You misunderstand me (it is possible I was unclear, wouldn't be the first time!)

"male" is genetic. "Man" is a social and psychological construct, based on how someone behaves, appears and feels, right? It is often, but not always, based on one's genetic sex.

If someone wants to change from one social and psychological construct to another (woman to man) several things have to change, in order for someone to be percieved as the other gender. Beatie was pretty up front about that, he was a woman and now wishes to become a man. There is your preservation of the boundaries of a false binary.

Now, Beatie didn't need to change the way he felt; that was a given, and in fact drove his other changes. He did, however, change his appearance and mannerisms to more closely match what he felt was "manhood." He had a mastectomy, and took hormones to grow facial hair, enlarge his clitoris and deepen his voice. During that course of hormones, he looked, felt, and behaved as a man.

However, by choosing to get pregnant, he drastically changed his appearance so he no longer looked like a man as much. The physiological and psychological (I have been pregnant, and it is an estrogen roller coaster) changes of pregnancy would assure that he was not able to behave like a man all the time, and therefore would not APPEAR to be one.

Hence, ambiguous. If a short-haired, deep voiced woman in a pink polkadotted party dress and lipstick told you she was a man, you might well use her chosen form of address, but it would probably appear pretty confusing to you.

I am fine thinking about gender as a continuum, like sexual orientation, and referring to people by whichever pronoun they wish, but if they want to be considered part of one specific group or another, they should avoid behaviour that automatically puts them in the other group.

Men can be nurturing, men can crochet, men can make souffles, men can cry, men can drink fruit-flavoured malt liquor, all without casting any real doubt on their chosen gender. A man who gets pregnant, however, sure starts to seem more like a woman.

Freki