A 24-year-old transgender man, Ryan Sanderson, has recounted how he “unexpectedly” gave birth to a son after never expecting to be pregnant.
Sanderson, a drama student, from Rochdale, Manchester, has been in the process of transitioning from female to male and taking hormone treatments for years.
He also believed his now-ex partner was infertile, but despite all this, nine weeks into hormone treatments, Ryan, discovered he was pregnant in 2019, and now has a son named, Hendrick.
“I didn’t believe I could get pregnant when on testosterone, until I found out that I was. I think more trans men need to understand that they can get pregnant. My ex-partner was under the impression that he was infertile, but that wasn’t the case.” He told Metro UK.
In 2021 he continued his hormonal treatments and says he has now finished the course .
“When I found out I was pregnant, Hendrick truly became my everything. My GP was slightly worried about complications, but the course of my pregnancy ran pretty smoothly. Thankfully, I had a wonderful team of midwives that would address me with the appropriate pronouns, and if they made mistakes they would always apologize. Sometimes they’d have questions, and it felt great to be able to answer them without them trying to offend me in anyway.” He added.
Ryan says his ex-partner has told him he won’t be involved in training the child , so he’ll be a ‘baby daddy’ with the help of his supportive mum, Janette.
“Without her, I’d be lost,’ he said. ‘She does so much for both Hendrick and I, and acts like a super-hero co-parent.
My ex-partner doesn’t want to be in the picture, but I’ve got the full support of the rest of my family and friends.’
Speaking about his transition process, Ryan said,
“I’d struggled for so long to become my true self and had even had to go with a private GP in order to get testosterone, I knew that I was a man from the age of seven and came out at 19. Since coming out as Ryan, I’ve felt this freedom that I never felt as a girl, I do things for me instead of what society deems certain genders should do.”
