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Thomas Trace Beatie (born 1974) is an American public speaker, author, and advocate of transgender rights and sexuality issues, with a focus on transgender fertility and reproductive rights.
Beatie coming out as a trans man in early 1997. Beatie had gender-affirming surgery in March 2002 and became known as "the pregnant man" after he became pregnant through artificial insemination in 2007. Beatie chose to be pregnant, with donated sperm, because his wife Nancy was sterile.
The couple filed for divorce in 2012. The Beatie case is the first of its kind on record, where a documented legal male gave birth within a marriage to a woman, and for the first time, a court challenged a marriage where the husband gave birth.
As a teenager, Thomas was a model and Miss Hawaii Teen USA pageant finalist.
He competed in karate and Taekwondo, winning a junior championship in Taekwondo forms in the 1992 Aloha State Games. (1999). 9780824821210, University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 9780824821210
He graduated from the University of Hawaii in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in health science and later pursued an Executive MBA.
Beatie married Nancy Gillespie in 2003. The couple moved to Bend, Oregon, in 2005. When the two decided to have children, Beatie chose to carry the child, since Nancy was unable due to a prior hysterectomy. Beatie suspended testosterone hormone treatment in order to conceive but the first conception was an ectopic pregnancy with triplets that was life-threatening, requiring a surgical intervention, loss of his right fallopian tube and the embryos. He became successfully pregnant afterwards, twice with donor sperm, delivering both children without complications. Beatie delivered his first child in June 2008. (2025). 9781138819061, Routledge. ISBN 9781138819061
Beatie stated that he felt no conflict between his pregnancy and his gender as a man, (2025). 9780415638548, Routledge. ISBN 9780415638548 saying that he considered himself the child's father and his wife Nancy the mother. (2025). 9781440828096, Praeger. ISBN 9781440828096
He gave birth to his second child, a son, in 2009. The couple's third child, a second son, was born in July 2010.
Beatie later elected to have "lower" surgery, including the creation of a functional human penis. The procedure, performed by transgender surgeon Marci Bowers, was documented on his second appearance of The Doctors, in 2012. The procedure, called a ring metoidioplasty, included transfer of tissue, elongation of the hormonally enlarged phallus, as well as Urethroplasty and lengthening.
The article was accompanied by a shirtless photograph of the pregnant Beatie, which became an object of voyeurism among the public according to the queer theorist Jack Halberstam. Within weeks of the online publication, news of his story quickly spread through national and international media, who dubbed Beatie "the pregnant man".
Beatie made his first television appearance, an hour-long exclusive interview, on the Oprah Winfrey Show in April 2008. During the show, he talked about his sense of reproductive right to bear a child independent of his male gender identity. He commented, "It's not a male or female desire to want to have a child ... it's a human desire ... I'm a person, and I have the right to have my own biological child." The Oprah episode received a spike in Nielsen ratings. The same month, Beatie was profiled in a six-page story in People, (2025). 9780190880033, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190880033 with photography by Mary Ellen Mark.
Multiple tabloids as well as mainstream news outlets reported the story, after paparazzi captured images of the family leaving the St. Charles Medical Center in Bend, Oregon days later. Peoples senior editor, Patrick Rogers, gave an interview to the CBS Early Morning Show about the birth. An August 2008 issue of People featured Beatie with his daughter, sharing the cover with a larger image of presidential candidate Barack Obama posing with his family.
Journalist Barbara Walters announced on The View in November 2008 that Thomas was expecting his second child. The next day, ABC aired an interview with the Beaties on 20/20 titled "Journey of a Pregnant Man". During the interview, Walters showed a series of photographs of Beatie, commenting on the "disturbing" nature of the images, many of which highlighted his pregnant belly.
Guinness World Records named Beatie the "World's First Married Man to Give Birth" in 2010."First Married Man to Give Birth", Guinness World Records, 2010 edition, p 110" In a TV broadcast from Rome, Italy, Guinness World Records presented him with the title of "Unico Uomo Incinto al Mondo", translated as "World's First Pregnant Man". Beatie also appeared on The View, Good Morning America, a Discovery Channel documentary, Anderson Live with Anderson Cooper, Larry King Live, , and repeat features on The Doctors and Dr. Drew. Between August and November 2016, he was a contestant in the tenth season of Secret Story, the French adaptation of Big Brother; his secret was "I'm the first pregnant man ever." He placed 2nd of all the contestants with 28% of the televote in the final.
Beatie owns a website and T-shirt company featuring the slogan "Define Normal". He has made personal appearances on TV talk shows in Spain, Greece, Germany, Italy, Romania, Russia, Japan, Sweden, Poland, and the United Kingdom, and has given keynote speeches at colleges and universities.
During the divorce proceedings, the presiding judge stated that because Beatie had given birth to the couple's children, he was legally female and therefore the marriage was not recognized in the state. Arizona Superior Court Judge Douglas Gerlach issued a nunc pro tunc order questioning whether the court had jurisdiction over the matter. The Beatie case was the first of its kind on record, where a documented legal male gave birth within a marriage to a woman, and the first time a court challenged a marriage based upon a husband's giving birth. At the time, Arizona did not legally recognize same-sex marriage, so if Beatie were found to be female according to Arizona statute, the ten-year Beatie marriage would not be recognized in that state.
Beatie's attorneys at the Cantor Law Group filed a memorandum showing that under Arizona State Statute, a transgender man's legal definition is set by certain medical operations, treatments, and finally a certified doctor's approval. "Since Arizona and Hawaii have virtually the same Sex Change Statute, in this case we will prove that under the law Thomas was a man at the time of his wedding. Sterilization is not a requirement of either State's Statute. Under both Arizona's and Hawaii's law Thomas was a man at the time of his marriage, and therefore his three children born during the marriage are legitimate", stated attorney, David Michael Cantor. Judge Gerlach ordered an evidentiary hearing and oral argument for which the Transgender Law Center filed a Amicus curiae in support of the Beaties' marriage, stating that the case could be significant regarding marriage, divorce, and reproductive rights for transgender people in the state of Arizona and around the country. Expert testimony was provided by Beatie's sex-reassignment surgeon, Dr. Michael Brownstein M.D., in which the doctor implied that gender is more psychological than Chromosome. He also attested that the chest reconstruction procedure Beatie had undergone qualified as a sex-change surgery.
In 2013, a trial was heard to determine custody, child support, and division of property and debts, even though Arizona is not a common-law state. Despite the marriage's being put into question, the courts proceeded with custody arrangements for the children because both Beatie and Nancy legally adopted each of their three children in Oregon, in the Oregon court orders, Thomas was also listed as "father" and Nancy was listed as "mother" on each birth certificate, and each spouse had equal parental rights to custody.
The court ruled that it had a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction to grant the Beaties a divorce and that Arizona did not have to comply with accepting out-of-state birth or marriage certificates. Despite medical testimony stating otherwise, Judge Gerlach did not consider gender identity, hormone treatment, and chest reconstruction as a valid sex-change surgery, as grounds for successful gender transition. "If adopted, (it) would lead to circumstances in which a person's sex can become a matter of whim and not a matter of any reasonable, objective standard or policy, which is precisely the kind of absurd result the law abhors." Beatie's attorney said the judgement contained several errors. The court also ruled to give Nancy joint legal decision-making, physical custody and equal parenting time, ordering Beatie to pay her nearly $240 per month in child support. Since the marriage was not considered valid in Arizona alimony was not further enforced, though the division of property was.
In 2014, an Arizona Appeals Court declared that the marriage of the Beaties was valid and therefore they can get divorced, stating that Beatie should not have had to be sterilized in order to be legally recognized as a man in Arizona or Hawaii.
In August 2011, he was the main opening speaker for Stockholm Pride, speaking to an audience of tens of thousands. He also spearheaded one-on-one discussions with doctors, politicians, and policy-makers in support of abolishing the sterilization law for Swedish transgender people. Sweden's forced sterilization law for transgender people was overturned on December 19, 2012.
In 2015, French director Jan Caplin wrote and directed the short movie Hippocampe, inspired by Thomas Beatie and his wife's attempts to have a child.
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