For some reason, men showing up to the hospital encounter disbelief from medical professionals.

It must be due to capitalism teaching people to be transphobic. What else could explain the bizarre notion that bearded people without mammary glands wouldn’t immediately be thought to be carrying a fetus? After all, they have big bellies.

That, at least, is what Yahoo! Life wants us to believe. Only people propagandized by a cis-gendered heteronormative oppressive culture terrified by gender diversity could lead medical professionals to assume that only people who present as female would be pregnant.

“We grow up in a world with books, from preschool on up, that until very recently have not imagined or really represented the diversity of communities as they are,” Obedin-Maliver tells Yahoo Life. “None of our systems have been designed to delineate the difference between somebody’s gender and somebody’s pregnancy capacity.”

That’s slowly changing, Obedin-Maliver points out, due to a growing demand from transgender patients — and because more and more are sharing their stories, as with a recently trending New York Times Op-Doc about a trans man giving birth in a small town in Mexico.

But, Obedin-Maliver argues, until society acknowledges the basic truth that “anyone born with a uterus, ovaries and tubes” has the capacity to become pregnant, there will always be a lack of accurate research and data, leaving trans parents at a disadvantage.

As we know, Western Science has a White Supremacist bias. This is proven by the fact that biology textbooks (up until recently, thank God!) teach that sex is binary. There are men, and there are women. That must change.

Worse, until recently everybody pretended that gender was binary, but in our enlightened times, we know that bearded folks without female breasts are just as likely to be childbearing as cis-gendered women (whatever they are)

Can somebody identify as pregnant, or does an actual fetus have to be involved?

Now many of us would assume that flooding a body with testosterone with the goal of turning a “person assigned female at birth” into a “person who is a man but not one of those men assigned male at birth” would prevent pregnancy, or even harm a fetus. Apparently not for the first assertion, and there isn’t research on the latter, especially because this is (using time as understood by Western heteronormative transphobic science) too recent to have been studied adequately.

But so what? It’s only a clump of cells, anyway. So why not experiment a bit?

But, Obedin-Maliver argues, until society acknowledges the basic truth that “anyone born with a uterus, ovaries and tubes” has the capacity to become pregnant, there will always be a lack of accurate research and data, leaving trans parents at a disadvantage.

Trans men can — and do — give birth.

Transgender men — people born with female anatomy who live and identify as men, sometimes undergoing gender-affirming care through surgeries and/or testosterone and sometimes not — can get pregnant in the same way anyone with reproductive organs can, explains Obedin-Maliver. That includes penetrative sex with someone with sperm as well as through assistive reproductive technology (ART), such as intrauterine insemination (IUI) or in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Due to the fact that trans male pregnancies are vastly under-researched — not to mention their lack of visibility — the process is clouded with misconceptions. One of the biggest, Obedin-Maliver says, is the notion that trans men on testosterone are unable to conceive. Though more studies need to be done on how testosterone influences ovulation in general, taking the hormone does not negate one’s capacity to get pregnant.

“There is a difference between having a period, or not, and ovulating, or not,” she explains. “Those are actually related but distinct processes in the body.” So it’s possible that somebody on testosterone might have stopped menstruating but is still ovulating or producing eggs. “That’s true for anyone [with female reproductive organs],” she adds, “and that sometimes makes it difficult for folks to know if they are pregnant, because they’re having sex with sperm involved and we don’t know how much testosterone diminishes ovulation.”

This is all so confusing. So a woman became a man but retains female reproductive organs and wants to have sex with sperm spurters… WTF? Why, exactly? I mean…why?

You are a woman who wants to be a man in order to become a gay man who bears children? Is that right?

Apparently.

Kayden Coleman, a gay transgender man — meaning his gender is trans male and his sexual orientation, something separate and different, is gay — is father to two daughters, 9 and 2, and has been on testosterone for 14 years. He went off during both pregnancies at the advice of his doctor but was still taking doses of the hormone when he discovered he was pregnant — both times unplanned.

So wait…isn’t Planned Parenthood all into this sex change stuff? How on earth can somebody who has gone through all that it takes to become trans (sort of, since they are still apparently fully equipped regarding reproductive anatomy) not manage birth control? Kayden manages their hormone levels, but can’t manage birth control?

“There are a lot of doctors prescribing testosterone to transgender men and selling them this dream that they’ll somehow be infertile or not be able to get pregnant,” Coleman tells Yahoo Life. “As long as you’re having relations with anyone who produces semen, you can get pregnant.”

Wakefield had a similar experience. When they first started taking testosterone 10 years ago, they were told they “would not be able to conceive or carry a child because it would act as a natural birth control.” Wakefield wound up having an unplanned pregnancy.

Sonny Witt, a trans father in Australia who gave birth in 2022, planned his pregnancy through IVF. At the advice of his doctors, he went off testosterone during the egg-retrieval process (as well as during the pregnancy itself). He started up again “about three months” after giving birth.

In some cases, trans men may choose to pause their hormone treatments in an effort to get pregnant, but this step is sometimes unnecessary — and those considering it should consult with their doctor beforehand. And again, not all transgender men use testosterone, just as not all keep their uteruses.

As for Witt, 30, he says he had no idea pregnancy was an option until he started seeing other trans dads sharing their journeys online. That’s when he decided to make his dream of fatherhood a reality by reaching out to a “rainbow clinic,” specializing in LGBTQ family planning.

Enough. We are supposed to believe that doctors are mean, nasty, transphobic people for not understanding how all this works. But really? Not even the people most intimately involved in the process have any idea what is possible, how it all works, and what the long-term consequences are.

There’s a simple reason why: all of this is terribly unnatural. This is not how healthy bodies work, and doctors are trained to use natural health as the benchmark. Not some imaginary state of mind and set of desires totally internal to the random person walking in the door at an emergency room.

Generally, we allow people to do unhealthy things to themselves, although we also penalize people who harm infants, even in the womb. Not sure why this isn’t a standard here. Be that as it may, demanding that every doctor become mind readers regarding gender identity is ridiculous. We are entering an age where what one identifies as–a butterfly, a baby girl, a lizard person–is determinative biologically.

No doctor can see inside the soul of each person and determine what their body function should be. They are trained to refer to human biology, which is complicated enough.

If I had my way, I would make it illegal for trans-men who use hormones to conceive children. It is an experiment, and they are experimenting on children. At this point, it is not a “personal choice,” but the equivalent of smoking crack or getting blackout drunk nightly while pregnant. We absolutely know that hormones affect fetal development, but have no long-term studies on this and never should.

Shon McCloud, a Virginia-based U.S. Army vet who identifies as trans, is currently pregnant with his first child, conceived naturally with his male partner. His doctors considered the pregnancy “high risk” because he was on testosterone during conception, which is partly why he has paused taking the hormone until after giving birth.

“So many of us feel judged, or that we don’t have the support we need,” McCloud tells Yahoo Life. “So, I’m excited to provide that for [my son].”

Obedin-Maliver, who co-authored a 2019 study about the effects of testosterone during pregnancy, recommends that trans men pause their hormones while pregnant as a precaution — simply because there’s still more research to be done.

“It is not precisely clear for how long before pregnancy or for how long after the pregnancy to restart if, for example, they are chest or breastfeeding,” she explains. (The abilities of a trans man to produce milk after having top surgery, which is a removal of the breasts, varies by individual.) “So that is a conversation that each individual should have with their health care provider.”

The truth is, no matter what gender a birth parent identifies as, their basic pregnancy needs are all the same. And no pregnancy is a one-size-fits-all, which is why Obedin-Maliver says ob-gyns ought to approach trans pregnancies in much the same way as they would any other.

“I often get asked, ‘What’s the experience of a trans man giving birth?’ And I say, ‘Well, what’s the experience of a cis woman giving birth?'” she says. “For example, as a queer woman, I had a terrible time in my pregnancy. That was really different than friends of mine who loved being pregnant and had a wonderful time.”

This is what they want to normalize: experimenting on babies to satisfy their self-image.

No. The people doing this belong in jail, not celebrated as trailblazers.