April 15, 2008 11:42 AM
Oprah and the "pregnant man" - who was never a man at all
Maybe I should have titled this entry The Problem with Oprah. . . .
A colleague of mine wrote me last week:
I’ve been watching Oprah for the past couple of weeks to reacquaint myself with her show (haven’t watched in years) and she presents the New Age “gospel” in a very appealing manner. Yesterday, she had the “pregnant man” on her show – it was amazing to watch how Oprah managed to portray changing one’s gender and conceiving a child in the most unusual of ways in such an appealing, “loving” way – and then finished off the show tying this bizarre situation into New Age philosophy, once again, in a very appealing manner. I walked away confused! (“I know what I believe is true, but gosh she makes me feel like a mean person for believing it!”)
I just want to assure you, this person is not being swayed by watching Oprah, but trying to get a handle on what is going on in the world so as to address it from a Christian perspective.
Keeping your hand on the pulse of the culture is rather like being an EMT arriving at the scene of a multi-car pile-up, getting into triage gear and hoping your efforts will save at least a few lives. There is so much confusion and craziness out there.
How in the world did we arrive at the point where in order to be politically correct we could not say that a mentally confused person needed psychiatric help rather than affirmation of an obviously twisted and confused lifestyle? It's really tragic - and more tragic that these same PC Gestapo have now demanded in California and Massachusetts that we begin teaching little children that they can be whichever sex they want to be and it's all okay.
Jeff Jacoby is a conservative columnist for the Boston Globe who has somehow not lost the privilege of writing even in that bastion of liberalism.
Here is his view of Oprah's attempt to normalize the abnormal for the gullible masses. You may be interested in his take: Pregnant, yes, but not a man.
This story of the pregnant “man” hasn't materialized in a vacuum.The news out of Texas last week was of the police raid on a polygamist compound in which underage girls have been forcibly “married” to abusive older men. From Australia came word of John and Jennifer Deaves, the 61-year-old father and his 39-year-old daughter who have had two children together and pleaded guilty to incest, but say they just want “a little bit of respect and understanding” for their illicit relationship. These are only the latest in an endless series of reminders that sexual urges and appetites can be powerful and perverse and lead to harmful consequences. That is why human societies have always constrained sexual behavior with equally powerful taboos and moral standards.
Increasingly, though, anyone who upholds those taboos and standards is denounced as a narrow-minded bigot, while those who defy them are celebrated for their nonjudgmentalism and tolerance. (Why, come to think of it, do the people who insist gender is fluid and subjective so often argue the opposite when it comes to race?)
It was Tracy/Thomas who took her story public, writing it up for The Advocate, an online gay magazine.
"How does it feel to be a pregnant man? Incredible," she exulted. “Despite the fact that my belly is growing with a new life inside me, I am stable and confident being the man that I am. In a technical sense I see myself as my own surrogate, though my gender identity as male is constant."
Could anything be more incoherent or sad? Gender Identity Disorder is not “incredible," no matter how politically fashionable it has become to claim otherwise. It is not just another hue in the rainbow of diversity. It is a dysfunction. It should be met with sympathy, counseling, and therapy, not with five-page spreads in People and appearances on “Oprah."
Headlines notwithstanding, there is no “pregnant man." There is only a confused and unsettled woman, who proclaims that surgery, hormones, and clothing made her a man, and is clinging to that fiction even as the baby growing in her womb announces her womanhood to the world.
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Comments
I cannot tell you how eager I was to see that show on Oprah when it was anounced. A pregnant man??? I told my husband it had to be something like that movie with Arnold Shwarzenegger, when he is the one carrying the baby for some reason. It had to be that.
I almost broke my tv when, after Oprah introduced "Thomas" she said there was a "little" piece of information she had not shared: "Thomas was born Tracy"....................ARRGGGG........That's not a man!!!!! That's a woman!!!!!!
So many times during the show I wished I could somehow teleport to the studio, slapped all of them around, specially Oprah, shake 'em back into their senses, all the while screaming like a mad woman "she is not a man!!!!!! SHE is a woman!!!!
Oh but yes, now I remember: Tolle's book, or should I say "his philosphy"?, is that we need to stop putting labels on things. If we learn to look at the world without a "label" (which, he adds, is only a group of letters put together to form a word to identify things for practical purposes)then we will realize that we are all the same and we are all pursuing the same things; that if we stop putting labels on people or things, we would discover that the world is more alive, and happiness and peace surround us.
What a bunch of .....
Well Tolle, here is a good one for you: with or without a label, you are a man, and I'm a woman. That's the way God created you, and that's the way He created me. Even if language had never evolved, you would still be a man and I would still be a woman.
Oh, and Tracy-Thomas, (just in case you are reading this blog searching the wonderful mothering and montessori advice) you are not a man....you re a WOMAN......YOUR OWN BABY IS SHOUTING THAT FROM THE WOMB.
"Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do"
Posted by: LadyLovas | April 15, 2008 12:36 PM
The Bible tells us that in the end times these kinds of things would be more and more commonplace. The Bible also tells us that the lost man cannot understand the things of God; for they are foolishness to him because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14)So, it's no wonder all of this deception is taking place. As christians we need to be keenly aware, through the Word of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that we have an enemy who is out to deceive the masses. He won't come in a red suit with a pitchfork and hooves. He comes masquerading as an angel of light as do his ministers (2 Cor.11:14,15). It is heartbreaking that millions of people are being introduced to the New Age philosophy (aka Doctrine of demons per 1 Timothy 4:1)through Oprah and her satelite radio show. Believe me, I came out of the occult/new age movement and it can be very appealing, but it is a lie straight from the father of lies, Satan. We need to pray for Oprah and all the others who have been deceived for one day they will stand before God and give an account for the untold numbers of persons they helped lead to eternal damnation.
Posted by: Libby | April 15, 2008 1:59 PM
The whole world seems to have gone so crazy that I just can't get my head around it. It's like being told you're "mean" because you won't let little children play with matches. That you're "oppressive" for teaching them to handle knives carefully and with respect.
Sex is a very powerful thing. It can either be extremely good for us (the bond between husband and wife), or extremely bad for us. Telling people differently is like handing them a gun and telling them they can do anything they like with it -- including pointing it at themselves.
Posted by: Michelle Potter | April 15, 2008 5:29 PM
Barbara,
I am SO glad that you addressed this on your blog. I was actually surprised that you hadn't! :) I thought pretty much the same thing as the article: this is a WOMAN, what's the big deal!!
My 11 year old son went on the internet and happened to see that a news headline said: Man pregnant! and he asked me if that can really happen, I told him that it was a woman who dresses as a man and got herself pregnant.....
I'm really surprised that Oprah is so blindly led by the culture. This show especially showed how blind she has become.
~B
Posted by: B | April 15, 2008 6:55 PM
Oh I so agree with this - he is a she! Full stop. Not a man, never was, never will be. Injecting testosterone and surgically removing breasts does not make one a man. I appreciate your analogy of the EMT in a car pile-up. Very true.
Posted by: Barb | April 16, 2008 9:09 AM
Yeah, I am so glad that you posted this!!! My husband saw the headlines in some tabloid or another while waiting in line at the grocery store and he could not believe it. I had already done some reading on this and told him nope it's a woman. How stupid to proclaim that a man is pregnant, when that person has never been nor will ever be a man. Sigh, boy what this world is coming to!!
Posted by: amyellen | April 17, 2008 1:26 PM
