Last year on "20/20," Walters reported on how children as young as 5 years old are transitioning from one gender to another. And in the last few years transgender people have gained gradual acceptance, even showing up in Hollywood plot lines, such as on the TV series "Ugly Betty" and "Dirty Sexy Money." But what happens when that transgender child grows up and wants to have a baby?
In 2003, Thomas and Nancy Beatie were legally married, and like many couples, they decided to start a family. The couple wanted to have a biological link to their child, but Nancy Beatie had a hysterectomy. The couple did not want to hire a surrogate to carry Thomas Beatie's harvested eggs, feeling no surrogate could be as conscientious as he.
So how does a man who was once a woman get pregnant? The first step was to stop taking testosterone, his male hormone. After four months he began menstruating.
The Beaties then needed a doctor who could help them obtain donor sperm and inseminate it into Thomas Beatie, but nine doctors rejected them.
In the end, the Beaties did it all themselves. First, they bought donor sperm on the Internet and Nancy Beatie used a syringe she had bought at a pet store to inseminate her husband. Soon after, a home pregnancy test confirmed that he was pregnant.
Thomas Beatie says that pregnancy did not make him feel more like a woman. "I did not feel maternal or motherly or womanly and pregnant. I felt like Nancy's husband, and I felt like the father of my child."
The Beaties say they were surprised that some gay, lesbian and transgender groups did not support them. Before his appearance on Oprah Winfrey's talk show in the spring, Thomas Beatie says representatives from several gay and transgender groups warned him not to do it.
"There are six different organizations on the phone doing a conference call with us saying, 'you can't go public. You can't talk about this. You need to hide. You need to be embarrassed.'"
But the Beaties received support from hundreds of individuals.
"We got letters and gifts from all around the world, from gays, lesbians, mainstream America and beyond," Thomas Beatie said. And the Beaties found acceptance among their Oregon neighbors who threw a baby shower for Thomas Beatie a few weeks before his due date.
While Thomas Beatie's body went through changes, so did his wife's. She said, "My breasts started lactating." She has been breast-feeding Susan for four months.
Thomas Beatie says he and his wife are clear on their parental roles. "I am my daughter's father, and that's all I'll ever be to her. Nancy is Susan's mother."
But state officials in Oregon had a different view when it came to the baby's birth certificate. "The nurse in charge of birth certificates came in and said, 'Portland won't allow this. That means, Thomas, we're going to put you as mother and Nancy as father.'"
According to Oregon law, the person who gives birth is normally listed as mother. But when Thomas and Nancy Beatie complained, the certificate was changed again.
"The woman down at Vital Statistics in Portland decided to change it to say Parent/Parent, which is for same-sex couples in a domestic partnership," Thomas Beatie said.
The Beaties insist that they are a married, heterosexual couple and that the birth certificate should list them as father and mother. Legal experts say that regardless of how Thomas Beatie is listed, his parental rights are protected because he is the baby's biological parent. But because she has no biological tie, Nancy Beatie could find her rights threatened.
In order to secure Nancy Beatie's parental rights, legal experts say the Beaties need to do what many same-sex couples with children do and have Nancy Beatie, the nonbiological parent, adopt Susan.
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