he's having a baby (yes, really)

From FINDitt News and wire service TransWorldNews, and reported in the Sydney Morning Herald

Oregon Man Thomas Beatie is Pregnant
Atlanta, GA 3/25/2008 07:20 PM GMT (FINDITT)

Thomas Beatie claims he is pregnant with he and his wife’s first child. The Oregon man was born a woman but decided to have a sex change. Beatie says he decided only to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy and not to change his reproductive organs.

Beatie wrote an article about his pregnancy for ‘The Advocate,’ a magazine for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered readers. In the article, he says he stopped taking testosterone injections to get pregnant. He decided to carry a baby as his wife Nancy was unable to get pregnant.

Beatie says he was pregnant with triplets but he lost the babies. He is now pregnant with a baby girl, who is due in July. He describes how doctors refused to treat him. One doctor sent him to the “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,’” he wrote. Beatie added that he and his wife’s situation “sparks legal, political and social unknowns.”

and The Advocate article

Labor of Love
Is society ready for this pregnant husband?
By Thomas Beatie
From The Advocate April 8, 2008

To our neighbors, my wife, Nancy, and I don’t appear in the least unusual. To those in the quiet Oregon community where we live, we are viewed just as we are -- a happy couple deeply in love. 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.

I am transgender, legally male, and legally married to Nancy. Unlike those in same-sex marriages, domestic partnerships, or civil unions, Nancy and I are afforded the more than 1,100 federal rights of marriage. Sterilization is not a requirement for sex reassignment, so I decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights. Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire.

Ten years ago, when Nancy and I became a couple, the idea of us having a child was more dream than plan. I always wanted to have children. However, due to severe endometriosis 20 years ago, Nancy had to undergo a hysterectomy and is unable to carry a child. But after the success of our custom screen-printing business and a move from Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest two years ago, the timing finally seemed right. I stopped taking my bimonthly testosterone injections. 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 estrogen, progesterone, or fertility drugs to aid my pregnancy.

Is this another ethical dilemma? Not really. If it is possible for men (biological males) to gestate a child in pregnancy, some may jump at the opportunity with the support of the child's mother.

Should the hospital staff and the doctor have refused to continue medical treatment? No, they were clouded by their own narrow values. Surely medical staff would have looked upon it as an opportunity to be part of history.

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The weather is becoming colder. At work, training continued today until midday. Then I attended a seminar from a visiting British professor in the afternoon. In my absence from the office, nothing exciting had happened.

Emily came over this evening but missed the walk with Kane (we have to leave earlier now as the days are becoming shorter). I made bangers and mash for dinner, served with blanched broccoli (when the water comes to the boil, I turn it off - there is no need to cook greens any longer).