March 26, 2008. (AP) An Oregon man who used to be a woman says he is pregnant with a baby girl.
Thomas Beatie's first-person story appears in a recent issue of The Advocate, a Los Angeles-based newsmagazine for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people.
According to the story, Thomas was born a woman but decided to become a transgender male and legally changed his sex to male. He had his breasts surgically removed and started bimonthly testosterone injections, but kept his vagina.
Now identifying as male, Thomas legally married Nancy, the story says. The pair wanted a biological baby but Nancy was unable to carry a child. So they decided Thomas would.
"How does it feel to be a pregnant man?" Thomas writes in the article. "Incredible. 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. In a technical sense I see myself as my own surrogate, though my gender identity as male is constant. To Nancy, I am her husband carrying our child . . . I will be my daughter's father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family."
Before getting pregnant he stopped injecting testosterone, and his body "regulated itself after about four months," he writes in The Advocate.
One year and nine doctors later, Thomas got pregnant, but the pregnancy was ectopic, and rarer still, with triplets. After surgery, Thomas lost all his embryos and his right fallopian tube.
But the second pregnancy has been a success, writes Thomas: "We are happily awaiting her birth, with an estimated due date of July 3, 2008."
Thomas Beatie's first-person story appears in a recent issue of The Advocate, a Los Angeles-based newsmagazine for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people.
According to the story, Thomas was born a woman but decided to become a transgender male and legally changed his sex to male. He had his breasts surgically removed and started bimonthly testosterone injections, but kept his vagina.
Now identifying as male, Thomas legally married Nancy, the story says. The pair wanted a biological baby but Nancy was unable to carry a child. So they decided Thomas would.
"How does it feel to be a pregnant man?" Thomas writes in the article. "Incredible. 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. In a technical sense I see myself as my own surrogate, though my gender identity as male is constant. To Nancy, I am her husband carrying our child . . . I will be my daughter's father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family."
Before getting pregnant he stopped injecting testosterone, and his body "regulated itself after about four months," he writes in The Advocate.
One year and nine doctors later, Thomas got pregnant, but the pregnancy was ectopic, and rarer still, with triplets. After surgery, Thomas lost all his embryos and his right fallopian tube.
But the second pregnancy has been a success, writes Thomas: "We are happily awaiting her birth, with an estimated due date of July 3, 2008."
