GLOBAL PRAYER NETWORK: Man expecting baby in transgender couple

Rabu, 30 Desember 2015

Man expecting baby in transgender couple

By Mark Ellis, Special to ASSIST News Service

ECUADOR (ANS - December 30, 2015) -- A transgender couple in Ecuador has made history with a unique pregnancy: The father-to-be is carrying the baby of his transgender partner.

Fernando Machado and Diane Rodríguez announced their pregnancy on social media in early December. The revelation caused a sensation in a region that has endured an explosive evolution in LGBT rights, similar to the United States, according to Fox News Latino.

Rodríguez (born Luis), is one of Ecuador’s most-prominent LGBT activists and says she and her Venezuelan-born partner, whose birth name was María, decided to publicize their pregnancy to help shift attitudes in the largely traditional country.

Although both take hormones, neither has undergone gender-reassignment surgery, so the child-to-be was conceived the old-fashioned way, according to Fox News Latino.

Michael Brown, writing for TownHall, captured the essence of this head-turning development: “It used to be pretty simple. A man marries a woman. They have a baby together. The man is the father and the woman is the mother. Well it’s not so simple anymore.

“Today, you have to figure out if the man who is marrying the woman is actually a man and if the woman who is marrying the man is actually a woman.

“Then you have to figure out if the man is the father or the mother and if the woman is the mother or the father,” Brown noted.

The transgender couple acknowledge they are in new territory. “We’re trying to break the myths about transsexuality,” Rodríguez told the Associated Press.

Photo captions: 1) Fernando Machado (left) with his partner Diane Rodriguez. 2) Mark Ellis.

About the writer: Mark Ellis is senior correspondent for the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net), and also founder of www.GodReports.com, a website that shares stories, testimonies and videos from the church around the world. He is also the co-host for "Windows on the World" with ANS founder, Dan Wooding, on the Holy Spirit Broadcasting Network (http://hsbn.tv).