Pregnant man confuses, disgusts and delights

Thomas Beatie, 5 months pregnant March 25th, 2008

Women have babies and men don’t, right? Sheesh, you’re so twentieth century. A man from Oregon, USA, is shaking things up by having a baby. Himself. With his own womb. And now he’s telling the world with an article in LGBT magazine The Advocate.

Thomas Beatie is legally a man, but he was born a woman. He underwent gender reassignment, and had chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy, but decided against changing his reproductive organs.

He and his wife Nancy have always wanted children, but Nancy had to undergo a hysterectomy and couldn’t have children. But Thomas could. He stopped taking his bimonthly testosterone injections, and within four months his body regulated itself and he got pregnant without needing exogenous estrogen or fertility drugs. The first attempt went badly; a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy with triplets that resulted in miscarriage. However, Thomas is now pregnant again for the second time, and they expect a healthy daughter to be born in July.

Predictably, Thomas and Nancy have received little support from, well, anyone. Medical staff have laughed, refused treatment, and told Thomas to shave his facial hair. Thomas’ brother was pleased that the first pregnancy failed, saying “It’s a good thing that happened. Who knows what kind of monster it would have been.”

Amazingly, Thomas has retained his integral masculine identity without any problems throughout his 5-month pregnancy. As he explains in the Advocate magazine, “How does it feel to be a pregnant man? 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 am so lucky to have such a loving, supportive wife. I will be my daughter’s father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family.”

“Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire.”

 comments

  • Man is 5 months pregnant. And he’s a man. Did I mention that?…

    Thomas Beatie is having a baby soon. A baby he’s been carrying in his womb like any other mother….

    sk-rt.com ∼ March 25th, 2008 4:43 pm
  • Absolutely right!
    I am myself a biological man, since I’m born, and I dreamed a few times that I was pregnant. This is a dream come true I think for many men to see what nature is able to.
    On the other hand, ethicists are shocked. But why? Don’t you know nothing about progress? Didn’t you know in the past many things happened that we were not aware of, and that they become accepted? This is just the same thing again.

    But they don’t have to be fucking scared, and so women don’t have to. All of this doesn’t mean the men will all want and have babies with their own bodies tomorrow. The thing is that it’s a “transgender” male that can live this only. No biological man like me could have a baby without a lot of surgeries if you know what I mean. This is surely a question of time.

    But I already see feminists coming along : how could men do that to us? Us, poor women that had babies since the beginning of time? Now they’re stealing our essence, how could they do that to us? It’s the war!!
    But on the other hand in the past few years, women wanted to be free from all those obligations that their body gave to them. I think they should be happy if in the future, man and women had the same opportunity to carry a baby. That would be wonderful, and there would no be anymore gender’s gap. Man would equals Women and there wouldn’t be anymore gender discrimination, nothing that is male that isn’t women, etc. Wouldn’t that be a super world?

    Michael ∼ March 30th, 2008 5:36 pm
  • [...] Thomas Beatie, the pregnant guy? Of course you do. Oprah spoke to him last [...]

    Oprah talks to pregnant man | Lesbilicious - your daily queer news sugarhigh ∼ April 6th, 2008 5:45 pm

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