Thomas Beatie, a 34-year-old American man who used to be a woman, gave birth to a healthy baby girl in a hospital in Oregon last Sunday. Beatie made headline news in March when he revealed in Advocate, the gay rights magazine, that he was five months pregnant.
Beatie was born female and grew up in Hawaii as Tracy Lagondin, was a Girl Scout, a finalist in a teenage beauty pageant and a model. He had gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy 10 years ago, in his 20s. He had his breasts removed and chest flattened to look like a man, and began taking testosterone, but he never had his female reproductive organs removed: he kept his ovaries and uterus intact.
Beatie has a beard and looks like a man, but he said one day he wanted to have a child and that is why he kept his female reproductive organs. He appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show in April, shortly after he revealed his story and said that pregnancy was a process and it didn’t define who he was.
“It’s not a male or female desire to have a child,” said Beatie, “It’s a human need,” maintaining his right to have a biological child.
A source told ABC News that the baby is “really cute” and the birth, at St Charles Medical Center in Bend, Oregon, was natural; Beatie did not have a Caesarean section as many reports suggest.
Beatie and his wife Nancy, and new baby daughter are now home, where Beatie is resting and focusing his attention on the new baby, the source told ABC News.
Beatie impregnated himself with the help of his wife using donated sperm. They used what they described as a device that looks like syringe with the needle removed and is used by veterinarians to feed birds.
Beatie told the press, that the only thing different about him is that he can’t breastfeed his baby, “But a lot of mothers don’t”, he said, in a report by the Guardian this morning.
Under Oregon law, Beatie is legally a man, has been married to Nancy for five years, and they share the full rights and protection of marriage. The couple run a screenprinting business.
Beatie took the decision to have the child because his wife had to have a hysterectomy for medical reasons. He stopped his testosterone injections to let his body regain its own hormone balance. He faced enormous problems, his doctor refused to treat him. After nine doctors and a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, Beatie became pregnant.
When he revealed his pregnancy through an article in Advocate, Beatie wrote that he felt stable and confident, “I see myself as my own surrogate, though my gender identity as male is constant.”
Source: ABC News, BBC, Guardian.
Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD