In a first in India, Kerala transgender couple gives birth to a baby

A Keralite transgender couple, who recently announced pregnancy, was blessed with a baby at a state-run hospital here on Wednesday, considered to be the first such case in the country.

“The baby was born by around 9.30 am through a cesarean section at the Government Medical College Hospital,” Ziya Paval, one of the trans partners, told PTI.

Both the baby and Zahhad, her partner who delivered the child, are doing well, Paval added.

Gender not revealed

However, the trans person declined to reveal the gender of the new-born and said they did not want to make it public right now.

Also read: Kerala trans-couple set to welcome baby next month

Paval recently took to Instagram and announced that Zahhad was eight months pregnant.

“We are about to realise my dream of becoming a mother and his dream of becoming a father. An eight-month-old foetus is now in (Zahhad’s) belly… From what we came to know, this is the first trans man’s pregnancy in India…,” Paval had said in the Instagram post.

Paval and Zahhad have been together for the past three years.

Hormone therapy stopped

The couple was undergoing hormone therapy. However, Zahhad, who was transitioning to become a man, has stalled it to conceive a baby. Zahhad was undergoing the process for breast removal surgery that was stopped for the pregnancy.

According to media reports, the couple had initially contemplated adopting a baby and had even enquired about the process. However, they found the legal proceedings for it challenging, as they are a transgender couple.

Also read: Kerala is pioneer in transgender rights. So where are the transgender voters?

Subsequently, the idea that Zahhad, biologically still a female, could conceive a baby naturally occurred to them. Zahhad was unwilling to fall back on the femininity that he was in the process of shunning, but the desire of Ziya (who was born male) to become a mother changed the former’s mind.

(With agency inputs)