Health

When Thomas Beatie was first pregnant, the Guardian expressed some concerns over the health of a child born to a trans parent.

Doctors have expressed concern at the possible effect of testosterone on the unborn child. Beatie claims he halted his bi-weekly testosterone, did not take any extra oestrogen, progesterone or fertility drugs to aid his pregnancy and after four months his menstrual cycle began again. “It’s really important that he doesn’t take any testosterone early on in the pregnancy and later on,” Lisa Masterson, a Los Angeles obstetrician, told ABC TV. “That can cause male-type characteristics in the female baby.”

I don’t really know what “male-type” characteristics we’d have to worry about here- especially because quite a few female-assigned babies of cissexual children have “male-type” characteristics thanks to intersex conditions. It also indicates that there’s no potential for health problems in male babies. (I’m also concerned that the doctor’s concern isn’t what other effects it could have- but “WE MIGHT HAVE A WOMAN WITH A BEARD”)

And the reality is- we don’t know. People barely know the long-term effect of the hormones trans people take on the people taking them. Honestly, if the biggest risk of a trans person continuing on hormones throughout pregnancy is masculinizing a female-assigned child, I think that’s doing pretty good as 50% of the time that’s not a concern at all. If the sum of all health concerns is “He might start on T again!”- there either aren’t many health concerns, or the doctors just don’t care about the health concerns of trans people.

It could go either way.

And this is actually a problem that goes beyond pregnancy. All of the health issues trans people face are pretty much a big giant question mark.

Trans Hospital Birth

A trans parent talks about the primarily positive experience he had giving birth in a hospital, and how he went about it. Considering the awful treatment trans people can face at hospitals, this was a very helpful experience I want to share

We started our birth plan with a section on language. We made a single page copy of just this part in large print both for our hospital file, and for the door of our room in the birthing centre.

Some language before we go further

• j wallace identifies as a transman. ONLY male pronouns are appropriate when speaking about him.
• At no time should anyone ask about the mum, the mommy or similar words. At no time should anyone be called lady, mummy or any similar words.
• j will be the baby’s Abba (Hebrew for Dad) and Bear will be the baby’s Papa.
• Bear and j are each other’s husbands. Husband or partner are appropriate words.
• Bear is to be j’s alternate decision maker if j is unable to make decisions for some reason.

Pregnant Men

Now, of course, Thomas Beatie is probably the most popular man to give birth, but he actually was not the first. Patrick and Matt, both trans men, had a child back in 1999 (although they weren’t legally recognized as men, or something). And, of course, trans people who had children prior to transitioning & non-transitioners never quite seem to make the cut of “non-women who’ve given birth/non-wermen who’ve fathered children”. I guess we aren’t quite ready to see pre-transition trans people as who they are yet (although, not all of them were, but it really doesn’t change the fact that they are a gender other than their assigned sex and that they had children.)