By Gretchen Feil
Holidays can be difficult times for members of the LGBTQ+ community, especially those oriented around family celebrations. However, they can also be times of joy and fulfillment, whether queer people find themselves surrounded by accepting families full of unconditional love, or found families who step in and become the support system that we all deserve. With the recent passing of Father’s Day, The Cloud Dancers Foundation celebrates the stories of love and care that transgender parents bring to their children and families.
Thomas Beatie became the first legally recognized man to give birth in the United States in 2008. Beatie was not the first trans man to ever give birth, but he may have been one of the first to do so in the spotlight. Beatie and his family experienced ridicule from the media and the public, but looking back on the experience he wrote, “I wouldn’t have changed a thing. . .It allowed people to start a deeper conversation about gender and social roles in a way that wouldn’t have been broached otherwise.”
By bringing his personal experience regarding his pregnancy to the public, Beatie became an advocate for transgender and reproductive rights. He documented his experience in his book, Labor of Love: The Story of One Man’s Extraordinary Pregnancy, wrote various articles on the web, and starred in a widely viewed documentary called Pregnant Man (2008). Beatie also shared and advocated for his experiences as a trans man in interviews with Oprah Winfrey, and has become a public speaker.
Originally born in Hawaii in 1974, Beatie transitioned in the late ‘90s. By the time Beatie married his first wife, Nancy, in 2003, he had legally updated his birth certificate, among other documents, to properly reflect his identity as a man. In 2008, Beatie published an article announcing his pregnancy, which is where his journey as an advocate began. He wrote, “Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire,” and continued on to affirm that it feels “incredible” to be pregnant, and that “I will be my daughter’s father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family.” Beatie concluded his proud birth announcement by stating that “our situation ultimately will ask everyone to embrace the gamut of human possibility and to define for themselves what is normal.”
By 2011, Beatie had two more children with his first wife Nancy, and the family moved to Arizona from Hawaii. In 2013, the couple filed for divorce but faced a discriminatory ruling in the court. During his divorce process, Beatie found himself in a situation similar to that of The Cloud Dancers Foundation founder Robina Asti. Asti, a trans woman, was denied Social Security benefits after her husband, Norwood Patton, died. The Social Security Administration said it was because Asti was not legally a woman. Asti went on to fight the case, and won, forever changing survivorship benefit rights for trans people.
In Beatie’s case, the court initially ruled that he and his wife could not divorce because their marriage was invalid. At the time, same-sex marriage was illegal in Arizona and the judge considered the marriage to be between two women solely because Beatie had given birth, ignoring the fact that he had been living as a man for over a decade and had legally changed his gender status in 2002, before his marriage to Nancy.
Later, the couple appealed the ruling and won. The appellate court ruling discounted the reasoning that the marriage was invalid, and declared “Beatie should not have had to be sterilized in order to be legally recognized as a man in Arizona or Hawaii.” Beatie was then able to go through with his divorce after receiving this affirmative ruling that protected transgender rights, with specific respect to reproductive rights.
Several years later, Beatie remarried his current wife Amber, with whom he shares a life in Arizona with his three children, in addition to a fourth child that Amber carried in 2018.
Looking back on his experiences as a trans father in the public eye, Beatie said that “Back then, people said the world wasn’t ready for this,” however, he claims that “If I had waited for the world to be ready, I wouldn’t be the father I am today. Here we are now, my visibility has given many transgender people the courage to live their best lives. . .For a private transgender man to put himself out in the public eye—it wasn’t the coolest or easiest thing to do, but my hope was that my visibility might lead the way for others like me to have hope and live their lives proudly and openly, with fairness under the law. Though the landscape has changed, we still have a long way to go.”