14 DAY TRIAL // Thomas Beatie, aka the Pregnant Man, has been making headlines since 2008 when he became the first transgender man to get pregnant and give birth. Today, it’s another aspect of his personal life that’s in the spotlight: the divorce from his wife of almost 10 years, Nancy.
Beatie was born female but legally became a man in 2002, after mastectomy. He married Nancy in 2003 in Hawaii but he never told anyone (because he wasn’t asked to) that he still retained his female reproductive organs.
Beatie announced the divorce in 2012, shortly after he’d completed the gender reassignment process by having surgery.
He also said that Nancy, the woman with whom he’d been for over a decade and with whom he has 3 children, had been physically and emotionally abusive to him, a claim she disputed in the press and in court.
Even so, Maricopa County Family Court Judge Douglas Gerlach did not see fit to grant Beatie the divorce for the very reason that he was not even a male when he got married, the BBC reports.
That is, there is not enough evidence to indicate that he was male because of his decision to keep his female reproductive organs to carry children, even if he was legally a man.
If he wasn’t male, then that means that the “marriage” was only a same-sex union – so no marriage at all, not legally at least. Consequently, there is no need for divorce now.
Ryan Gordon, a publicist for Beatie, tells the BBC that he will appeal the ruling. Getting the divorce is a priority for him because of the kids and because he wants to be free to marry his new girlfriend.
“It's unfortunate that the judge out here doesn't recognize marriage in another state,” Gordon said of the Judge’s ruling.