Unjust criticism of transgender man

In response to Cheryl Thomas’s article about the transgender man who has decided to have a child (“Confused? Me too,”April 8), I would suggest looking into our history when questioning whether something we instinctively feel is wrong really is wrong. The liberation of slaves, the equal rights of women, interracial marriages – the list goes on, and all of them were thought to be “unnatural.” The idea that gender is completely exclusive to all traits and rights of the opposite gender is one that succeeded in barring women from education, employment and all things traditionally masculine, and one that continues to oppress homosexuals and lesbians. In fact, your views on the issue are what very well would subject his child to “constant harassment from school mates,” and it’s sad that anyone would think he or any man doesn’t have the right to bear children. Lesbian couples have children, homosexuals adopt or use surrogate mothers, and sterile couples seek other resources. Because this doesn’t seem “natural,” does that make it wrong? Plenty of men are born with a love of children and look forward to being fathers their whole lives, and social changes have made it more likely for a fit father to win custody cases. In fact, with women flooding the workplace (thanks to social and legal changes that you obviously resist), many men are taking on the “feminine” roles in the family. It was thought that women were not entitled to the same rights as men, which is now known as obviously sexist. On the same note, a man who has the reproductive biology of a woman is not barred his right to bear children simply because he is a man. In fact Cheryl, if you were to look into it, there are plenty of men who desire to become pregnant, and if technology continues to progress, they may be able to. Unlike your abstract claims, there is nothing intrinsically or extrinsically immoral about a man becoming pregnant, and any resistance is simply an ill-formed social construction. My best wishes to the Beaties, and I hope Cheryl can come up with a better argument next time.