More discrimination…
By Jess McCabe | 22 March 2008, 23:50
The Advocate is running a first person account by Thomas Beattie, who is a trans man, about the discrimination he is facing now he is pregnant.
This whole process, from trying to get pregnant to being pregnant, has been a challenge for us. The first doctor we approached was a reproductive endocrinologist. He was shocked by our situation and told me to shave my facial hair. After a $300 consultation, he reluctantly performed my initial checkups. He then required us to see the clinic’s psychologist to see if we were fit to bring a child into this world and consulted with the ethics board of his hospital. A few months and a couple thousand dollars later, he told us that he would no longer treat us, saying he and his staff felt uncomfortable working with “someone like me.”
Then:
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.
Outside the local medical community, people don’t know I’m five months’ pregnant. But our situation ultimately will ask everyone to embrace the gamut of human possibility and to define for themselves what is normal.
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Feeds
Redheadinred said:
This is wonderful. Not many guys would do this for their wives. How can people discriminate against such a compassionate thing? He's already pregnant - or so I should say, they are a pregnant couple, like many others. Why hate that when there's nothing that could change that, now?
Posted on 24 March 2008 at 12:48 AM
MiniatureTeaparty said:
I think the doctors were correct in being cautious in this case. After all, one issue is that Thomas has received a lot of artificial male hormones over the years and this may interfere with the pregnanacy.
Thomas is genetically female and has female reproductive organs however has had a bilateral mastectomy and had years of hormone injections (to be more 'masculine'). Becoming pregnant would seem to be at odds with his identity as a man and one may have worried that he may suffer psychological harm.
Posted on 17 January 2010 at 10:00 PM