In “Fighting for Fertility,” premiering today on the PBS science series NOVA, transgender dad Trystan Reese and his husband Biff Chaplow are one of several couples profiled who shed light on fertility challenges, new technologies to address them, and systemic inequities that impact fertility and fertility care.
Trystan has long been an outspoken advocate for transgender people and their families, and is clearly comfortable and passionate when talking about his own story and about transgender family formation in general. He offers advice for other trans men considering pregnancy and affirms the “gift” of being a transgender man who was able to be pregnant. “If I’d been assigned male at birth, I never would have had Leo,” he says.
To me, the film seems a thoughtful and respectful portrayal of Trystan’s experience (though I acknowledge my limitations as a cisgender person here, and would welcome input from transgender viewers). While it does show a few pre-transition photos of Trystan, I trust that he supplied them and approved their use.
The other couples featured on the show are straight and cisgender: one exploring technology surrounding “mosaic” embryos (ones that have both normal and abnormal cells), one where the husband has a low sperm count, and another couple facing a life-changing diagnosis. Trystan and Biff’s fertility challenge was somewhat different from the other couples; they weren’t diagnosed as infertile in the sense of not being able to conceive after multiple attempts (though they had one miscarriage before the pregnancy that led to their son, Leo). Instead, they had to navigate how Trystan’s testosterone regimen needed to be paused and his endocrine system monitored in order to maximize his fertility and ensure his health during the process.
The film also includes the experience and work of Reverend Stacey Edwards-Dunn, who founded Fertility for Colored Girls, an organization that advocates for Black women experiencing infertility and addresses systemic injustices surrounding fertility. She notes that “Black women are struggling with infertility at almost two times the rate as our Caucasian brothers and sisters.”
I wish the documentary had also included a two-uterus couple (because we, too, can have fertility challenges beyond simply not having sperm on hand, as this recent memoir makes clear), but I nevertheless learned a lot even from the stories of the straight, cisgender couples about human reproductive systems and about new fertility technologies. (My spouse and I went through reciprocal IVF 19 years ago, and there have been some advances since then.)
Director Larkin McPhee said in a press statement, “The opportunity to build families has grown infinitely thanks to advances in science. ‘Fighting for Fertility’ aims to capture the diversity of families and all of the hurdles that people need to overcome with fertility. The film shows that we all need better transparency around what available options exist because it can be confusing. Our hope is the film will give people a roadmap on how to engage with their doctors or their employers in order to find the right solutions.”
More inspirationally, as Trystan says in the film, “Change comes from moving into the place that is hard, and looking for the light.”
Stream the film in full right now at PBS.org or the PBS Video App. You can also watch it on television at 9 p.m. ET tonight.