Name: Can Two Men Make a Baby?
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Trystan Reese felt grateful that he was able to become pregnant and give birth. But for parents about to transition, there are steps they can take to preserve their fertility.

LGBTQ+ couples face many hurdles to biological reproduction.

Building a Family as a Transgender Person

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Trystan Reese felt grateful that he was able to become pregnant and give birth. But for parents about to transition, there are steps they can take to preserve their fertility.

LGBTQ+ couples face many hurdles to biological reproduction.

Can Two Men Make a Baby?

Body & Brain

Can Two Men Make a Baby?Published: May 12, 2021NARRATOR: Discrimination towards the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community has hindered access to healthcare and led to misperceptions.BIFF CHAPLOW: The message has always been that, like, gay people are dangerous to children, that gay people shouldn’t raise children, that, like, we are the opposite of family: we destroy family.When it became clear that, that Lucas and Haley, my biological niece and nephew, were going to need a home, it was pretty clear that we were going to be the only people that could take them, or they would need to go into foster care. And so, you know we had a discussion and Trystan was like very supportive, was, like, “Yes, let’s do this. Let’s take them.”TRYSTAN REESE: It never occurred to me, until I met Biff, I started thinking, you know, I would love to have a family with him. And seeing him with kids, I was just like, that door could open for us. We could have a physical manifestation of this, you know, profound and true experience of love we have for each other.BIFF CHAPLOW: Many people like me don’t ever have the opportunity to have a kid that is biologically connected to them. Either because they, the, the reproductive systems don’t match up, or they don’t have the resources.TRYSTAN REESE: I mean, in many cases, I think people don’t even imagine. That was one thing that people would always say is like, “Two men can’t make a baby.” And so, I’m, sort of, like, “Watch us.”NARRATOR: How do two men make a baby?KARINE CHUNG: Hormone treatment can suppress the reproductive system. So, for example, a transgender man who is taking testosterone will experience a cessation of menses. So, periods will stop coming. And that’s actually an intended consequence of the treatment. But in addition, it will suppress the ovaries, so that he is no longer ovulating. When they come off of testosterone, there are reports that the menses will return.TRYSTAN REESE: Testosterone really acts to the ovulatory system the same way that any hormonal birth control that stops ovulation and menstruation impacts the system. It just hits pause on the, sort of, egg-maturing factory. And when you go off testosterone, as I did, it takes a few months and then the egg-maturing factory kicks back into gear, and you ovulate and menstruate just as you had before.KARINE CHUNG: There have been reports of pregnancies. But what we don’t know is if a person has been on testosterone for a long period of time, is that return of ovarian function going to actually occur.TRYSTAN REESE: If you want to see the belly, I am trying to wear, wearing a whole belt under my shirt to try to support things, so it’s less pressure on my skin here. As you can see, it’s gigantic, giant.NARRATOR: Trystan had been taking testosterone for 12 years before trying to get pregnant. After experiencing a miscarriage, he soon became pregnant with Leo.TRYSTAN REESE: Leo looks so much like you that people just assume that I wasn’t involved at all.BIFF CHAPLOW: They do assume that we had a surrogate and just used my sperm for that. We did have a surrogate and we did use my sperm.TRYSTAN REESE: It was me. I was my own surrogate.BIFF CHAPLOW: It was just, Trystan was the surrogate.TRYSTAN REESE: How do you navigate pregnancy as a transgender man? Maybe you feel conflicted about or even negative about having breasts, but now that is being used to nourish a human. Maybe you felt conflicted about having a uterus to begin with, but now it’s being used to create a person. You are building a family.NARRATOR: Trystan felt grateful that he was able to become pregnant and give birth. But for patients about to transition, there are steps they can take to preserve their fertility.KARINE CHUNG: In patients who are undergoing gender-affirming therapy, I think it’s important that they are presented with the option to either freeze eggs or freeze sperm before they start those treatments.TRYSTAN REESE: Fertility preservation is invasive. It is very expensive, and it takes a long time. It can take weeks or even months, depending on how successful the first retrie…, retrieval is. And a majority of trans adults who say they wish they’d preserved their fertility, they said that they were not counseled. They didn’t think about it.KARINE CHUNG: Counseling the younger group about fertility preservation before gender-affirming therapy is particularly challenging, because these are teenagers. And many times, they’re so distraught by their gender dysphoria that they’re really eager to start their gender-affirming treatments.TRYSTAN REESE: Honestly, if you had told me at age 22, you know, you have to choose between transitioning and ever having a biological child, it would not have taken me one second to make that decision. I would have chosen transition. I thought I was choosing transition over ever having a family, ever falling in love, ever having community support, ever getting married.KARINE CHUNG: What the research has shown is that at least 50 percent of transgender men and women do wish to have children or have a family in the future.TRYSTAN REESE: Change comes from moving into the place that is hard and looking for the light. Often, when you say, like, “Well, why don’t you just adopt?” It’s rooted in this belief that we shouldn’t have access to the same things as everyone else.I don’t want to be like men who are not transgender. I feel like what I am is unique. It’s powerful. It’s a gift. If I had been assigned male at birth, I never would have had Leo. So, when I look at me pregnant, you know, I’m just one of the many men who happen to be unique in that we can create life. And I think that’s pretty cool.

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Building a Family as a Transgender Person

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Support Provided By

Explore More

To Start a Family, This Woman Turned to Egg Freezing

Fighting for Fertility

How Weathering Affects Black Women's Fertility