Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Suffer The Children.




"My decision to bear a child as a transgender male has been met with discrimination and outright derision by health care professionals."

There is something profoundly wrong with this situation.

Via Bioedge.

This is what happens when you throw the family to the dogs.

If you can't be bothered following the links and reading the whole story, in a nutshell a woman became a bloke, married another woman, and since the second woman couldn't carry a child, the first woman (who was a bloke and is now a man, remember) is pregnant so they can be a "family."

Confused?

Welcome to the Next Generation of Families, or how to continue deconstructing the free world you live in.

I read stories like this, and wonder if maybe I shouldn't start facing qibla.

Somehow, I doubt Thomas and Nancy have considered seriously what they have actually conceived - apart from a remarkable political statement.

I'm going to keep my religion out of this for a moment and say: Read the papers. Look at the reports coming out about children from broken homes, donor children/adoptees who grow up to be pissed off adults.

Children are not accessories.

They are not handbags, or the way to prove a point.

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.


So, you got together, it worked out, you got the business up and running. Why not add a kid and complete the picture?

It is only a picture.

A child is a unique person with their own views.

I could quite happily go through life without ever seeing Magilla's father ever again.

But.

He has never lived with us, so she has no idea of what it would be like to live as a nuclear family unit. That doesn't stop her from wanting him to live with us.

She used to ask if we could live with daddy, or could she have a daddy. (Preferably hers), and I've had to say that as much as daddy loves her, he doesn't want to live with us. He may want to live with her, but I come as part of the package and he doesn't want that.

It's harsh, but I'm not going to lie.

He has a life of his own with a partner, career and everything that goes with that.

Every now and then she lets slip little things so I know that it's still on her mind. I expect it always will be, but she also knows what the answer will be if she asks about having a daddy.

What will Thomas and Nancy say to their little girl when trying to explain how daddy used to be a girl who turned into a boy, which is why he could have her.

Knowing how my girl's mind works, I'm sure there will be a few questions asked about why daddy didn't want to be a girl, and if only girls can have babies then surely that must mean that daddy is actually a girl, and there are actually two mummies and not a mummy and a daddy in the family.

That's a recipe for distress if there ever was one.


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.


Regarding family being unsupportive... When a person changes their gender, it is not a decision lightly made.

Maybe I'm going to sound a bit condescending since I've never done it myself, but with all the hormone treatments, operations, rewiring your whole life, then presumably you would be taking the final step and never looking back.

..I decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights.


Thomas keeping his female reproductive orders is sort of like having a bet both ways, and makes a mockery of the whole process.

Yes, people will ridicule you for the disrespect you have for the sanctity of the life you are bringing into the world.

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."


I can see where his brother is coming from, but I wouldn't say that the child would be a monster.

Children are miracles.

They enrich us in so many ways, they ground and uplift us, teach us new things, show us our flaws and our greatness.

Watching mine grow and unfold before my eyes is a wonder I never tire of, even if bedtime is a battle, as is dinner time, and her potential career path. (Currently, she's going to be a wrestler with the WWE called The Procrastinator).


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.


No.

Thomas, when you decided to become pregnant and give birth, you became a woman again.

The changes your body will go through are nothing you will expect. If you go into labour, or miscarry, you'll find out a few more things about how women work, and not how a man does.

I don't have a problem with people changing genders. That's their call.

When they want to change back and play at mummies and daddies with real children, then I take umbrage.

The rights of children seem to matter less and less when it comes to the rights of everyone else irrespective of political affiliation, gender preference or religion.

Children are the ultimate victims.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Geert Wilders' Film Censored By Network Solutions. *BLOGBURST*

This is my first ever joining in of a blogburst, but I believe it is vitally important that Geert Wilders' film sees the light of day.

Whether I see it or not is, ultimately, irrelevant.

Whether you see it or not, likewise.

What is relevant is that an ISP is caving in to the threat of violence.

Please check out Macsmind for the details.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Another WTF Moment!

Found over at WND:
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the controversial minister of Obama's church in Chicago, cited the case of Natalee Holloway's disappearance in Aruba in complaining about what he sees as the media's bias in covering white victims of crime over black victims.

"Black women are being raped daily in Darfur, Sudan, in the Congo and in Sub-Saharan Africa. That doesn't make news," Wright said in the August 2005 edition of Trumpet Magazine, a publication of his Trinity United Church of Christ.


Maybe I'm just one of those stupid whitey's he's so pissed about, but surely the 'Reverend' Wright is aware that near 100% of the women in the Sudan are black?

Am I missing something here? Some conspiracy?

Maybe there are a lot of white women in Darfur who aren't being raped daily?

I would have thought that as a preacher, and a man of God, he would have a bit more compassion for other members of the wider American community.

Then again, maybe he does. It's just the members of the whiter American community he has no feeling for.

I've mentioned in passing on other blogs that I don't consider him a spiritual person. More an ideologue who uses the trappings of christianity to market his prejudices.

God bless the USA - in his home country, he can get away with racist, divisive rhetoric without being strung up like he would be in, say, Darfur.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

You Know You're Swearing Too Much When.....

"I don't say shut up, Mummy. Neither do you. You just say fucking hell!"

Saturday, March 08, 2008

I Finally Saw The Passion(less) Of The Christ.

I know I've been a lot more quiet on the blogfront than I anticipated, but the real world has a habit of intruding more than usual, these days.

Working while Magilla is at school, and sorting her out after school can be draining. The child is a bundle full of energy from sunup to sundown. Regardless of how late sundown is.

Also, I didn't get to see Haneef: TheMusical Interrogation as I was intending, due to a bit of a personal emergency here at home.

As a result of a few issues cropping up, YR is no longer a part of the household. While a part of me would be more than happy to explain the situation, as it strikes rather closely to my views on the (over)influence of our modern society and schooling on our children, I have no doubt that YR's mum wouldn't be impressed.

Sometimes, it's just better Not To Go There.

Well, to move along and ostentatiously change the subject, I got a call out of the blue asking if I were still doing fx makeup.

Short answer: yes.

It was for a photo shoot based very loosely around Mel Gibson's film and so my homework was to watch The Passion of the Christ.

So how do I find Mel's biblical epic?

Beautiful, but oh, so cold.

It's magnificently shot, and the soundscape is designed marvellously also, but there is a certain disconnection with the work for me.

I think the best way to describe it is that it's like a moving painting; particularly at the beginning, in Gethsemane and at the trial with Caiaphas. The costuming, lighting and composition of the shots are reminiscent of Byzantine art.



The makeup was excellent, apart from one or two bits which nobody but a makeup artist would notice (which therefore stuck out like the proverbial for both the Godmother and I), but one of those was a continuity issue due to cg being added in post, which conflicted with the application of the makeup.

The other was a particular prosthetic piece which had visible edges.

If you know what to look for.

One bit of logical progression that was missing to my mind, what that Jesus in the film kept all his beautiful teeth.

My beef with that is that if He had been beaten nigh unto death before being crucified, surely He would have lost some teeth. Even just one?

But this is just nitpicking, I know.

It was ultimately, the characterisation of Jesus that left me cold. So much makeup had been applied to Jim Caviezel's face that it made reading it difficult.

There was no connection to the inner journey of the Son of God as He toiled towards death.

Sure, we all know how the story ends, but presumably the idea behind this film is to provide us with a means to share His path, perhaps to imagine more closely what it means to those of us who have a strong faith.

In any case, I just reminded myself that it's only one man's portrayal of the event.

My photo shoot is another, and a much more intriguing and interesting one. To my mind, anyway.

How the photos come out, how my work looks, I'll have to wait and see. I suspect I will be blown away, as we were using top-end photographic equipment.

I've got at least a month to wait, and I'm hanging out already!

And Mel's Passion?

Meh. I prefer Dogma.