First Pregnant Man Kind of.

Oprah Exclusive: The "pregnant man" is speaking out about his decision to have a child – saying, "I'm a person and I have the right to have my own biological child."

In a special exclusive featured in this week's PEOPLE and on Thursday's episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, Thomas Beatie, a transgender male, talks about the baby he and wife Nancy are expecting this summer. "If Nancy could get pregnant, I wouldn't be doing this," Beatie tells PEOPLE of his wife's hysterectomy. "Who hires a surrogate if they are perfectly capable of carrying their own child?"

A married man who used to be a woman says that he is pregnant and will give birth to a baby girl in July.

“How does it feel to be a pregnant man? Incredible,” wrote Thomas Beatie, 34, from the Pacific North West of the United States, in the latest issue of the gay magazine The Advocate.

“Despite the fact that my belly is growing with a new life inside me, I am stable and confident being the man that I am.”

Mr Beatie was born female, named Tracy Lagondino, but had gender reassignment surgery and is now legally male and married to a woman.

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.

Mr Beatie would not be the first transgender man to give birth, according to Lisa Masterson, an obstetrician at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles.

“A transgender man can be pregnant because he has the same organs as a woman,” Dr Masterson said on the ABC Good Morning America show.

Dr Masterson said, however, that transgendered men face special health risks resulting from their sex change. “It’s really important that he doesn’t take any testosterone early on in the pregnancy and later on,” she said. “That can cause male-type characteristics in the female baby.”


***I find this to be very disturbing***

Message edited 4/2/2008 7:44:58 PM.

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

ick

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

you know something? As someone struggling with infertility, I think this is an amazing thing for this man to be doing for his wife.

Honestly--when you have no other way of having a child, why not??

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

I don't consider this to be a pregnant man- not sure why the media is reporting it as such.

If he still has female reproductive organs- he is not considered "male". Hermaphrodite perhaps- but this is not the same like in that movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

Okay, but this isn't really a "man" - he/she has women parts - so technically this is a man in a womans body?

Either way - I think its pretty cool that he's doing this for his wife.

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

It's weird but I don't find it disturbing. They are a couple in a committed relationship who want a baby. Not everything was undid in his/her body and they are using it.

I am irritated that they call him a pregnant man. He was born a woman with female sex organs. He just made cosmetic and hormonal changes.

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

Besides the abvious media spin, I am concerned that the years of testosterone therapy would not have an effect on the baby....

I do hope it all works out for them.

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This is mind boggling on SO many levels... I don't even know where to begin...

Mostly, there is definitely concern for the baby, if this "man" has been receiving hormonal treatments for 10 years how is it not going to affect the fetus...

And I do have to ask: if "he" kept his female organs how is "he" a man and how did "he" end up being married to a woman... Exactly how did the sexual act take place? And if it did, did it make his "wife" a lesbian? Or just a really confused individual... Like I said--mind boggling...

Message edited 4/3/2008 12:17:04 AM.

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

Posted by WhatNow



And I do have to ask: if "he" kept his female organs how is "he" a man and how did "he" end up being married to a woman... Exactly how did the sexual act take place? And if it did, did it make his "wife" a lesbian? Or just a really confused individual... Like I said--mind boggling...

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

He is a WOMAN, a WOMAN. He is not a MAN. He has a uterus, He is a WOMAN.
ETA:
I totally screwed up the first one, fixed now..

Message edited 4/3/2008 10:26:36 AM.

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

Posted by WhatNow
And I do have to ask: if "he" kept his female organs how is "he" a man and how did "he" end up being married to a woman... Exactly how did the sexual act take place? And if it did, did it make his "wife" a lesbian? Or just a really confused individual... Like I said--mind boggling...

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

Posted by JennZ

Posted by CrankyPants

Posted by JennZ

He is a MAN, a MAN. He is not a WOMAN. He has a uterus, He is a MAN.

Huh? If he has a uterus, "he" is a woman I would think.

I don't like the media spin on this. It's not as though someone who was born a man got pregnant. That would be news. This is not remarkable to me, just a little weird.

Yeah, pre-coffee. I fixed it now.

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

Posted by JennZ

He is a WOMAN, a WOMAN. He is not a MAN. He has a uterus, He is a WOMAN.
ETA:
I totally screwed up the first one, fixed now..

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

i understand wanting a biological child.. but did he think of the mental effects this will have on this child? Knowing her father gave birth to her.. i cant see that being something easily understood.

Plus hes on testorone shots.. could that effect the baby too?

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

Posted by Porrruss

I don't consider this to be a pregnant man- not sure why the media is reporting it as such.

If he still has female reproductive organs- he is not considered "male". Hermaphrodite perhaps- but this is not the same like in that movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger

Re: First Pregnant Man Kind of.

Posted by MrsF519

Posted by Porrruss

I don't consider this to be a pregnant man- not sure why the media is reporting it as such.

If he still has female reproductive organs- he is not considered "male". Hermaphrodite perhaps- but this is not the same like in that movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger

ITA!! It really bugs me that this is being made into a huge deal. He wasn't born a man!!!!