Transgender "man" reportedly gives birth

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Thomas Beatie, who was born a woman but after surgery and hormone treatment lives as a man, has given birth to a girl at an Oregon hospital, People magazine reported on Thursday.

Beatie, 34, who kept female reproductive organs after initiating a transgender transformation and legally changing his name from Tracy Lagondino in his 20s, confirmed the birth to the magazine.

The baby, conceived through artificial insemination using donor sperm and Beatie's own eggs, was born on June 29, and Beatie and the baby are "healthy and doing well," People reported.

"The only thing different about me is that I can't breast-feed my baby. But a lot of mothers don't," People quoted Beatie as saying. He has had his breasts surgically removed.

He told the magazine that contrary to published reports, the baby was not delivered by Caesarean section, but no other details about the birth were given.

Beatie made world headlines -- and stoked public debate about the boundaries of gender identity -- when he went public with his pregnancy during a guest appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in April, in which he was shown undergoing an ultrasound examination.

The thinly bearded Beatie told Winfrey then that he began his sexual transformation about 10 years ago when he started taking testosterone injections and had surgery to remove mammary glands and flatten his chest.

Upon deciding to have a child about two years ago, he halted his bimonthly hormone injections and resumed menstruating.

Beatie's wife, Nancy, 46, whom he married five years ago, was unable to conceive because of a prior hysterectomy. Otherwise, he has said, "I wouldn't be doing this." His spouse has two grown daughters by a previous marriage.

She said on "Oprah" that their parental roles would be fairly traditional despite his transgender status. "He's going to be the father, and I'm going to be the mother," she said.

The couple, who operate a T-shirt printing business in Bend, Oregon, are legally married and he is recognized under Oregon state law as a man.

Beatie has said he is writing a book about his childhood, his mother's suicide and his life growing up in Hawaii, where as a youngster he was a Girl Scout, a teen beauty pageant contestant and earned a martial-arts black belt.

He began living as a man in his 20s, eventually changing his gender on his passport and driver's license. Like many individuals who identify themselves as transgender men, or "transmen," Beatie opted not to remove his ovaries and other female reproductive organs he was born with.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)