James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Love is a Many-Gendered Thing!

Hi Rowdy Rainbow Readers, this week's focus book is one about an experience that goes where no man has gone before. It's called, Labor of Love: the Story of One Man's Extraordinary Pregnancy and it's Thomas Beatie's memoir as the first Female to Male (FTM) transgendered person to give birth. In his chatty and informative memoir he chronicles his sex-changing and life-changing adventure. Check out these reviews from Publisher's Weekly and Booklist. Then go to the library and check it out!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Just want to point out that he isn't the first FTM to give birth. It of course depends how you want to classify FTM, but if we want to talk about folks on hormones, Matt Rice gave birth in 1999 (while dating Patrick Califia). For more information on transmen parents see Jules Rosskam's documentary "Transparent."

I think we love this guy because his giving birth mimics heteronormative paradigms of relatonships and parenting-- staight identified, his wife couldn't get pregnant, etc. Two non-monogamous, sex-positive queer transpeople making a baby makes the broader culture pretty nervous, so I think we downplay these types of families, even in our own context.

Anonymous said...

Very good point.