The transgender man who gave birth to a baby has showed off his daughter on an American television show.
Thomas Beatie shocked the world earlier this year when he gave birth to daughter Susan, despite having had a sex change operation.
Now Beatie, from Bend, Oregon, has revealed he is 10-weeks pregnant with his second baby.
We are living the American dream right now and I couldn't be happier.
'I have my loving wife and this miracle of a baby, I couldn't be happier,' he told Good Morning America.
Beatie, 34, was a former lesbian who had chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy, but chose to keep his female reproductive organs.
Beatie, who was born Tracy Lagondino, gave birth to Susan in June amid a blitz of media scrutiny.
He had been inseminated at home by his wife Nancy, 46, with sperm from a donor.
'She (Susan) is such a happy baby, she loves to smile and laugh,' he said.
'I had a natural birth. People do recognise me now, I am really surprised, New York is a big city but people recognise us instantaneously now I think.
'They say "That's the pregnant man".
'It is absolutely positive, 99 per cent positive. People when they meet us they just see us as a regular family.
'It is easy for people to see us as a family, because that is what we are, a husband, wife and child.'
Asked if he can understood why some people did not see his situation as 'normal', Beatie said: 'I think everyone is trying to find their own definition of normal.
'With all the differences in the world, different is clearly normal.'
Asked if he is still happy to be a man, he replied: 'Oh absolutely. There is nothing wrong with a pregnant man.
'It is just normal for us, it was completely the best decision for me to carry our child and we did not even give it a second thought.'
Beatie was also asked if he felt he could have given birth to Susan more 'privately'.
'I don't think it could have happened that way (privately),' he said.
'When I wrote the article for the Advocate, we were experiencing medical discrimination and we had legal questions we needed answers for.
'So we were talking to a gay and lesbian audience hoping to find answers and we couldn't find any. In our pursuit for answers this ensued.'
Beatie admitted that he had not spoken to his father since the birth of his daughter, but hoped to eventually introduce them to each other.
Asked if his family's negative attitude towards the pregnancy had been hard, he replied: 'Yes it has been hard.
'But Nancy's family has been incredibly supportive, her father and her brothers and sisters and children.'
And Nancy said that she was 'excited' about the couple having a second baby, even with the publicity that would surround it.
'I am so excited. Hopefully things will calm down and we can get on with our lives,' she said.
'It is neat to be able to educate people about different families and that is really what we are.
'There are so many different families out there and we are just another one.
'I have done this before (she has two other children) and what is wonderful is that I got to be on the other side of this and could support him through the labour experience and right through the pregnancy.
'I got to breast feed the baby, we are so closely bonded with her. He was able to carry her and I was able to breast feed her.'
No comments:
Post a Comment