When Bennett Kaspar-Williams welcomed a baby into the world, the birth of his son Hudson should have been one of the happiest and most meaningful moments of his life.
Instead, alongside the excitement of becoming a parent, Kaspar-Williams found himself dealing with something deeply personal and distressing: repeated instances of being referred to as a woman and being called a mother by medical staff, despite identifying as a man and having clearly indicated his gender on hospital paperwork.
Kaspar-Williams, 37, from Los Angeles, California, gave birth to his son, Hudson, by cesarean section in October 2020, with the support of his husband, Malik.
At the time, Kaspar-Williams identified as male and used he/him/his pronouns. He now identifies as non-binary and uses both he/him/his and they/them pronouns.
According to the Daily Mail, the experience with nurses became one of the most difficult aspects of what was otherwise an important and deeply personal journey into parenthood.
For Kaspar-Williams, the issue was not pregnancy itself. Instead, it was the way medical professionals repeatedly connected pregnancy and childbirth with womanhood, even after he had made his identity clear.
A carefully considered decision to become a parent
Kaspar-Williams began his transition in 2014 after realizing he was transgender in 2011.Years later, he and his husband decided they wanted to start a family. The decision required careful thought because Kaspar-Williams had been taking testosterone for years, and he knew he would have to stop the treatment temporarily if he wanted his ovaries to resume functioning.
He had already undergone top surgery but had not undergone surgery involving his lower body.
After considering his options and reflecting on what parenthood meant to him, Kaspar-Williams ultimately became comfortable with the idea of carrying a child himself.
The couple began trying to conceive, and to their surprise, pregnancy happened naturally relatively quickly.
“We had only been trying a short while, so we expected the process to take longer than it did,” Kaspar-Williams said.
The timing, however, brought an entirely different source of anxiety.
The couple discovered they were expecting shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns began in March 2020.
“This was just about a week before we went into lockdown here in March 2020, so my high spirits were pretty quickly replaced by anxiety around the pandemic and how I would keep myself and my baby safe,” Kaspar-Williams recalled.
Pregnancy was therefore a complicated experience—one filled with anticipation and happiness, but also uncertainty as the pandemic changed everyday life and created new concerns surrounding medical care and safety.
