Zahad, a Kozhikode-based accountant, is overjoyed to become a parent. The 23-year-old is making headlines because he may be the country’s first transgender male to become pregnant.
Ziya Paval and Zahad Fazil, a Kerala-based transgender couple, are expecting their first child in March. Ziya said in a heartwarming Instagram post that this is the first case in India where a transman has conceived.
Ziya, a man who transitioned into a woman, and Zahad, a woman who transitioned into a man, have been living together for three years. Zahad conceived the child while transitioning from a woman to a man, which was halted for the sake of the baby.
The baby made its choice after Zahad’s breasts were removed, but doctors said it was possible because the uterus was still present. The transgender couple has decided to give their child breast milk from a milk bank. However, as a transgender couple, they found the legal process particularly challenging.
They eventually realized that Zahad, who was still biologically a girl, could have a child, despite Zahad’s reluctance to accept the gender he was working so hard to reject. When Zahad discovered Ziya’s (a male at birth) desire to become a mother, he had a change of heart.
“Though I was not a woman by birth or by my body, I had the feminine dream inside me to hear a baby calling me ‘mother’…It has been three years since we have been together. Like my desire to become a mother, he (Zahad) desires to become a father. Today, an eight-month-old life is moving in his belly with his full consent,” Ziya wrote in the caption of her Instagram post, describing the process and thanking those who have followed and supported their journey.
