trans parents

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New article: ‘Why Is the Chubby Guy Running?’

2024 has been a good year for the publication of articles I’ve been working on with colleagues for a long time. Hot on the heels of recent pieces on microaggressions and domestic violence comes the latest peer-reviewed work from the Trans Pregnancy Project, published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy. It’s open access, which means you can read it for free or download a copy to share here:

‘Why Is the Chubby Guy Running?’: Trans Pregnancy, Fatness, and Cultural Intelligibility
by Francis Ray White, Ruth Pearce, Damien W. Riggs, Carla A. Pfeffer, Sally Hines

The article opens with the titular question, “why is the chubby guy running?” – drawn from a story shared by a research participant who ran a 5k race while thirty-nine weeks pregnant. We use this as the starting point for exploring the topic of fatness in respect to trans men and non-binary people who experience pregnancy, addressing the gendering of both pregnancy and fatness, stereotypes associated with fat men, and how certain bodies become legible or intelligible.

Cover of the Journal of Applied Philosophy.

A lot of research participants in the project described complex relationships to fatness during their pregnancy, especially where their bump was inaccurately read as a “beer belly”. The writing of this article was led by fat studies expert Francis Ray White; I really appreciated the opportunity to work with them on making sense of these stories, and thinking through what they might mean both for trans birth parents and for our understanding of gender and pregnancy more widely.

This is likely to be one of the last published works from the Trans Pregnancy Project (although we do have at least one more article on the way!)

The project originally wrapped in 2020, but we had such an enormous amount of data that we’ve been writing it up ever since since, addressing topics including media representation, midwifery, conception, pregnancy loss, sperm donors, testosterone use and cessation, racialisation and whiteness, partner abuse, and young people’s views about possible pregnancy. I’m grateful as ever for the trust offered to us by the research participants, and hope we can continue to expand and evidence society’s understanding of their experiences.

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Trans inequalities in English perinatal care

About a month ago I participated in the TPATH conference. This groundbreaking online event centred trans healthcare practice, research, and activism by and for trans people.

I was very impressed with the measures taken by TPATH organisers to ensure the conference was accessible to as many people as possible from around the world. They organised live translation to and from English, French, and Spanish, provided live captioning, encouraged presenters to speak slowly and clearly to enable lipreading, and ensured that generous scholarships were available for those who would not otherwise afford to attend. Most of the event was recorded, and videos are gradually being uploaded to the TPATH Youtube channel.

At the conference I joined Tash Oakes-Monger from NHS England to present initial findings from the ITEMS project (Improving Trans Experiences of Maternity Services). The ITEMS team, led by Michael Petch from the LGBT Foundation, ran a survey in early 2021 to explore the experiences of trans people (including non-binary people) who give birth in England. I supported the design and dissemination of the survey through my former role with the Trans Learning Partnership.

Bar chart indicating that increasing numbers of trans and non-binary people are giving birth in England every year.
Bar chart indicating growth in number of trans people giving birth in England each year.


There is some really exciting information emerging from the ITEMS data. For example, it appears that more trans people are giving birth than ever before (see above). However, it was also apparent that trans people face substantial inequalities.

Many of the questions in the ITEMS survey used comparable wording to the CQC Maternity Survey – from this we can see that trans people appear more likely to have negative experiences in NHS maternity services than cis women across the board. Even more disturbing is that 30% of trans respondents gave birth without the support of an NHS or private midwife (rising to 46% among trans people of colour). This indicates a lack of trust in midwifery services among prospective trans birth parents, with potentially lethal consequences for both parent and baby.

To learn more, you can watch our presentation on the TPATH Youtube channel.

A formal report of ITEMS findings should be published in the coming months.