US taxpayers have spent millions funding the pregnancies of transgender men, official data shows.
A recent study by researchers at the University of Michigan found that between 2014 and 2018, there were 1,907 births among people who were biologically born female but identified as male, which amounts to almost 500 per year.
Of the total, 256 trans men were insured under Medicaid – a government program that provides health insurance to people with limited incomes and is funded by Americans.
The average cost of childbirth in the US is about $19,000, meaning the deliveries would have cost taxpayers about $4.8 million.
Bennett Kaspar-Williams, his partner and their newborn baby shortly after birth in 2020
Kaspar-Williams and his partner wanted to have children and weighed the available options, as this meant he would have to stop the testosterone hormone therapy he had been taking for years to keep his ovaries functioning.
Getting pregnant as a trans man is possible if the person still has the female reproductive organs.
And while the hormone therapy that trans men use for transition will prevent the person from having a menstrual cycle, it is not a form of birth control.
The hormones do not prevent pregnancy and trans men can become pregnant and carry a pregnancy to term.
Pregnancy options remain the same as for cisgender women, including intercourse with a partner with a penis or through fertility assistance such as in vitro fertilization.
However, medical experts recommend that trans men stop taking their testosterone hormone therapy during pregnancy because it can be toxic to babies.
Testosterone – the male sex hormone that gives transgender people a deeper voice and facial hair – can cause heart problems and genital development problems in the fetus.
After going through six rounds of artificial insemination to become pregnant, Aaden Darr, who was biologically born female but came out as transgender at age 16, gave birth to twins
The Research from Michigan – which was quietly released in May 2023 – sought to analyze pregnancy outcomes among transgender people compared to outcomes among cisgender people.
Researchers analyzed all deliveries from 2014 to 2018 from the Medicaid and commercial insurance databases.
They looked at medical records and identified patients with male gender at the time of delivery who suffered from gender dysphoria.
They identified 256 trans men among those who gave birth while insured through Medicaid and 1,660 covered by commercial insurance.
Their finding is believed to be the first estimate of how common the phenomenon of men giving birth is in the US.
The study also found that transgender people were 50 percent more likely to have a vaginal birth than cisgender women.
But being transgender was not significantly associated with severe parental morbidity or preterm birth and was associated with lower cesarean section rates.
Bennett Kaspar-Williams six months into his pregnancy
After five months and six rounds of intrauterine insemination (IUI) – using donor sperm – Aaden Darr finally became pregnant with twins in August 2020
The authors said the results were unexpected because the transgender population generally has worse health outcomes than the cisgender population.
Meanwhile, transgender people were also younger (23 versus 26), more likely to belong to an ethnic minority and more likely to have other health problems.
Data in this field are extremely limited, and the authors wrote that larger studies are needed to obtain more complete information.
The researchers, led by Dr. Eric Marsh, chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at the University of Michigan Women’s Hospital, wrote in the study: ‘Prospective data and larger sample sizes, as well as studies evaluating patient-reported outcomes, are necessary to better characterize birth outcomes and for future quality improvement.’
There is currently no official data on how many transgender men give birth in the US each year, but experts believe the numbers are likely higher than many would expect.
Thomas Beatie made headlines in 2008 when he became the world’s first pregnant trans man
Freddy McConnell is a trans man from Great Britain who gave birth to his son in 2016
Mr McConnell (pictured left as part of a BBC documentary) is a single parent who was born a woman but now lives as a man after surgery
Data estimates that there are 1.4 million adults in the country who identify as transgender.
And recent data shows that rates of gender dysphoria have skyrocketed in almost every state since 2018.
A report from the health data analytics company Definitive healthcare shows that rates of gender dysphoria increased between 2018 and 2022 in every state except South Dakota.
As for trans men and pregnancy, a 2019 study from Rutgers University found that there is no data on the number of transgender men who give birth each year because medical systems consider them female.
And while data is limited, the survey found that 64 percent had a vaginal birth and 25 percent requested a C-section.
Rutgers researchers also estimate that “unintended pregnancies occur in up to 30 percent of transgender men.”
After the birth of their children, the 2019 team found that half of transgender men breastfed their children, even if the breasts had already been removed as part of gender confirmation surgery.
A 2016 study in Sage Journals stated, “While there are currently no studies documenting the number of transgender men who have had a pregnancy, news reports, documentaries, social media lists and video sharing sites, travel guides, fact sheets… suggest the number ) transgender individuals seeking family planning, fertility, and pregnancy services can certainly be quite significant.”
And additional studies have found that trans men and cisgender people express the same desire to have children.
The phenomenon of self-identifying men becoming pregnant and giving birth is becoming increasingly common in the US, and stories are emerging in other countries as well.
Recently, an Italian transgender man made headlines when it was discovered that he was five months pregnant after undergoing a mastectomy to remove his breasts as part of his gender confirmation surgery.
The man, identified only as “Marco,” was close to completing his transition but had to stop hormone therapy due to his pregnancy.
Bennett Kaspar-Williams of Los Angeles first realized he was trans in 2011 and began transitioning about three years later. In 2017, he met his future husband – whom he married in 2019.
The couple decided they wanted children and weighed the available options. Conceiving a child naturally meant Mr Kaspar-Williams had to stop the testosterone hormone therapy he had been taking for several years so that his ovaries could function properly.
Bennett, who had undergone surgery on the upper half of his body but not on his genitals, eventually decided that he would enjoy becoming pregnant and carrying a child.
He became pregnant naturally shortly after the couple started trying, and the couple welcomed their son Hudson via C-section in October 2020.
A few months later, in April 2021, Aaden Darr, a Starbucks barista from Charleston, West Virginia, gave birth to twins after undergoing six rounds of artificial insemination in an attempt to conceive.
Mr Darr was born biologically female, but came out as transgender at the age of 16 and started taking testosterone treatment.
However, he still wanted to have a biological child, so he stopped his hormone treatment and visited a doctor to get the process started.
After five months and six rounds of intrauterine insemination (IUI) with donor sperm, Mr Darr finally became pregnant with twins in August 2020.
The Michigan article was published shortly before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was criticized for replacing the word “women” with the gender-neutral term “pregnant people.”
In reviewing the CDC guidelines the organization published in September for receiving flu and Covid-19 vaccines, DailyMail.com found that all gender-specific terms — including “she,” “her,” “women” and “ mother’ – were omitted and gender-specific terms were omitted. Instead, neutral terms such as ‘pregnant people’ and ‘pregnant person’ were used.
The organization has also come under fire for replacing breastfeeding with “breastfeeding” – a term used to describe feeding infant milk directly from the breast by trans and non-binary parents.