll see that at least two other FtM transmen have given birth. The truth is, probably dozens have done it without the fanfare or media attention.
tim
Shut up Leland,your statement is horrible and rude.I don’t give a shit.
A Big congrats to Thomas and carry for 9 months.
Snoodle
It’s good that the baby is healthy and happy looking, and I’m sure both parents adore her and will treat her well. However it always seems like Beatie is trying to push publicity onto himself and the baby (especially before she was born) we’ll see how this pans out I guess. What I’m worried about is if he’ll keep having children not out of want for them, but out of attention seeking…
Dilroy
The child looks frightened and confused, though not as much as Leland.
Meg.
I wasn’t going to say anything but whats the big deal with people getting this guys case about having a baby?. of course its going to make the news, get over it guys. and Leland nice jab at Reichen i see you still haven’t gotten over your crush on him and your hating.
Meg.
*on his case* bare with me my typing is not exactly on par.
Meg.
Let me try that again *on this guys case* acks sorry about that guys, like i said my typing isn’t all that good. i know what i want to say but i seem to miss what i am typing.
Amber
@Amber LeMay: you i am a woman who can not get over the fact that this lady wants to claim shes a man and get the title as having a baby. you it is her life but she makes weman like us want not to have kids thank you very much. Ps the baby is very cute.