Thomas Moore, husband to fellow transgender man Scott, talks to The Advocate about helping his spouse get through nine months of doctor issues, baby showers, and bellyaches.
Scott and Thomas Moore met six years ago at a support group for transgender people in the Bay Area. They lost touch but found each other again. After becoming friends, partners, and then husbands, the pair made a home in Thomas's tiny hometown of Weed, Calif., with his adopted sons, Logan and Gregory.
But now Scott, 20, and Thomas, 30, are having a baby this March, a boy they plan to name Miles. Sure, their story mirrors that of Thomas Beatie, another transgender man whose decision to have a baby rocked the world in 2007. But the Moores' story has a rather timely aspect -- for months they were denied care by doctors and were told that Scott's pregnancy was too high-risk. Thomas tells Advocate.com about his and Scott's ordeals with discriminatory doctors and the process of stopping hormone use to have a baby.
Advocate.com: How did you and Scott decide to have a baby?
Thomas Moore: We were watching a movie together — we were watching
Baby Mama. And I was the one talking about wanting to have another child, but I did not want to go through the adoption process again. It's very invasive, but I was willing to do it, if need be. So I asked Scott how he felt about having more kids. We kind of talked about it. I was not an option because I've had all my surgeries, but obviously I would do it, if I could, especially since I'm more comfortable with the person I am today.
At first Scott was like, "You know, I don't think so, hell no, this will be crazy." But then over the next couple of days he would start bringing that up and asking, "Well, how would that work? What about my hormones? Will my facial hair fall out?" So we had to figure out the answers to a lot of these questions. By about the second day, he was really considering doing this. But within a week, we made the decision that he was going to do it. I mean, we had a lot of fears, especially about being in a small town. We saw what happened to Thomas Beatie. He's less than 300 miles from us, in Bend, Ore. If you've been to Bend from almost anywhere in the country, you've probably been through Weed. You may have blinked and missed it, but you've probably been through it. So Scott was very paranoid about the whole thing and very uncomfortable about it.
So the first thing was that he had to go off hormones for a very long time. It was horrible. You know, some guys complain about their girlfriends when they go through menopause or whatever, but you take a tranny boy off his testosterone and it gets ugly fast. It took us about 10 to 11 months.
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