The issue then becomes, does Thomas Beatie really perceive himself as a man? What instinct caused him to hold onto his female reproductive organs, those parts that, to most people, make a woman a woman? I don't know how many times I've heard women say "I've never felt more like a woman" during pregnancy. How did pregnancy make Thomas Beatie feel?

When I had my son I never felt like more of a mammal. I'd never felt more like a living house and host. I never felt more like a lot of things, but I can't say it made me feel Yes, this is what it means to be a woman." For many women, that is their experience of pregnancy. But again, that goes back to self-perception.

Beatie has made it pretty clear that he perceives himself as a man. The main reason underlying the argument that Beatie can't be a man is because men do NOT and cannot get pregnant. And therefore that must mean that a real man would never ever want to either, even if he theoretically could.

But is that the case? It's easy to say you could never want something that you think is impossible anyway. But if all the sudden it became possible, you might change your mind. If you woke up tomorrow with a fully functioning vagina and uterus would that make you a woman? Or would you still be a man? If you decided you were still a man, even with your sudden female plumbing, and you wanted a child, and you COULD carry that child to term yourself... would you? Can you be absolutely sure?

I'm not just playing silly hypotheticals here. I'm trying to point out the very real difference between self-expression(gender) and basic reproductive capacity (sex). Traditionally they've worked interchangeably, but advances in sex change surgery are starting to challenge all that. And that doesn't have to be the end of the world.