A 34 year-old transgender man, who was born a woman and still has the necessary parts, made the difficult decision to bear a child after his wife had a hysterectomy due to severe endometriosis. Thomas Beatie wrote an article for The Advocate in which he detailed the difficult and often humiliating process of trying to bear a child for his wife, during which doctors shunned him and his family discouraged him.

Beatie underwent breast reduction surgery and took testosterone for years to reassign his gender, but was not sterilized. He is legally a man and has all the benefits of marriage with his female wife. They live in Bend, Oregon and run a screen printing business.

When the couple made the decision that Beatie would bear their child after his wife’s hysterectomy, he stopped taking testosterone, and consulted many doctors about the decision, but did not take fertility drugs. Ultimately he chose to be artificially inseminated through a sperm bank, and the insemination was performed at home to save costs.

Beatie’s first pregnancy was ectopic and life-threatening, but his second is successful and he says he’s due in July:

He decided to carry a baby for his wife, Nancy, because she had a hysterectomy years ago. He was able to get pregnant because he kept his female organs when he switched genders.

“Sterilisation is not a requirement for sex reassignment, so I decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights,” he writes. “Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire but a human desire.” The couple, who have been together for ten years, run a custom screenprinting business in Bend, Oregon, where neighbours do not know that Mr Beatie was once a woman.

“Our desire to work hard, buy our first home and start a family was nothing out of the ordinary. That is, until we decided that I would carry our child,” he wrote.

Before becoming pregnant, Mr Beatie stopped the testosterone injections he was receiving as part of his gender reassignment. “It had been roughly eight years since I had my last menstrual cycle so this wasn’t a decision that I took lightly. My body regulated itself after about four months and I didn’t have to take any exogenous oestrogen, progesterone or fertility drugs to aid my pregnancy,” he wrote.

The couple bought donor vials from a cryogenic sperm bank and, facing resistance and prejudice from doctors, resorted to home insemination. “Doctors have discriminated against us, turning us away due to their religious beliefs. Healthcare professionals have refused to call me by a male pronoun or recognise Nancy as my wife. Receptionists have laughed at us. Friends and family have been unsupportive; most of Nancy’s family doesn’t even know I’m transgender,” he said.

Mr Beatie’s first successful insemination ended in a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy with triplets that required surgery, resulting in the loss of all his embryos and his right Fallopian tube. “When my brother found out about my loss, he said, ‘It’s a good thing that happened. Who knows what kind of monster it would have been?’,” he wrote.

The second pregnancy resulted in a baby girl who is due to be born on July 3. “I will be my daughter’s father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family,” he wrote.

[From Timesonline.co.uk]

Beatie’s neighbors only know him as a man and don’t really believe he’s pregnant. This is likely not the first pregnancy in a transgendered male, according to medical experts. Beatie says he still feels like a man and that being pregnant has not changed his gender identity.

At first I was kind of shocked to see this picture and thought it was some kind of hoax, but it’s perfectly natural when you think about it. It’s someone who made the decision to bear a child when his wife was unable to. He just happened to have the parts for it when most dads don’t. Congratulations to him and his wife.