A British man has told of his astonishing journey to become one of the first fathers in the UK to naturally conceive a baby.
Malachi Clarke, who lives in Tilehurst in Berkshire, was born female but made the decision to transition to male aged 19.
A year later, the now 27-year-old paid over £6,000 to undergo surgery privately to remove his breasts after facing a five year wait on the NHS. He has not undergone ‘bottom surgery’, known medically as phalloplasty.
The administrative palliative care worker met his partner Charlie, 31, in 2022 and just weeks later discovered he was pregnant. The couple were engaged after six months.
Yet, despite legally registering as male in 2021 and receiving his gender recognition certificate, he is registered as the mother on his son’s birth certificate, with Charlie, a nursery worker, the father.
This anomaly means Malachi is both legally male and legally female simultaneously.
Malachi said he was ‘proud’ to have given birth as a man and the couple now plan to have more children to give their two-year-old son a ‘friend for life’.
He is not the first man in the UK to have given birth — in 2019 Hayden Cross, from Gloucester, welcomed his daughter at the age of 21. Malachi, however, is among the first to have conceived a baby naturally.
Malachi Clarke, 27, was born female but made the decision to transition to male aged 19. The administrative palliative care worker met his partner Charlie, 31, in 2022 and just weeks later discovered he was pregnant. The couple were engaged after six months
Cross, who decided to pause his gender reassignment process in 2016, used a sperm donor he found on Facebook.
The anonymous donor delivered the sperm to his door, before Cross inserted it into his vagina using a syringe, because he could not afford fertility treatment.
Recalling his pregnancy, Malachi told The Mirror: ‘Being pregnant made me feel more Malachi than any other part of my transition.
‘I loved it and would happily be pregnant again. I don’t believe in gender roles.
‘I’m not deluded to how the world has written biology — but it’s a societal construct. I felt like a man who has a reproductive system.’
He added: ‘I don’t care that I’m down as mother on the birth certificate. I know who I am — I’m his dad.
‘Yes, it would be lovely if the system was more progressive, but that change will come, there’s no need to shout about it.’
After coming out to his family as trans at 17, Malachi who was adopted with his sister at 18 months old, began taking testosterone aged 20 in June 2018.
He is not the first man in the UK to have given birth — in 2019 Hayden Cross, from Gloucester, welcomed his daughter at the age of 21
In 2019, appearing on ITV’s Lorraine he said carrying a child for nine months as a transgender man was ‘a big battle’ and he wouldn’t advise anyone to go through it
He suffered from gender dysphoria, a condition where a person’s sense of identity does not match their assigned gender at birth, he told The Mirror.
He then paid for top surgery the following year, funded by working a 100-hour work week.
‘If I want something, I go get it. I think the trans community cause their own problems,’ he said.
‘Yes, there’s a long wait time. Access to our healthcare is difficult, but it’s the same for all sorts of health problems, not just gender.’
Eighteen months after he stopped taking testosterone in a bid to to help clear severe acne — a common side effect of taking the hormone therapy — he met Charlie.
Testosterone, taken by trans men as part of transgender hormone treatment, plays a key role in increasing facial and body hair, deepening the voice, increasing muscle mass and stopping menstruation.
Under NHS guidance, the health service recommends stopping testosterone at least three months before getting pregnant, over fears it could affect the baby’s development.
‘My periods restarted, and my severe acne, which had been caused by testosterone, cleared up. My body’s reproductive system had kicked back in,’ Malachi said.
In 2023, transgender man Logan Brown, appeared on the front cover of Glamour UK announcing his pregnancy
After matching with Charlie on Facebook Dating and meeting for coffee, they realised they clicked instantly and spent as much time as possible together.
A month later he realised he was pregnant and after six months, they got engaged.
Their son, now two, calls Malachi ‘daddy’ and Charlie, ‘dadda’.
‘You do have to stop your hormones but you don’t need to freeze your eggs. If you’re trans and you want to have kids naturally, go ahead because you can, like we did,’ Malachi said.
Both men acknowledged that they will have to explain to their son that one his dads was originally born female and that he may be teased when he’s older.
But they hope the school he attends is both inclusive and supportive.
‘I’m just a man who has a vagina. If people want to see me another way, that’s their problem — not mine,’ Malachi added.
He is now among just a handful of British men who have given birth.
He added that his pregnancy was unexpected and it felt like his ‘whole world stopped’ when he took a test with his partner Bailey J Mills and it showed a positive result
In 2017, transgender man Hayden Cross from Gloucester revealed he had given birth to daughter Trinity-Leigh.
The former Asda worker decided to pause his gender reassignment process in 2016 in order to focus on starting a family.
He asked the NHS to freeze his eggs before he completed his transition.
This is an option offered to some trans men who plan to undergo gender reassignment surgery, which involves removing the female reproductive organs including the ovaries.
Frozen eggs allows for the option of conceiving via IVF, and using a surrogate to carry the baby.
However, Cross was left devastated when doctors refused to give him the £4,000 treatment.
Instead, he decided to seek a sperm donor online and became pregnant with Trinity-Leigh in 2016 after inseminating himself with a syringe.
In 2023, transgender man Logan Brown appeared on the front cover of Glamour UK magazine announcing his pregnancy.
He told interviewers: ‘I am a transgender pregnant man and I do exist, so no matter what anybody says, I literally am living proof.’
He added that his pregnancy was unexpected and it felt like his ‘whole world stopped’ when he took a test with his partner and it showed a positive result.
