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My Brother's Pregnancy and the Making of a New American Family
My Brother’s Pregnancy and the Making of a New American Family
Elinor Carucci for TIME
My brother Evan was born female. He came out as transgender 16 years ago but never stopped wanting to have a baby. This spring he gave birth to his first child
When the call came, my brother was at work in the open office in Cambridge, Mass., he shares with seven colleagues who, like him, help run clinical trials for a drug developer. The phone number came up blocked, so he knew it must be the doctor. He stood up, unsteady on his feet. Was he a little nauseous? Or was that just adrenaline? He ducked into the hallway in search of quiet.
My brother Evan, 35, is a stocky guy of medium height with a trimmed, fuzzy blond beard and two gem studs in each earlobe. He usually wears a Red Sox hat, and when he’s nervous, he’ll remove it and obsessively bend the rim. But on that September afternoon, both of his hands were clutching his phone, the right one cupping the left for privacy. “Hello?”
“This is Dr. Kowalik,” said the voice. The identification was unnecessary. Ania Kowalik is a reproductive endocrinologist at a clinic called Fertility Solutions in Dedham, Mass. They’d spoken regularly for more than six months. Evan, who was born female, had wanted to be a parent since he was very young, when he played with dolls just a bit longer than the other kids. He’d helped pay for college by nannying triplets. And when he first came out to friends as transgender at 19, changing his name and beginning his long physical transformation, he didn’t stop adding to the list of baby names in the back of his journal: Kaya, Eleanor, Huxley.
Evan knew he should feel excited. But instead, he felt a chill of anxiety and anticipation. He’d wanted this for so long, he later told me, and had been close to getting it. Then, four months earlier, he’d miscarried after Kowalik told him she couldn’t find a heartbeat during his first ultrasound.
She was brief: Evan was pregnant. Kowalik told him he had low levels of progesterone, a hormone that helps maintain a healthy pregnancy, and prescribed some pills for him to start taking right away. “Congratulations,” she said after a pause. “This is a good start.”
Evan isn’t sure how long he stood in the hallway after the call. People from other offices brushed by him, caught up in their work. He called his partner, and her gasp was loud enough that Evan held the phone away from his ear momentarily. He pulled up a calculator to figure out his due date.
I’d have no reason to tell you about this moment in my brother’s life were it not for the fact of his gender. Now that gay marriage is legal, the social battleground has shifted to new frontiers, frontiers that include the most private aspects of people’s lives. Transgender Americans have gained greater visibility and acceptance as stars like Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox have trained a pop-culture spotlight on trans issues. Corporate leaders across the Fortune 500 have moved to protect their transgender employees. And in May, the Obama Administration declared that all public schools must treat students equally regardless of their gender identity, classifying inner feelings of maleness and femaleness as protected by the government. We have come to the point where the President of the United States can candidly and comfortably discuss gender fluidity.
We have also come to the point where the backlash against these rapid changes has manifested in sometimes surreal fashion, as it did earlier this year during the so-called battle of the bathroom, when about half of all states joined lawsuits against the Obama Administration. There have been reports of increased violence directed at transgender people. At least 21 trans Americans were murdered in 2015, according to the Human Rights Campaign, up 62% from the year before. And that was before the mass murder in June at an Orlando nightclub, the deadliest incident of violence against LGBT people in U.S. history.
Pregnancies like Evan’s—and the many that are likely to follow—will stretch our cultural perceptions of gender norms even further. Americans are just starting to open up to the idea that you may be born into a female body, but believe that you are really a man. But what if you are born into a female body, know you are a man and still want to participate in the traditionally exclusive rite of womanhood? What kind of man are you then?
This question can bother people. It can make them uncomfortable. That’s partly why, when Evan texted me to say, “I’m pregnant!” I was excited for him, but also frightened. I thought about what strangers might say to my bearded, big-bellied little brother when he was nine months along. And I wondered, Would he be safe?
My Brother’s Pregnancy and the Making of a New American Family
Elinor Carucci for TIME
My brother Evan was born female. He came out as transgender 16 years ago but never stopped wanting to have a baby. This spring he gave birth to his first child
When the call came, my brother was at work in the open office in Cambridge, Mass., he shares with seven colleagues who, like him, help run clinical trials for a drug developer. The phone number came up blocked, so he knew it must be the doctor. He stood up, unsteady on his feet. Was he a little nauseous? Or was that just adrenaline? He ducked into the hallway in search of quiet.
My brother Evan, 35, is a stocky guy of medium height with a trimmed, fuzzy blond beard and two gem studs in each earlobe. He usually wears a Red Sox hat, and when he’s nervous, he’ll remove it and obsessively bend the rim. But on that September afternoon, both of his hands were clutching his phone, the right one cupping the left for privacy. “Hello?”
“This is Dr. Kowalik,” said the voice. The identification was unnecessary. Ania Kowalik is a reproductive endocrinologist at a clinic called Fertility Solutions in Dedham, Mass. They’d spoken regularly for more than six months. Evan, who was born female, had wanted to be a parent since he was very young, when he played with dolls just a bit longer than the other kids. He’d helped pay for college by nannying triplets. And when he first came out to friends as transgender at 19, changing his name and beginning his long physical transformation, he didn’t stop adding to the list of baby names in the back of his journal: Kaya, Eleanor, Huxley.
Evan knew he should feel excited. But instead, he felt a chill of anxiety and anticipation. He’d wanted this for so long, he later told me, and had been close to getting it. Then, four months earlier, he’d miscarried after Kowalik told him she couldn’t find a heartbeat during his first ultrasound.
She was brief: Evan was pregnant. Kowalik told him he had low levels of progesterone, a hormone that helps maintain a healthy pregnancy, and prescribed some pills for him to start taking right away. “Congratulations,” she said after a pause. “This is a good start.”
Evan isn’t sure how long he stood in the hallway after the call. People from other offices brushed by him, caught up in their work. He called his partner, and her gasp was loud enough that Evan held the phone away from his ear momentarily. He pulled up a calculator to figure out his due date.
I’d have no reason to tell you about this moment in my brother’s life were it not for the fact of his gender. Now that gay marriage is legal, the social battleground has shifted to new frontiers, frontiers that include the most private aspects of people’s lives. Transgender Americans have gained greater visibility and acceptance as stars like Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox have trained a pop-culture spotlight on trans issues. Corporate leaders across the Fortune 500 have moved to protect their transgender employees. And in May, the Obama Administration declared that all public schools must treat students equally regardless of their gender identity, classifying inner feelings of maleness and femaleness as protected by the government. We have come to the point where the President of the United States can candidly and comfortably discuss gender fluidity.
We have also come to the point where the backlash against these rapid changes has manifested in sometimes surreal fashion, as it did earlier this year during the so-called battle of the bathroom, when about half of all states joined lawsuits against the Obama Administration. There have been reports of increased violence directed at transgender people. At least 21 trans Americans were murdered in 2015, according to the Human Rights Campaign, up 62% from the year before. And that was before the mass murder in June at an Orlando nightclub, the deadliest incident of violence against LGBT people in U.S. history.
Pregnancies like Evan’s—and the many that are likely to follow—will stretch our cultural perceptions of gender norms even further. Americans are just starting to open up to the idea that you may be born into a female body, but believe that you are really a man. But what if you are born into a female body, know you are a man and still want to participate in the traditionally exclusive rite of womanhood? What kind of man are you then?
This question can bother people. It can make them uncomfortable. That’s partly why, when Evan texted me to say, “I’m pregnant!” I was excited for him, but also frightened. I thought about what strangers might say to my bearded, big-bellied little brother when he was nine months along. And I wondered, Would he be safe?
