Beatie On Oprah!
Pregnant trans man Thomas Beatie will appear on this Thursday’s Oprah, which is kind of the best thing that could ever happen to anyone trying to spread a message. [Willamette Week]
I don’t understand why this is being celebrated.
You have a person who is taking drugs just before or during a pregnancy that is dangerous for the baby. That’s as socially progressive as smoking while pregnant.
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… if you read the article in the avocate he stopped taking his testosterone treatment 4 mos before trying to get pregnant. I think this is an important message for everyone to see given the state of transgender’s rights and gay rights today.
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I want to know why he still has a mustache if he stopped the testosterone over a year ago.
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Blacky at Number 2:
This should be celebrated because it represents an opportunity to look at and deconstruct the limits on sexuality and gender at play in our society–something that can only benefit members of the queer community. The pregnancy of a trans man signifies (at least to me) a wonderful blurring of boundaries.
As for the in utero child, I suspect there is not so much cause for concern. All fetuses are exposed to both testosterone and estrogen: every human being has various mixtures of these hormones. Additional hormone therapy is short-lived because injected testosterone has a half-life of about 70 minutes. Just as a pregnant woman who drinks a month before she’s even pregnant will not harm the child, testosterone treatment four months prior to conception will have no effect. I believe one of the articles written on Thomas includes comments from their doctor.
Hisurfer at Number 5:
Men and woman possess both estrogen and testosterone, just in different proportions. This explains why some women are hairy and why some men are not. Facial hair on women is rather common, actually. And, although he stopped hormone therapy, the facial hair he grew wouldn’t just fall off his face.
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Yeah, but Robert: I knew Tracey before he was Tommie, and She did not have facial hair until she became a he. They couple were quite visible and active in Honolulu until Tommie transitioned, at which point they decided to live as a straight couple and dropped out of the gay world.
Tracey was not a hairy woman.
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As stated, the hair he grew would not fall of his face. If he doesn’t shave, it remains…
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Why not have the baby while a woman ? WHy didn’t “his” wife have the baby?
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Tommy, his wife is sterile. (So I have seen written elsewhere.)
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I don’t know why this is being celebrated because this is not the first time an FTM has done this.. just the first time one has sought huge amounts of publicity for it.
Whether this will be good for transpeople (in demonstrating the flexibility of gender, challenging the assumptions regarding gender and parenting) or bad, considering FTMs have been able to avoid the sterility requirement in order to get our birth certificates changed in most states, I’m not sure.
And yeah, I’ve known plenty of FTMs who had no facial hair pre-T, grew beards post-hormones, ceased taking T, and have to continue to shave months or sometimes years after ceasing to inject. And the fetus, should he continue to not inject, is not at risk.
Any other non-trans gay men want to offer their expert opinions on FTMs? Maybe some more pronouns surrounded by quotation marks? C’mon queerty readers, you all can do better than this…
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I am excited as a trans guy who also has been considering having a child with my partner who is also a trans guy, possibly in addition to doing foster care. What I would like to ask commenters is to questions why you have such strong feelings about people who blur gender lines especially in relation to children? Understandably, queer people such as myself have been told that we are deviant and should not be around children, so why be so invested in re-creating that? Why have so much rage about trans visibility and make quick assumptions that we are being reckless with another life or even our own? You really can’t take testosterone while pregnant, why does it matter if he still has a mustache, there are many non-trans women with mustaches, and though that may not be considered “beautiful” under white western standards, that difference shouldn’t foster such anger.
Have you ever felt confined due to your gender….non-trans men being conditioned not to cry non-trans women still getting paid less still treated as objects, why re-create that? Most likely this episode will not be considered a “celebration” by the mainstream with most of america being so invested in “men” and “women” looking and acting a certain way. This could be a great opportunity for people to understand a community that gets more attention when we are killed or being objectified or humiliated for public consumption. We have always been here! “Trans Warriors” is a great book documenting that.
Be informed instead of spreading false facts due to your own discomfort with certain forms of difference.
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I am saddened by this whole thing. I am not your typical “queerty” reader. I am a heterosexual woman. It really bothers me that I am considered “close-minded” because I do not agree with any of this. It is just as “close-minded” to tell me that I am wrong for believing that only men and women are to be married and that God created women to have babies. You are free to do what you want. That is why God gave us free will. But there will, unfortunately, be a day of reckoning. Just because we can have free will does not mean that “anything goes.”
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this is degradation of humanity in progress.
stop thinking about yourself for minute and think about the child, the surrounding he/she will be living in the future, the repercussions of society, the definite damage on the childs’ upbringing. the fact that the child will have to accept.
i see no light at the end of this tunnel
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I agree with Christina, so who got this transgender man pregnant. It certainly wasn’t his wife. A day of reckon will be coming soon enough. God help us all.
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No. 13 · Christina. God may have nothing to do with this. Its great if you have faith but God is not a proven fact and everyone does not believe in your God. Also even if they did believe in your God there is a world wide debate on what is the word of God or the word of religous agenda….
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I do not want to get into a biblical discussion, but I am willing to bet that Kate did not read the bible, or any of the other pullications pertaining to God. There is a God, otherwise please explain the Creation (or evolution, if you will). I feel sorry for this baby as he, or she, grows. I only know of one boy (teenage now) who has a lesbian mother, and it is sad to witness the constant embarrasment and harrassment that he faces daily. Yes, it is sad and unfortunate that there are those who choose to exhibit their shallow views, and torture this young man. He is special and I am so sorry that he is suffering through this.
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This is absurd! First, it’s obvious that the pregnant party is confused about who they. YOU were born a WOMAN. Second, the idea and the thought of bringing a child into the scrutiny of the selfish acts of their parents is abuse. The child will suffer and the Lord only knows the direct physical effects the child will incur. Well if you wanted a baby, why not stay the woman that you are….what prompted the ignorant act of taking hormones. So many individuals live alternative lifestyles and have children. I guess Tracy regrets her acts of trying to look like a man. Now she is publicizing her ignorant act as if she is a MAN. These are the types of acts that cause Psychologist to stay rich.
Tracey Gentle
Los Angeles, California
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Medical science can really create some wonderful things. We can change what we are on the outside but, what we truly are can not be changed. This person is still a woman. This person is not a true man. People are going nuts about something doesn’t exist as nature intended it. Now if a true male became pregnant, that would be a miracle. Not a female that change her external parts and kept the interior female parts.
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pretty sad..
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Since when did gender become a bad thing? Men and women were created different for a reason. Let’s take religion out of the picture all together. Let’s talk science. Men have a reproductive function and women have a reproductive function. Our biological hormones are what makes us who we are, female or male. Why should the genders be blurred. Why should we celebrate the end of differences between genders? Also, if Thomas wanted to be a man, then why didn’t he become a man completely. By keeping his female reproductive parts is he not still at lease partially a woman? I get that they wanted children, and they have that right. But why not adopt, why not have a surrogate…? I agree with other people’s comments about this being selfish. I don’t think anyone can deny that this child will face many horrible comments, will probably be shuned, harassed, etc…Not that I’m condoning that behavior but that is how society is. All that I am saying is that they could have avoided this pain for the child if they had it with alternative methods. And to not take that into consideration for the child is selfish. And by going public with all of this, the child will forever be in the limelight.
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Terry. Your absolutely correct…I was wondering why people keep calling as some kind of miracle, or some great thing that has happened.
SHE is still a woman.
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If this man was a woman before then why all the wonder and amazement? Cosmetic surgery cannot alter the foundation; maybe the tower perhaps, shifting or leaning over the annals of time to claim fame in our history books.
Would it suffice to say that the gift of motherhood is an essential part of this foundation of life and only linked to women? In the history of mankind we have not seen it otherwise.
The same as for men as nature intended, and who can argue with nature, even if it goes awry. Nature may perform her own cosmetic twists (call them tantrums or statements, or something to get our attention) but still adheres to universal laws that are embedded within its own DNA mapping.
Do we not have a tendency to wear masks and hide from ourselves and from society? Some of us have the courage to peak from behind the mask we create for ourselves and allow the inner person to add some lib.
Maybe motherhood and pregnancy will remove the current mask of this individual, bit by bit?
Let’s tug at the mask we currently wear and be brave enough to look at our own spiritual DNA.
If you wish to engage further in these thoughts you can take a look at my stairway to secrets site. Life is to be saluted and this beautiful pregnancy making a statement of its own!
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Some comments so far have suggested that the parents are selfish and should not have done this so as to prevent the child from being harassed and tormented by society as she grows up. I disagree with this argument. Ask yourself: Who is to blame for the potential harassment this child may receive or that the parents are receiving now? People are suggesting that the parents are to blame. But it is a lot of people in society doing the harassment and the pain-inflicting judgmentalness. Who is anyone to say that this situation is “bad” or “wrong”. It’s just different than what you’re used to. The “PROBLEM” is not these parents and their kid. The PROBLEM is in the people who are JUDGING them and being CRUEL to fellow people!!
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No. 17 · Jim – Totally agree. I really don’t find this as earth shattering since she is still a WOMAN.
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dudes having kids, a black man and a woman running for president… pretty cool. I’m glad people are starting to not be so anal about things that are different
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If, and that is a huge if, gender is truly binary, then all of the above “claims” that purport women and men are the only two possibilities, which must retain their respective God-given differences, have some grounds. Only differences, I want to warn you biochemically, between male and female gender are in one tiny chromosome in sperm (be it X or Y) and the in utero exposure to certain sex hormone during a normal gestation period, which triggers the physiological development of reproductive organs as prescribed by the sex chromosomes after fertilization. And, I won’t even begin to discuss about the ‘Y’ chromosome here.
However, if you insist that the human sex is indeed binary (viz. male and female only), then what are you insinuating about the people and infants who are not “blessed” with clearly demarcated sex, such as hermaphrodites, intersexed, etc.? Do they not exist? Are they the condemned? How about animal anomalies?
Are some of you still insisting that the Nature is fool-proof and that your vesion of “God” is mistake-free? Oh, mark my words that Gods are theologically supposed to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. A perfection in its essence. With that dogma, you won’t reach your God, not in this lifetime, or in death.
According to the real world out here, I and many others see the contrary. There ARE more than two extremes in EVERY case. That, in layman’s words, means that not everything is dichotomous, like black and white; the only black and white scheme that once existed in television “technology” was quickly replaced with the color ones that could actually closely depict the real world. No, your father does not know best and, yes, June Cleaver can be more than annoying.
Please, learn to know when to be polemical and when to exhibit humanism. Get your anterior necrotizing mass out of your posterior fissure. While at it, attempt to think with your God-given brain and discard your reptilian hearts if you still want to claim that you are indeed a part of the Homosapien sapien (Italicized)species. I was impelled to write these lines just to say something as vitriolic and inane as what others have said. A good ol’ biblical, “eye for an eye!”
I want to lastly pose a question: since when having a human baby considered a “miracle”? Millions, quintillions of living mammals give births to offsprings. They don’t go around insisting that it is a miracle. Yes, life is very precious to me. However, your child ain’t my miracle, but just one fact of a lifecycle. Are humans too conceited and self-worshipping to say our offsprings are miracles and others not? Did your God teach you to say that??? To be both anthropocentric and self-serving? Some of you are a quite interesting breed, and yes, the day of “reckoning” will come for you as well. I hope, sooner than later, for your own sake, and may your God take all of you away from this wretched place, which we call ‘life.’
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I agree with Terry 100% though I am not religious.
I have a story to tell:
My own borther would have been a transexual if my family and my culture had encouraged him. Luckily we didn’t have that culture and evironment in Hong Kong (very influced by American pop culture but still somewhat more traditional…but it’s getting bad too)
My younger borther, being a baby brother to me and my sister, he liked to wear my mom’s pentehose, heels and my sister’s and my dresses when he was a young kid. He played with my younger sister on girly girly games, like baby dolls, and tea parties. Very often he wanted me to put make-up on him. He got very long eye lashes and very good looking facial features, he did look like a much prettier girl than my sister and me when he was in our dresses…
Now, if my parents looked at this and said, “Oh, our son was born to be feminine, we have to accept it and we are going to be supportive of his feminine identify.” But why doubt mother nature? My parents would have runined my brother’s life if only they told him, “baby, it’s okay that you feel like a girl, we will support you and love you no matter what.” It’s like when children slouch when they walk, parents got to correct them and not say, “Oh, it’s okay, freedom of expression…you can slouch all you want! It’s pretty cool and unique looking…”
But no, my father changed his work schedule so he could spend more time with my brother. My brother’s problem was that he spent too much time with my mom and the girls in the house.
My brother showed no interest in toy cars or boys activities at the beginning, he would often cry when my dad took him out to play football, and would rather stay with my sister and me…or go to the mall with my mom. When he said at 4, “I don’t want to be a boy, I’m a girl, I want to be a girl, I don’t like boy stuffs, ” My parents always corrected him, “no, you are a boy, it’s wrong for you to think you are not.” They went on and tell him all these fun hero stories in Chinese history. Later, he would say, “Oh, I want to be like these guys…” When he was only 4 or 5, he really had no idea what on earth he was, this is why my parents practiced “parental guidance”, not “parental cheer leading”.
My mom and dad were persistent and determined. My mom had stopped taking him with us when we went to the Mall. It was hard at the beginning, separation from my mother and me and my sister always caused quite some trauma for my brother, he cried, he threw a tantrum at my dad, but my dad was always there, supportive, patient, persistent, comforting and occupying him with other activities “boys” should be doing….
Slowly and slowly, my brother got interested in soccer, he no longer wanted to play dress-up and tea-parties with my sister or go with me to the Mall with my highschool girlfriends. He got into the swimming team in school which was an all-boys academy my father enrolled him in. Before he learnt how to swim, my mom had to wash his hair and he would whine and cry whenver he had to lower his head for the water…… I went to his first day of swim lesson, it was as if we were taking me to a death execution, it was a nightmare!! He cried, he ran away, he sat on the floor, fighting us to get him up to the pool. But graduually, the swim training in school totally turned his fear into passion. So a child can be coached and influenced, be it swimming or gender identity. Beginning of any coaching is hard, and everything required perservance. My brother would have made one fine lady if only we wanted him to be one. In my brother’s case, what would a trans-sexual mother do?
Anyway, when my brother was 8, he was a very normal boy, he played soccer, he was in swim team, he played with my parents’ friends’ sons, he no longer did girly girly things. It took time to guide him back to the right track, cause he didn’t give up all the girly girly stuff overnight, a month or a year, it was a gradual morphing, that required my parents consistency, patience, they never gave up on engaging him in boys activites, and creating a male gender appropriate eviornment for him to look up to. Graduaully, without my brother even realizing it, he liked all activies my parents introduced him to and he totally gave up the girly things he used to love doing…All his feminine expression and hand guesture that he picked up from me and my sister also disappeared.
But when he started highschool, new problem came up, he was too smooth on his face without pimple and he was too good looking and doing too well in his swimming. Other boys in his school started to alienate him out of jealousy (we think it is but my brother thought it was because he was gay) These boys teased my brother’s long and dark eyelashes, smooth skin and beautiful eyes , calling him a beautiful chick wearing make-up to school
It was very hard for my brother, he had no friend, everybody ganged up on him calling him, “you look like Greg Louganis….(who was famous as being a handsome gay man)” They called my brother “pretty Greg” and alway made gay jokes on him….
For a teenage boy, my brother whose hormones were raising, he was very emotionally vulnerable, he was confused and he doubted his sexuality (And Greg Louganis and all that American movies and TVs he watched in Hong Kong didn’t help) He was very initimated and one time he came home and broke down and he was 14, “I’m gay, I look like a girl….and only gay boys will make friends with me…I don’t belong to that school… I don’t want to go to school…see if I am not gay, why am I crying now?”
Lucky for him, our family are very tight knitted, my parents wise, loving, and supportive, up-to date with every thing. I think my parents have a very open mind but they also have very strong holds on right and wrong. They also are good mind reader, they are like the worms inside us, very often, they knew what we were thinking, so it made it easier for my brother to face his problem.
So eventually, my brother realized that those boys in Junior High were losers with ugly pimples and he really didn’t need friends like them, who were mean spirited. He was able to live with zero friend for a few years cause he got his own family to be his friends. He felt good about the way he look without dobuting anymore whether he looked more like a woman or a man. He felt fine to be a loner in school and instead of seeing it as a bad thing, we made him see, (or brainwashed him) it as a blessing… Then in senior high, when his hormones calm down and he got bearded growing and his body was all manly and girls started hitting on him… he really enjoyed his identity and the way he looked.
Today, my brother is a 6 feet 2 inches tall muscular software engineer looking forward to marrying his girlfriend. He practiced martial arts as a hobby and he loved motorcylces and repairing them. Those days when he related himself to “Greg Louganis” are long gone. When the people in school were telling him constantly he was gay and then all the American movies and shows were hinting a boy like him could possibly gay and it’s quite normal to feel gay, how could he not struggle… but when he was told he was, messages like that can get into a young boy’s mind and can take root when he was aliented, when he was having other set-backs. So our family just had to double up the frequency of giving him the opposite messages, the messages that holds the truth of what is right and wrong and what is better for him!
Very exhausting to my parents, but they did it.
It took years of love and patience from us as a the family to keep my brother as a normal man, cause of him having too many females in his family, having this handsome face and perfect skin growing up, the stuff he watched on TV, and then all the nonsense from those retarded boys in Junior high school.
My parents said, the media, the invasion of the Ameircan pop culture in Hong Kong has created a tough environment for them to raise us normal. All children are born with different emotional quotient, some are stronger, some needs more guidance, and my broter was always more suspectible to outside influence than my sister or me, so to my parents, he needed more work than me. But they did it through perseverance, through sticking to the princples of right and wrong. My dad said, “We can’t truly enjoy freedom when there is no boundary of morals and no sense of right or wrong because the consequence of human being doing whatever and wherever out of their free will are what imprison people, be it physical or emotional. There is a very valid reason why we don’t use our nose to eat!”
My dad is so right. This trans-sexual woman must have felt she was improsioned in a body and a destiny that she didn’t belong. It must be very emotionally and financially draining for her to feel such imprisonment, all those surgeries and emotional pain. For me, I am just happy that I was born with all arms and legs and I got no breathing problem and health issues… Whether I am a woman or a man, doesn’t matter. I just want to make good use of whatever I was born with. But then I didn’t lose a mother when I was a child.
If you look at the family background, cultural background and parents’ personality and attitude in all the gays, trans-sexuals, you will see everyone shares one or two in common, either they are surrounded by similar media or culture, or they have parents either too permissive or too harsh and dictatorial, not involved, not cared, bad experiences in schools, sex abuse, low self-esteem etc, etc.
So is this transexual woman pursuing what she was born to desire, or is she acting out in her own prison created by the current social culture and the emotional pain from her bad life expeirence?
How will a mother like her play in the fate of a child like my brother?
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Hey It is kinda weird but he still has of the parts needed to have a baby from when he was a girl. Except the boobs but he has all the parts. Had they taken those parts away then i might consider that wrong. But if the man had the woman body parts removed and had men parts on that would not make any sense. Now think of it totally different. Like you where a full blooded man/woman. Like you where born a man/woman. Now as a plain man, trying to have a baby is wrong. Now if you were born a female, made your self male, then you still can have a baby. Or at least try to. I think he has the wright to have a baby because he still has everything vital and needed to have a baby.
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Oh, for Pete’s sake, END THIS STUPID, 3rd GRADE POLEMICS. Wait, do 3rd graders know what polemics is???
Let Thomas Beatie and his wife enjoy their private joy, a personal miracle for them. They’re not asking for you to acknowledge that it is YOUR miracle, as YOUR child is neither their miracle nor mine. They’re not asking for your blessings. They’re simply asking some of you and your ill-taught children not to commit violent acts against those who are differently inclined.
I rephrase: stop arguing nonsense and enough with showing your ass. And, this is purely directed to those who cannot seem to allow other opinions to exist.
Most of the regulars are so nice to you religious mimes, let you say your stupid piece, and they even stay civil enough to say, “well, you’re entitled to your opinion.” And, what do you provincial people do? Can’t even return the same courtesy, no decorum.
I am not that nice. I will tell you to take you and your kids out of this hell. GET OFF THE EARTH, PRONTO! :) That felt good.
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And, do NOT pluralize “stuff” to “stuffs.” You deserve this comment from me, Chinese Girl. For being a Chinese girl, you absolutely exhibit no sign of knowing any science or intellect, let alone tolerance for those who are not exactly what you see fit. And, you disappoint all intelligent East Asians.
It took me 5 minutes of my patience to the n-th degree to read your garbage, Chinese Girl. If you’re not religious, then you absolutely cannot be excused for your provinciality. The only pardon you were allowed were being brain-washed by religious doctrine. However, you show another type of ailment.
Psedoscience is possible. It happens to those who take a couple of psychology courses or read a couple of books to bolster their preconceived notions. That is absolutely unexcusable.
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Chinese Girl, one more thing. Your bother’s incident, if it is true, is considered an anecdote, not the Universal Truth.
Anecdotal Evidence = An Incident for Your Brother, not all GLBT population.
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Some changes like the hair from testosterone are permanent.
It should be celebrated because to him, anyone should have the right to a biological child and I agree with that even if some people don’t.
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Thomas is really Tracey born a woman still a woman! This isn’t the first man to become pregnant! In fact that will never happen because men can’t get pregnant, I think we all can agree to that. Let’s not play into people trying to play god. We all know gender takes place in the mother’s womb and if these people believe in god then pray to god and pray that in the next life you will be that man or woman that you think that you were supposed to be in this life. But until then be that man or woman that you was born as and be the best. In fact it maybe a test of faith. Question did god give these people permission to rearrange god’s work? Personally I think modern life is the cause of people non-understanding of life. We need to bring back the tribal ceremonies and initiation process for manhood and womanhood. They had to earn manhood and womanhood. Training took place 1st. But as the tribes were conquered their way of life was converter by the missions.
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He was a woman…so people shouldn’t be surprised about him/or her being pregnant…DUH!!! Oprah is just being Oprah, she has to know what’s the big fuss is about and also will her with her show rating.
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PEOPLE!!!!!!!! They want to have a Child and the only way to have it is for Thomas To bear it… Dont Condemn Thomas for having a kid.. his more man enough Than you are Can You do what Thomas Can do?…… He wants to have a family… And For You Thomas we Filipinos Salute you!!!! GO!! Go!! GO!!
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I believe that people need to leave Thomas and his family alone. I think is very unselfish and brave to have a child for someone who can’t and shows how much love there is in this relationship that Thomas and his wife are in. God Bless Them all!
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just ask obama!