Glamour UK’s Pride cover features transgender man Logan Brown, who was pregnant at the time and is now a dad. He spoke with them about his experience of pregnancy, birth, and being a trans parent. Click through to see the cover image and learn more.
In his interview with journalist Chloe Laws, two weeks before giving birth, Brown, a 27-year-old writer and residential children’s support worker, spoke about what family means to him, transitioning, meeting and forming a life with partner Bailey Mills, discovering he was pregnant, becoming confident as a pregnant man, navigating health care systems, and dealing with transphobia. He also spoke with Laws two weeks after giving birth, and shared his thoughts on the birth experience and the first days of parenthood.
The interview is lengthy and worth reading in full. I’m just going to highlight two quotes from Brown that I think capture his resilient spirit and offer wisdom for many LGBTQ parents:
To bring a baby into the world in a queer relationship is the best feeling ever. I feel like we’ll be able to love and appreciate each other, and my daughter will be able to grow up knowing that she’ll always be loved and accepted for whoever she is. And I think that’s a really important thing for her to be around.
And:
I think what makes me feel empowered as a trans man is that whoever I say I am is exactly who I am. No one can ever take that away from me. Now, I get to bring a child up to know that she can be authentically herself and love whoever she wants; that’s really powerful for me.
Learn more about Brown at his blog, Up the duff man (“up the duff” is British slang for being pregnant), or follow him on Instagram.
Brown is also writing a children’s book titled My Daddy’s Belly, which is available for preorder from the U.K. (It is not yet in my database since I have not yet received a copy to review; stay tuned.)
In the meantime, if you are looking for a children’s book featuring a pregnant trans man and his family, try The Light of You, by Trystan Reese. The board book We Are Little Feminists: Families also includes the image of a pregnant trans man (Reese, as happens) among its many photos of families. For grownups, Reese’s How We Do Family: From Adoption to Trans Pregnancy, What We Learned about Love and LGBTQ Parenthood is a terrific read for parents of any identity, though it may have particular resonance for trans men. And Reese’s Trans Fertility Co. is the best single source of information about trans fertility, by trans and nonbinary people, that I know of (though I say this as a cis ally, not as a trans person myself).
Kudos to Glamour for this interview that focuses on Brown and his voice and experiences, rather than sensationalizing the idea of a pregnant man. He’s far from the first, and won’t be the last. Congratulations to him and his growing family.