Sunday, November 9, 2008

Pregnant Man and Healthy Baby

Pregnant man search made to the top Google Searches today. No wonder, it is a shocking story, and interest to this story has been sparkled by the announcement that Discovery Channel is shooting the exclusive documentary featuring Thomas Beatie - history’s first pregnant man - and his wife, Nancy, through the final weeks of his pregnancy, the landmark birth of their child and their eventual return home next Tuesday, 9pm ET.

As I was a child one of the circulated urban legends offered an enormous at the time monetary price of 1 million for the first male to give a birth. Will Thomas Beatie be a lucky winner? Probably, not for this prize, but the enormous publicity from the moment Thomas and his wife to the press from April this year should make them wealthy enough to compensate for the certain problems of private life revealed to the curious public.

I am not planning to follow up the story in all details, and you can get the detailed information in the additional reading listing. I will just highlight some interesting details:

First of all, Thomas Beatie is not a medical mystery. He is a female-born, transgender man. He was born with female reproductive organs but partially transitioned via hormones and top surgery keeping everything from the waist below in tact. He no longer has breasts but retained all necessary girl parts, necessary to give a birth to a kid. Beatie has married and he and his wife, Nancy, eventually decided they wanted to have children. Nancy couldn’t get pregnant but Beatie could. So, that is all.


Among other interesting facts about Thomas Bearie:

  • Thomas Beatie, in his former life known as Tracy, was a really pretty girl. In fact, he (she) became a finalist in a Miss Hawaii Teen USA beauty pageant.

  • Now, it is a pretty young man, and it is hard to imagine the former transformations to his personality. He is having a black belt in karate and can bench easily 255 lbs. Hey men! Can you do that?
  • On June 29 at 8:55 p.m., Beatie made a cultural history as perhaps the first legally transgender male to give birth, bringing into the world a 9 lbs., 5 oz. baby girl named Susan Juliette.
CNN Video Presentation:

Additional Reading:
http://health.discovery.com/tv/pregnant-man/pregnant-man.html
http://advocate.com/issue_story.asp?id=52664&page=1
http://www.simmobilez.info/pregnant-man-a-stillborn-chance-to-educate-the-public/
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20214360,00.html

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