I loved The L Word until Max's character was introduced. As others have said, he embodied, for a long while, the worst qualities of your stereotypical man. After that, he was just a whiner who seriously messed up. And come on, really... he got pregnant after a year or two on hormones? Those must have been some wacky illegal overseas hormones that managed to help him grow facial pubes--- er, hair--- but failed to raise his testosterone levels sufficiently to render him infertile. The human body is pretty sensitive to hormones; even if an ftm guy were to become pregnant while on T, which is HIGHLY unlikely, there's no way he could carry the pregnancy to term. Fetuses can't survive with a hormonal imbalance that extreme.

The L Word ended abysmally, in my opinion. I wish the writers had chosen simply to omit an ftm character, as he only served to besmirch the name of ftms everywhere; maybe then, they might have come up with a better way to close the series.

Quote from: Luc on August 04, 2012, 01:00:32 AM
The human body is pretty sensitive to hormones; even if an ftm guy were to become pregnant while on T, which is HIGHLY unlikely, there's no way he could carry the pregnancy to term. Fetuses can't survive with a hormonal imbalance that extreme.

I know a guy who got pregnant while on T (he went off cold turkey), his wife (mtf) had been on estrogen for 10 years.  There are plenty of guys who have gone off T and managed to conceive.  Thomas Beatie was on T for 8 years.  Matt Rice, not sure how long he was on T, couldn't find a reliable resource, but long enough to grow a beard (not saying much that is but I'm guessing a few years).  There are others too, but I couldn't find much.

It is possible though not sure about how plausible the situation of him getting pregnant and carrying the baby to term while still on T.

This website is very helpful about pregnacy in trans men.  [size=78%]http://notanotheraiden.com/faq-transmen-and-pregnancy/[/size]
It says basically that T doesn't make you infertile but does make eggs less viable.

I think the show's treatment of Max was pandering to a prejudice, sort of "you're female, so stay female". They wouldn't just let him be himself.

It's highly implausible, yes, that a man on T for so long would become pregnant. Thomas Beatie had to be off of T for 9 months and take hormones before he could become pregnant. We have no idea how the hormones might affect a developing fetus. As per the information on "Not Another Aiden," the author has no professional credentials and, therefore, his statements are quite possibly spurious.

I'm just saying it is possible, it just may not work for everyone.  If a dude wants to stop T and try to get pregnant, good for him.

I don't get how he's been on T long enough to get facial hair yet his voice still squeaks like Minnie Mouse. Haha, unrealistic.

Quote from: Andy8715 on August 04, 2012, 01:44:08 AM
I'm just saying it is possible, it just may not work for everyone.  If a dude wants to stop T and try to get pregnant, good for him.

I typed up an awesome response the other day then forums went down after it was typed up so it never went through.

Max never stopped T, nor did he try to get pregnant. He didn't know he was pregnant until he went for his top surgery consult which they did a pregnancy test during and found out he was pregnant, and could not get top surgery (ouch). This story line was written right after Thomasn Beatty and was sooooo very unoriginal in that sense. There was also no educating in the show. Anyways...I think after he finds out he goes to a gyno or something and then finds out he's maybe 3 months along? 4? He's far enough along that he's not planning to abort. I forgot if his partner was cool at first and wanted to raise the baby together as part of why he wanted to keep it, or if the guy ditched (I know he ditches at some point). I tried to find out when during his pregnancy he finds out yet was somehow linked back to here in a google search.
:|

Thank you, Nygeel; this is absolutely what I would have said if I'd gotten there first. Obviously, ftm guys have every right to get off T and get pregnant if they want to. Being on T and getting pregnant, however? It's highly unlikely. No, no one who wrote the Max character seemed to have any idea of the intricacies of the transgender condition.