"Only Girls can Be the Mommies"

Mary Kochan recently shared her "new baby" with me over at the amazing Catholic Exchange. I hope you'll take a look. I am highlighting one of the articles here by Christopher West in CE's new channel: "Theology of the Body"

Here's what Christopher West has to say in his very interesting article:

"Do you remember the Mister Rogers song that went like this: “Only girls can be the mommies [tinkly piano…] Only boys can be the daddies, yes sir … Everybody’s fancy, everybody’s fine … Your body’s fancy and so is mine”? Well, it seems what may have been true in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood is not true in Mister Beatie’s, an Oregonian “man” who announced this spring that he is five months pregnant.

The news was everywhere at the end of March. Some of the Headlines read: “A Pregnant Man: It’s Incredible”; “He’s Having Their Baby”; “Pregnant Man Stuns Medical Profession”; and “She’s Pregnant, But She’s a He.”

What gives? In case you haven’t heard — she is not a he, rather “he” is a she. Thomas Beatie is actually Tracy Lagondino, a woman who had her breasts surgically removed and has been pumping her blood stream with male hormones in order to grow facial hair. Her ovaries and womb, however, have remained intact. She stopped injecting testosterone in order to ovulate and, as she herself says, my body “regulated itself after about four months.”

To “regulate,” of course, means to bring order, to conform something to the truth of things. She, herself, by acknowledging that her body “regulated itself” admits that she is a woman. Wait a minute… even as I write this, I am baffled by the boggling absurdity of needing somehow to demonstrate that “she is a woman.” How could it be otherwise?

Let us allow Mister Rogers, in his own simple way, to inject a little sanity: “Boys are boys from the beginning [tinkly piano]… Girls are girls right from the start, yes sir… Every body’s fancy, every body’s fine… Your body’s fancy and so is mine.”

I don’t mean to make light of the situation, or in any way to turn it into a joke. This is not a laughing matter. Tracy Lagondino is not a man “trapped” in a woman’s body. There is no such thing..." (Continued here)