Title: Labor of Love: The Story of One Man's Extraordinary PregnancyAuthor: Thomas Beatie
Year: 2008
Publisher: Seal
335 pages
A provocative autobiography by a transman. The central question Beatie raises is what makes a person a man. This is often a major theme in memoirs by trans people; the twist here is that Beatie carries a child after having transitioned to being male. This gives the question of gender a very interesting spin and a particular urgency: How does the medical establishment respond? What privacy and control do Beatie and his partner relinquish in order to have a child? Should medical forms for pregnancies not assume that the person giving birth is female? How does the reader understand a pregnant man? I was much more taken by this autobiography than I thought I would be. The title and summary concerned me, in that it seemed like a schtick. a way to distinguish his book from those of other trans people. It's a measure of Beatie's ability to describe his experiences and decision-making that by the end I largely admire this narrative.
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