The Pregnant Man

PHOENIX (AP) — A transgender man in Arizona who was accused of stalking his estranged wife last year pleaded guilty to one count of disorderly conduct Tuesday. Thomas Trace Beatie had a change of plea hearing in Maricopa County Superior Court and now is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 16 on the misdemeanor. He pleaded not guilty last December to one count of stalking, and the case was getting close to going to trial. Phoenix police said after Beatie was arrested that the victim found a GPS tracking device under her car in September 2014 and reported it to authorities. Charging documents identified the victim as Beatie's spouse. Police investigators said Beatie admitted to installing the tracking device in 2012 and monitoring it though an online account. Beatie said Tuesday that "the car in question was joint marital property" and he "might have placed a GPS device on my own car" to protect the welfare of his children from "a woman who threatened to leave the state with my kids." 

Beatie, 41, was born female, but he began testing to determine his psychological gender in 1997. He underwent the first of his gender-reassignment surgeries in 2001. Under Hawaiian law, he was able to have his birth certificate amended and be legally recognized as male. He subsequently married. Beatie's wife was unable to conceive children and because he still had female reproductive organs, he was artificially inseminated and became pregnant. He then hit the talk-show and tabloid circuit as the "The Pregnant Man." He gave birth to his first child in 2008 and had two more by 2011 when he and his wife had already moved to Arizona.