On Monday, Buzzfeed News published a piece highlighting biological female transgender men who’ve had an abortion.
Buzzfeed reporter Hallie Lieberman spoke with Oliver, whose last name was not published, who had an abortion in 2012. Oliver identifies as “transgender.”
“It [being pregnant] was really surreal for me. And I think that being trans kind of complicated that surrealness,” Oliver told Buzzfeed. “I didn’t really know that trans people existed, so I didn’t know why I had dysphoria. ... I just knew that anytime my body did something that was considered female, it was confusing and uncomfortable for me.”
Oliver’s boyfriend already had a child and “couldn’t keep up with the child support payments.” The two decided on abortion and borrowed money from Oliver’s 15-year-old sister to pay for the procedure.
Later on, Oliver started testosterone at a Planned Parenthood clinic.
“I’m a trans guy. When I was 19, I had an abortion. Planned Parenthood saved my life two times,” Oliver told Buzzfeed. Lieberman spoke to several other trans men who’ve had abortions and shared a 2017 study from the Guttmacher Institute claiming that 500 transgender and nonbinary people got abortions in a clinical setting that year.
Late last week, NBC News also highlighted a biological female transgender man who had an abortion over 20 years ago.
NBC’s Zinhle Essamuah said that abortion matters for “nonbinary” and “trans birthing people.” She spoke to Cazembe Jackson, a “trans man,” who had an abortion in 2001 while in college while transitioning.
When I think about my abortion, it saved my life,” Jackson said, adding that “I would have committed suicide,” without an abortion.
Essamuah added that abortion providers and advocates believe that abortion access is a part of “gender-affirming” care for trans people.
“He [Cazembe] encountered resistance from health care providers,” Essamuah said, adding that Jackson took out a “pay-day” loan to get an abortion.
Townhall covered this week how Planned Parenthood employees told NPR that “gender-affirming” health care for transgender people would be impacted if abortion clinics shut down.
"Both gender-affirming hormone care and abortions are essential health care that aren't offered by most [abortion] providers, and both are stigmatized services," Ashley Coffield, the chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi, told NPR. "So the same values we use in abortion care — like self-determination, respect and a nonjudgmental approach to health care — translate really easily into serving our gender-affirming hormone care patients."
Dr. Bhavik Khumar, the medical director of primary and transgender care at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, told NPR that “as much as people are concerned about abortion care and access to abortion – which is very important – we should also be concerned about trans people and preserving their humanity and dignity.”
In May, Townhall covered how a 23-year-old woman told Fox News television host Tucker Carlson that she regretted transitioning to become a man when she was a teenager.
The young woman, Helena Kerschner, told Carlson that went to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Chicago after she turned 18 to obtain “gender-affirming” care. A nurse practitioner at the clinic wrote Kerschner a prescription for 100 milligrams of testosterone during her first visit. Kerschner never saw a doctor.
Kerschner’s interview came shortly after the Biden administration agencies released guidance on “Transgender Day of Visibility” that promoted this type of health care for minors, which Townhall covered. She noted how the Biden administration claims that there are “gender-affirming” steps that are “reversible.”
“I’m just really concerned for younger girls and boys, like I once was, being led down this path and being hurt by it,” Kerschner told Carlson. “When you go on a cross sex hormone, like, that’s going to give you not just physical changes but psychological experiences that you can’t just act like they never happened.”