National Public Radio celebrated Father's Day over the weekend by honoring a pregnant biological woman that self-identifies as a man.
Kayden Coleman, 37, a biological woman who identifies as a man, is currently raising two young daughters.
Coleman was featured in NPR's article titled, "Americans celebrate dads this weekend. Three tell us about being a father in 2023."
"In 2013, he had just had top surgery — a double mastectomy — and had temporarily stopped taking hormones for the procedure," NPR wrote. "Coleman, who is transgender, said doctors had told him he couldn't get pregnant. A few years later, assuming that he'd been taking hormones long enough to avoid another pregnancy, he found he was expecting again."
Coleman documents life living as a man and raising children on social media.
"I experienced a lot of pushback and discrimination within the medical system based on preconceived ideas of what a pregnant person is supposed to look like," Coleman told NPR.
Coleman said that during the pregnancies, she was offered abortions due to being transgender.
"I had to convince a lot of people that I was pregnant and that I wasn't just a strange man trying to infiltrate the OB-GYN's office," Coleman continued. "I got offered abortions an astronomical amount of times. I think that comes from the idea that people think that trans people either don't want to have kids or shouldn't have kids."
Coleman said that the pregnancies were challenging because she "spent more time fighting for autonomy over myself to just get an equitable space comfortable enough for me to give birth" and didn't get a chance to "actually enjoy the process of being pregnant."
"One of the biggest things that people get wrong is that we hate our bodies, and thus, anything remotely feminine would be something that we will reject — including pregnancy. For those of us who identify more on the masculine spectrum, just because we identify as such does not take away our desire to have kids. If we have the body parts to do so, why not?"
Coleman told the outlet that just because she birthed her children, it does not mean that she identifies as a mother.
"The other thing that a lot of people think is that because we gave birth, we suddenly become mothers. People are always shocked when they hear my children calling me 'Daddy.'"
