No woman, no cry...

I consider myself to be a fairly open minded and liberal person. I pretty much believe in a philosophy of live and let live as long as no one is getting hurt or no one is acting a malicious manner.


Whatever your colour, your creed, your persuasion or what you choose to get up to the weekend is pretty much your own business and fair play to you if it makes you happy.

But sometimes, just sometimes, I read something or hear something and alarm bells start ringing and my “old biddy” radar switches to full alert. I instantly transform into a net curtain twitching Blanche from Corrie-a-like willing to have a good oul bitch about things.

Such a thing happened this week. You see another ‘man’ is pregnant and is selling ‘his’ story to the papers. Scott Moore from California is having a baby with his ‘husband’. Pictures of Scott, top off, man boobs on display rubbing his big old pregnant belly have appeared in newspapers and on websites around the world causing a great deal of debate.

Now I will say this clearly - I have no problem with gay couples having children. Absolutely none at all - should they adopt, or use a surrogate or use artificial insemination with a turkey baster. As I have said before - live and let live.

But, and this is a big but, I do have a very serious issue with women who have decided to have gender reassignment making a big song and dance about the fact they are now pregnant men.

In particular Scott Moore has not had full gender reassignment - he (or she, I’m confusing myself) - has taken hormones from the age of 16 and has had a double mastectomy. All his female reproductive organs remain intact which is what brought him to the decision to carry a child - one which he hopes to give birth to naturally through his very female body parts.

He made the decision to parent this child with his husband - also a woman who has gone through gender reassignment - except that Thomas (who was born Laura) has gone the whole hog and had the necessary alternations to his nether regions.

Essentially, we have two women who felt they were always men now living as men but publicly promoting the fact they are giving life - an inherently female thing - to a child.

I’ve never felt like I have been trapped in the wrong body. (Well, occasionally I wonder why I got the genetics I did when it would have been much more preferable to have an Angelie Jolie type figure..) It is not something I can speak on with any great authority but surely if the feelings that Scott Moore (who started life as Jessica) had were so strong - if his inherent belief that he was a man trapped in a female body was so fervent - he would not have the very strong female urge to carry and give birth to a child?

Being a man means being a man. It means no womb. No ovaries. No producing eggs and having them fertlised. It means no peeing on a stick and waiting for two pink lines. It means no morning sickness (lucky feckers) no baby kicks, no giving birth and no being a mother.

You cannot, I hate to say, have your cake and eat it.

If you want to be a man, be a man. Work away. More power to you. If you want to be a woman - go for it. You’ll hear no complaint from me. But don’t blur the lines - don’t going running to the press like what you have done is miraculous. It isn’t. It is basic biology.

You cannot and should not parade around the world shouting about the great big achievement you as a ‘man’ have had in getting pregnant. Excess facial hair does not a man make. Trust me, I know. I have a dodgy upper lip issue (okay, a small moustache type effort) which requires the attention of the hot wax from time to time. I am, however, still very much a woman and intend to always be so.

Scott Moore does not strike as a man who is overly confident about who he is. He does not strike me as a man who made a fully informed decision based on the 100% certainty that he was never meant to be a woman in the first place. He, in fact, strikes me as someone rather mixed up who wanted to hedge his bets and have the best of both worlds.

Oh, if he could make a quick buck selling his story to the world’s media, why not do that too?

Scott and Thomas already have two sons - which I believe was Thomas’s from his first relationship with another woman (again, I’m confusing myself here) and I suppose there is a greater debate about the impact of such mixed messages to young children growing up and craving that feeling of belonging and fitting in.

All that said, I do wish Scott and Thomas and their baby all the best. I hope they raise their child with love and give him a stable and happy home. I’m sure they have it in their ability to be good parents - they just need to be honest about who they really are.