(bee buzzing)
(water flowing)
- [Narrator] Discrimination towards the LGBTQ+ community
has hindered access to health care
and led to misperceptions.
- [Biff Chaplow] The message has always been that like,
gay people are dangerous to children.
You know, that gay people shouldn't raise children.
That like we are the opposite of family,
we destroy family.
(Somber music)
- When it became clear that Lucas and Hailey,
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.
(working on homework)
[Biff Chaplow] Concentrate.
[Hailey] Concentrate means you work very hard...
- [Trystan Reese] It didn't really occur 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 the reproductive systems
don't match up, or they don't have the resources.
- And in many cases I think people don't even imagine.
That was one thing that people would always say
is that two men can't make a baby.
And so I'm sort of like: Watch us.
(laughing)
(Inspirational Music)
- [Narrator] How do two men make a baby?
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.
- 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 of testosterone, as I did,
it takes a few months, and then the
egg maturing factory kicks back into gear
and you ovulate and you menstruate
just as you had before.
- [Dr. Karine Chung] There've 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?
- If you want to see the belly I'm actually wearing...
- [Narrator] Trystan had been taking testosterone for
12 years before trying to get pregnant.
After experiencing a miscarriage, he soon became
pregnant with Leo.
(gigantic giant)
(laughing)
- Leo looks so much like you that people
just assume that I wasn't involved at all.
(laughs)
- 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.
- It was me, I was my own surrogate.
- [Trystan Reese] How do you navigate pregnancy
as a transgender man?
Maybe you felt conflicted about, or even negative
about having breasts.
But now, that's being used to nourish a human.
Maybe you felt conflicted about having a uterus
to begin with, now it's being used to grow a person.
You're 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.
- 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 retrieval is.
And a majority of trans-adults who say
they wished they preserved their fertility
they say that they were not counseled,
they didn't think about it.
- [Dr. 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.
- 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.
- [Dr. Karine Chung] What the research has shown
is that at least 50% of transgender men and women
do wish to have children, or have a family
in the future.
(Okay Leo)
- [Trystan Reese] Change comes from
moving into the place that's hard,
and looking for the light.
Often when you say: 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.
(baby babbles)
If I'd been assigned male at birth
I never would have had Leo.
(children talking)
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.
(inspirational music ending)