Evan Hempel, a 45-year-old transgender man, decided to become pregnant at age 35 after years of wanting to be a father. To achieve this, he temporarily stopped taking testosterone and turned to artificial insemination with donor sperm. However, when he began his checkups, he discovered that his pregnancy conflicted with his health insurance systems.
The problem arose every time he needed pregnancy-related care. Because Evan was listed as male in the records, his insurer denied coverage for tests and checkups that were normally associated with female patients. On one occasion, he had to spend hours explaining his situation to a representative in order to be reimbursed for a pregnancy test.
The situation was repeated with his medical appointments and ended up exhausting him. Finally, he called the insurer and asked to temporarily change the registered gender to female to avoid further coverage denials. Despite the administrative difficulties, he continued with his checkups and gave birth to his son at Mount Auburn Hospital.
