Bend’s Pregnant Man is in the world news again – he’s expecting another child in June and was the subject of a TV documentary in Britain – which inspired blogger Tim Teeman of The Times of London to comment on the alleged weirdness of Bend’s name.
“Some places, just because of their names, are meant to have strange things happen in them: Bend, Oregon, is one of them,” Teeman writes.
Hello? What’s so strange about “Bend”? Okay, in addition to the Pregnant Man we’re also home to the Lawn Chair Balloonist and what may well be the world’s only housing development inspired by The Lord of the Rings, but what’s bizarre about our little town’s name in itself?
And if Teeman thinks “Bend, Oregon” is weird, what would he have to say about the Oregon towns of Boring, Drain and Fossil?
For that matter, where does somebody from a country with towns named “Newcastle-upon-Tyne,” “Stoke-on-Trent,” “Gloucester” (pronounced “Gloster”) and “Leicester” (pronounced “Lester”) get off poking fun at Bend, Oregon?
So don’t take this personally, old chap, but … sod off.
This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2008.
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I’m sorry why do we continue promoting this person that continues selling herself as a man when she is really a woman? (hence why she gets pregnant) We have much bigger things to worry about than a person that wants attention. Lets work on the men and women here that know who they are and need our help. Let the confused get the help they need some where else. I sure as hell don’t want to be known as the town that the pregnant man/woman is from.
It’s so sad that Bend as a whole, is generally ignorant about the transgender community. Wayne, the world is not black & white, good & bad, woman & man. Thomas Beatie IS a man, regardless of what his genitalia look like and the reproduction system of which HE possesses. I hope that one day people will accept people for who they are inside, not simply judging them by their anatomic sex. Gender is not binary.