Chase Minnema never thought this would happen to him.
He is 26 years old, works as a video processor in Virginia, and is a trans man. At 14, he began questioning his identity, and at 16, he understood it was something deeper. In August 2016, he began hormone therapy and later had chest surgery. With that journey behind him, having a child naturally wasn’t part of his plans.
But his body was still capable of doing so. According to Planned Parenthood, cited by Newsweek, testosterone is not a contraceptive: to become pregnant, all one needs is a uterus and ovaries and to ovulate. Chase paused hormone therapy throughout the pregnancy. He said he had a few moments of dysphoria, but nothing horrible, and that it was beautiful to have his own child.
Today, together with his partner James Brewer, 29, he cares for a 6-week-old baby. James, who as a child helped his cousin with her children, sums it up this way: “It’s a dream come true”.