Guys give birth

He was famous for being 'the pregnant man.' Here's where Thomas Beatie is now

It's been 13 years since Thomas Beatie sat down for his first TV interview and told Oprah — and the world — how he could possibly be pregnant, as a man.

Today, the concept of a transgender man giving birth is hardly novel, although research, education and awareness are still severely lacking. But society has come a long way, and so has Beatie. The father of four, now a stockbroker in Phoenix, spoke to TODAY Health about how he thinks the trans community benefited from the media attention his pregnancy garnered, and how he and his family are doing today.

"When my story came out, there wasn't a single person in the public eye as a transgender man — most people had never heard of it," Beatie, 47, said. "It was a first exposure for a lot of people. And then on top of that, they can give birth! I think exposing the importance of fertility for trans people was a huge eye-opener."

Thomas Beatie and Nancy Beatie at home May 29, 2008 in Bend, Ore. Kristian Dowling / Getty Images file

In 2008, after he wrote an essay for The Advocate about his pregnancy — a piece he wrote, he said, because he was desperately seeking advice from anyone who had been in his shoes, and fearful that his daughter would be taken away by authorities — Beatie's story spread around the world. Photos of Beatie cradling his stomach — a bare, enlarged, pregnant stomach — went viral. Requests for TV and magazine interviews rushed in. He wrote a book about his experience titled “Labor of Love,” became the subject of multiple TV specials and even went on to star in a French reality show.

"Everything was a whirlwind," he said. "But I still don't regret it."

After having his first child, Susan, in 2008, Beatie went on to give birth to two more children with his then-wife, Nancy Beatie. The couple separated in 2012, and in 2016 Beatie married his second wife, Amber, who worked at the daycare his children attended. They had a baby together in 2018, to whom Amber gave birth.

Today, Beatie and his family live a relatively quiet life in Phoenix, although Beatie occasionally takes on public-speaking jobs or small acting roles (maybe you saw him as an extra in a U-Haul commercial). His older children — now 11, 12 and 13 — split their time between his house and their mom’s house, about 10 miles away. When they’re all home, they swim together in their pool, play checkers and test out new recipes.

“We’re on this keto kick right now, so we’re trying to make cool dishes together,” Beatie said. “We’re going to make some healthy ice cream.”

Beatie and his ex-wife with their three children at an amusement park in Sweden in 2011. Today the children are 11, 12 and 13.Christopher Hunt / Getty Images file

Yet, more than a decade after his first pregnancy made national headlines, Beatie said he still hasn’t been able to fully shake the “pregnant man” moniker.

“I thought I melted back into society, that I could just walk down the hall and be anonymous,” he said, referring to the halls of his financial office building. But soon enough, word got out about his public past, he said. Not that he minds, exactly.

"I don't see anything wrong with being a pregnant man," Beatie said. "I was so proud to be a dad, and I'm still proud to be a dad. I'm so proud that I was the one to bring my kids into the world. It's kind of like a badge."

Mostly, he marvels at how much the world, while still very much flawed, has changed since his story was in the spotlight. This was a time before most people understood the concept of gender identity and what it means to be transgender, let alone etiquette for speaking to or about someone who’s part of the trans community. Beatie recalled being misgendered and “deadnamed” by the media and being the butt of talk show jokes. When Beatie sat down for an interview with Barbara Walters, the news icon referred to one of his maternity photos as a “disturbing image.”

“It was really hard when my story came out,” Beatie said. “People were saying things on TV and in the media that if they came close to saying today, they would be immediately fired. I’m just in shock about how wild, Wild West it was back then.”

Despite the challenges of sharing his story and the fame it spawned, Beatie does not regret talking about his pregnancy experience publicly and said he hopes by doing so that he made things a bit easier for the trans men who came after him.

“I wanted to make sure that for my family, and for other people, that this was going to be something that’s doable, that our laws would respect it,” Beatie said. “So I did feel an obligation to continue to fight. I wasn’t about to lay down and say, ‘All right, fine, call me a woman.’”

Yet he acknowledges that even if public perception of his personal experience has shifted, there is still plenty more work to be done to support trans people hoping to start families — more training among health care providers, equitable access to fertility treatments and parental leave, for starters.

“I think a lot of people are still pigeonholed, thinking that if you want to be transgender, you have to completely get rid of all your (reproductive) organs,” Beatie said. “There needs to be discussions about fertility, preservation. Being transgender, you shouldn’t have to lose your right of having a family. You’re entitled to be happy and have a family and be respected.”

This story originally appeared on TODAY.com

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Can men become pregnant: What to know

A person who was born male and is living as a man cannot get pregnant. However, some transgender men and nonbinary people can.

In most cases, including cis-men who have sex with men, male pregnancy is not possible. New research in uterine transplants may mean that male pregnancy could be a possibility in the future, though.

In this article, we will discuss the difference between sex and gender before explaining more about transgender and male pregnancy.

Anyone who has a uterus and ovaries could become pregnant and give birth.

People who are born male and living as men cannot get pregnant. A transgender man or nonbinary person may be able to, however.

It is only possible for a person to be pregnant if they have a uterus. The uterus is the womb, which is where the fetus develops. Male reproductive organs include testicles and a penis but no uterus.

The terms “man” and “woman” refer to a person’s gender, which encompasses the socially constructed characteristics that differentiate the traditional binary sexes — male and female.

Unlike a person’s biological sex, which an individual’s reproductive organs and secondary sex characteristics define, genetics alone do not determine a person’s gender.

A person’s gender may include specific social roles, norms, and expectations that differentiate men and women.

These characteristics are subjective, and they differ among societies, social classes, and cultures. The gender by which a person identifies depends on the individual.

Gender is much more fluid than biological sex.

Typically, people are assigned male or female at birth. Those who identify with the gender that society associates with their biological sex are “cisgender” men and women.

Cisgender men who have sex with cisgender men cannot get pregnant.

However, not everyone identifies with the gender role that is associated with their designated sex. For instance, a person who was assigned female at birth (AFAB) but identifies as a man may refer to themselves as a “transgender” man or a gender nonconforming individual.

Many AFAB people who identify as men or gender nonconforming people retain their ovaries and uterus, which allows them to get pregnant and give birth.

People who have a uterus and ovaries can become pregnant and give birth.

However, some AFAB people may take testosterone. Testosterone therapy helps suppress the effects of estrogen while stimulating the development of masculine secondary sex characteristics, including:

muscle growth
redistribution of body fat
increased hair growth on the body and face
deeper voice

Research suggests that menstruation usually ends within 12 months after starting testosterone therapy and often within 6 months, which can make conceiving more difficult but not impossible.

Although testosterone therapy does not make people infertile, a person may have a higher chance of placental abruption, preterm labor, anemia, and hypertension.

In a 2014 study, researchers surveyed 41 transgender men and gender nonconforming AFAB individuals who became pregnant and gave birth.

Of the individuals who reported using testosterone before pregnancy, 20% became pregnant before their menstrual cycle returned.

The authors of this study concluded that prior testosterone use did not lead to significant differences in pregnancy, delivery, or birth outcomes.

The authors also noted that a higher percentage of transgender men who reported previous testosterone use had a cesarean delivery compared with those who had no history of testosterone use.

These findings do not suggest that testosterone therapy makes people incapable of vaginal delivery, as 25% of the transgender men who had a cesarean delivery chose to do so based on their comfort levels and preferences.

However, there is limited research regarding transgender pregnancy, so it is unclear how testosterone may affect a person’s fertility or pregnancy.

In a 2019 case study, researchers documented the experience of one 20-year-old transgender man who became pregnant 2 months after he discontinued testosterone therapy.

After 40 weeks, he gave birth to a healthy baby after an uncomplicated labor.

The authors stated that he chestfed for 12 weeks before restarting testosterone therapy.

People who have had a bilateral mastectomy or other chest surgeries may not be able to chestfeed.

Transgender men and AFAB individuals who do not identify as female may elect to undergo a range of medical treatments and surgical procedures during the transition process.

Examples of gender-affirming surgical procedures for transgender men include:

Male chest reduction or “top surgery”: This procedure involves the removal of both breasts and any underlying breast tissue.
Hysterectomy: A hysterectomy refers to the removal of the internal female reproductive organs, including the ovaries and uterus.
Phalloplasty: During this procedure, a surgeon constructs a neopenis from skin grafts.
Metoidioplasty: This treatment uses a combination of surgery and hormone therapy to enlarge the clitoris and make it function as a penis.

If a person has undergone a partial hysterectomy — which involves the removal of the womb but not the ovaries, cervix, and fallopian tubes — it is possible for the fertilized egg to latch onto the fallopian tubes or the abdomen, resulting in an ectopic pregnancy.

However, this is exceedingly rare, and according to a 2015 review, there are only 71 cases on record since 1895.

Gender does not determine who can become pregnant.

People who identify as men can, and do, become pregnant and give birth, if they possess a uterus and ovaries.

"Forget the name of the child, but never forget to apply for benefits." How marginal people give birth for the sake of payments

“Mom, please put me in an orphanage”

According to the social teacher of one of the Moscow schools Svetlana Drozdova, the proposed state support measures can really help many large families in need of additional financial assistance. But all the same, one cannot exclude the risks that especially enterprising mothers will give birth only for enrichment.

“Almost every day I have to work with difficult teenagers whose problem is that their parents don't want them. There are now five children from large dysfunctional families in my school. In three of them, mothers hold on to the payments they receive from the state. They forget to buy shoes or notebooks for their child, they forget his name, but they never forget to apply for benefits,” says a teacher with 30 years of experience.

Naturally, this is not an overwhelming majority, Drozdova clarifies, where families with many children who take care of children are more common, but those who need help are still not uncommon.

“Once I called the mother of one of the difficult teenagers for a talk.

The boy, looking into the eyes of his parent, said: “Mom, please take me to an orphanage.” I informed her that if the situation did not change, my son, and maybe other children, would have to be removed. The woman then looked very angrily at the child and said that "because of his foolishness" she was not going to lose her livelihood.

Like, I'm a mother by profession, and "this juvenile delinquent" wants to annoy, so he speaks badly about her.

And the fact that the child is afraid to spend the night at home with a drinking mother and her constant suitors who systematically beat him, she seemed not to notice at all,” says the teacher.

She dragged her face over her vomit, dipped her head into the pot

Yelena Petrasheva, an elementary school teacher at one of the Moscow schools, shared the story of those with many children who had all three children seized. About ten years ago, she had to work with a family in which the children were in such a dangerous situation that she even had to take the youngest to sleep in her apartment.

“Drinking single mother with lots of men and hatred for children is a standard scenario. Her eldest son Tolya was in the ninth grade and was a nationalist. The child had a swastika tattoo on his big toe, he walked along the street with friends and beat up migrants, robbed them, intimidated adults,” Petrasheva recalls.

Also, according to her, there were two more children in the family - first-grader Sasha and four-year-old Artem. When the teacher, worried about the bruises of her student, visited the family, she saw even the youngest beaten.

“Sasha opened the door for me. Artyom was crawling on the floor, covered in bruises, among the cigarette butts and crying loudly. The mother, drunk, lay passed out in the kitchen in front of a bottle of vodka proudly standing on the table. I quickly gathered the children and took them to my home,” the teacher shares.

And she adds that, having taken the children, she called the social teacher from the school and reported what had happened, and the very next day the situation in the family was reported to the guardianship. The most terrible details came to light when teachers and psychologists talked to the children.

“If Artyom or Sasha refused to eat, she forced food into their mouths, forcing them to swallow without chewing. Sometimes Artyom felt sick from this, and then she drove his face through the vomit.

Tolya also said that one day my mother received little money for them, because of which she cursed all day, asking why she gave birth to children at all, calling them "worthless". In the evening, when Artyom, sitting on the potty, asked for a drink, she got angry and dipped his head into urine several times, after which she forced him to drink it, ”says Petrasheva.

Now, according to the teacher, all the boys live in another family, which has five more children in addition to them. She kept in touch with them for the first few years, and then they left the country. However, she knows that in the new family, the children are happy and not worried.

“When you grow up, I will have new faces”

Social worker Anastasia Mikhailovskaya led the Petrov family with many children for almost seven years until she retired. Until now, she remembers the mother and father of six children with horror and is afraid to imagine what eventually grew out of them.

“Pasha Petrov and his sister Nika were notorious throughout the region. Veronica was stealing phones from her classmates and selling them on the street. She once stole an eighth grader's jacket and even wore it to school, saying it was her sister's jacket. She simply had nothing to walk in. The local guys called it "two cans of strikes and a pack of cigarettes." She gave herself to men for alcohol and smoking since the sixth grade, often extorted, begged or stole money from them. I know that she often bought food home with them - she fed the younger ones.

Pasha was even more difficult. He had a bunch of teenage friends, and he was in charge, in the company were his two younger brothers. Pasha was fourteen, and his brothers were eight and eleven. They rode bicycles or drove a car with knives and bats, caught people, robbed, beaten,” the teacher shares.

And she recalls that one teacher from the school where Pavel studied reported to her that she had met “Petrov and his team” on the street, who were chasing the woman and saying how much they liked her earrings, asking them to give them back in a good way. Then a knife appeared in Pasha's hands. The teacher shouted to the children, frightening them, and they fled in all directions.

“I also know that once Nika asked her mother for money, appealing that she was getting “children's”, and she told her to “roll up her lip”. Nika then said, they say, you don’t work, what will you do when all the children grow up. She replied that she would give birth to new ones, ”Mikhailovskaya said.

Stole a car and urinated on a policeman

Oksana Kharina worked as a social teacher at the school for several years. And the most memorable difficult teenager from large families in her practice was ninth-grader Alexei Nikolaev, whose mother openly declared to the child that she and her sisters were not kicked out of the house just because they "so far are useful. "

“Once he came into my office and a narcotic substance wrapped in foil fell out of his pocket. He used to spit on towels and a pot of soup at home, skip school, and when he came he was drunk and even drank cognac right in the classroom,” says Kharina.

In her opinion, the child's behavior was caused by the rejection of the parents, as well as constant bullying and hatred towards him, which caused such a protest.

In addition, the social pedagogue says, the child was registered with the guardianship authorities and in the PDN, but still constantly committed illegal acts. Kharina herself sometimes covered the teenager, if she caught him on petty hooliganism, she regretted it. Soon Lesha transferred to a special school.

“I heard about him a year later from a colleague.

While intoxicated, he stole a car with his friends to "ride". Said they would return it in the morning. In general, when the police caught them, Lesha did something unimaginable: he got out of the car and began to urinate on the policeman.

As far as I know, he was not jailed, but given a suspended sentence. But it is not exactly. Alas, but I think that sooner or later he will definitely see the sky in a cage, ”the teacher shared.

A help for prosperous families, not an incentive for the marginalized

As Yulia Zimova, deputy chairman of the commission of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation on demography, protection of the family and children, explained, today all state support measures in Russia are aimed at the birth of first and second children. And despite some exceptional cases, the new payment, if approved, is unlikely to become an incentive for the marginalized to have children, but it will be a good help for ordinary parents.

“Indeed, there are different people and families — they have always been. It is clear that people find ways to cash out their mother's capital, but at the same time, there are few such support measures in any countries. Therefore, the proposal is a huge step forward,” the deputy chairman notes.

According to her, if a family is antisocial and there is a threat to the life of children, then, as a rule, this is already clear on both the first and second child. In the event that the family has not come to the attention of state bodies, then in this situation it is impossible to stop parents who give birth all the time.

On the other hand, large families will be able to spend money on what they really need. According to Yulia Zimova, according to a survey of such families, they would like to spend state payments on travel, a car, housing and other things for children.

“To put it mildly, all the measures provided to families with many children are not the widest. Accordingly, if we study the experience of individual regions, what large families now have: a discount on a communal apartment, admission to a kindergarten without a queue, payments if the family income is below a certain level. The proposal of the Public Chamber, if accepted, will raise the confidence of large families in the future - they are our main demographic hope, ”concludes Zimova.

Woman gives birth on a bus, Bus birth, March 2022 | 74.ru

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All news On March 6, a girl was born in a city bus in Novosibirsk. A midwife who, by a lucky chance, ended up on the same bus, helped to take lightning-fast births. The child was born in just a few minutes, after which the ambulance took the mother and the baby to the hospital, and the crew completed the flight. The birth of a child "in the fields" is an extraordinary and exciting event. Journalist Anna Bogdanova found out the details of what happened.

On March 6, at about half past nine in the evening, bus No. 28 driver Denis Barsukov was finishing his shift. At one of the stops, a 35-year-old woman came in. The passenger sat on a single seat right behind the driver. The bus drove a few meters and stopped abruptly.

— Conductor Alina ran up to me and shouted: “We are giving birth,” Denis recalls the moment when he saw that the panic button was working. - I hear: "Let's call an ambulance!"

Denis Barsukov was about to finish his shift and go to the garage

Photo: Denis Barsukov

transport. He made such conclusions because the chairs were not badly damaged.

The passenger in the next seat noticed that the woman was not feeling well and started calling the conductor. Since there were a lot of people in the cabin, the conductor could not quickly run to the front platform and decided to use an emergency call.

- I see this button, a signal for me to stop. At first I didn't understand what was happening. I thought maybe someone didn’t get off at the bus stop, started opening the doors. But it turned out to be completely different, ”recalls Denis. She runs up to me, screaming. And it's a matter of minutes. While I called an ambulance, I talked to them, Alina screams: “That's it, they gave birth.” Patted on the ass, the child began to cry. I opened the curtain a little. I look at this woman and swim, I feel bad. For the first time in my life I see this live.

Denis says that all these feelings did not allow him to remember what his mother looks like. All the more nearby, too, were screams and turmoil.

The bus in which the Siberian gave birth

Photo: Denis Barsukov

Alina Popova has been working as a conductor on bus No. 28 for three years. She told the NHS that for the past two days, her acquaintances have been calling her endlessly to find out how everything was. The event turned out to be so exciting that emotions overwhelm the girl so far.

— I was at the back of the bus. As she slipped through the crowd, the men had already moved her to the double seat next to her. When I approached, the child had already got out,” the conductor recalls.

Childbirth was lightning fast. Within a few minutes, Alina asked the driver to close the doors so as not to freeze the baby, and give her some rag to wrap the baby. The crew had a clean blanket - Alina says that the bus had recently been inspected and the blanket had just been washed.

At that moment the passengers were asked to leave the bus and promised that the tickets would be valid on the next flight of the same route. Half came out, the rest even had to be kicked out - someone even decided to shoot on video. Denis admitted that he even had to use obscene language. When everyone left, he called the ambulance a second time - they told him that the doctors were on their way.

Luckily, doctors were returning home on the same bus, including one midwife, says Alina. They immediately responded to the call for help and helped to take a quick delivery.

- They cut the umbilical cord. And when they called the ambulance for the second time, one of them herself said there: “I am such and such, the brigade is here.” And that’s it, after that the doctors came and took away both the mother and the child,” the conductor recalls.

Presumably the midwife who was on that bus left a comment on the news:

— I am the passenger who delivered the baby. My husband and I had just boarded the bus, I was glad that the front platform was completely free, although the middle one was packed. She was just about to sit down when she saw that the woman in the seat next to her had collapsed on her side. At first I didn't even understand what was going on. And then the baby's head appeared. And then I stopped thinking, my instincts kicked in. I jumped up to her and managed to pick up the child. The girl was tiny, after a few seconds she squeaked weakly. The conductor brought some kind of veil to wrap it up. Passengers around started yelling, "Is there a doctor on the bus?" Fortunately, an obstetrician-gynecologist and an ambulance paramedic were traveling with us. They made their way through the crowd of passengers, bandaged the umbilical cord, wrapped the girl in her mother's jacket. And they waited for the ambulance. The ambulance arrived quickly, 7 minutes after the birth. I still can't believe what happened. I am very glad that the girl is alive and well. Luckily, the birth was uneventful. It would be so easy for everyone to give birth. Just not on the bus.

The driver helped put the woman on a stretcher and carried her to the car. The woman in labor almost did not answer any questions, she only said that this was her fifth birth.

Alina Popova has been working on route No. 28 for three years

Photo: Alina Popova

— It's good that no one was confused, everyone was nearby, anything can happen. And the main thing is that the child is healthy and cried. Because at first the girl did not scream until they applauded. Then she moved her hands when she lay in the hands of the midwife, - the conductor Alina recalls the events.

Colleagues called her today and asked if she could give her number to the woman's relatives. They say they want to say thank you.

At first, the woman in labor sat on a single seat, when it all started, she was transferred to a double seat - next to it.