Trans couple Jake and Hannah Graf say expecting their first baby ‘feels like a dream come true’
Jake and Hannah Graf. (Antony Jones/Getty)
Transgender couple Jake and Hannah Graf have said that expecting their first baby together “feels like a dream come true”.
The trailblazing trans activists and happy couple announced in December that they were expecting their first child via a surrogate due on April 12.
Yesterday (January 6), the couple appeared on ITV’s Lorraine, and asked about people’s reactions to the wonderful news, Hannah said: “People are generally very warm and very happy for us. I think they can see how happy we are and therefore they join in that happiness.
“There are loads of different ways to have children and this is just one of them. If you teach them this is a normal loving way to have a child then why would they think anything different?”
She added that it was a “dream come true” because she worried that her transition would mean she would not be able to “have love or a family”.
Just about to go on @lorraine with my lovely wife @hannahw253 😊❤️👶🏻 pic.twitter.com/zLsakUHbAv
— Jake Graf (@JakeGraf1) January 6, 2020
Hannah said: “When I was on the brink of transitioning, I genuinely thought I was making the decision between being myself but also having to give up not being able to have love or a family.
“The fact I thought that, and then here I am now five or six years later.
“If we can get all younger transgender people to realise that there’s hope for you and you can have as much of a fulfilling life than anyone else, then that’s a really powerful message.”
Jake joked that if Hannah gets her way their daughter will be a rugby player for Wales, but added: “All we want is for her to feel loved – whatever she’s into, whatever she is.”
To the surprise of many, Jake and Hannah Graf are not the UK’s first trans parents.
Papers including the Daily Mail, Mirror, Sun, as well as ITV, all covered the story that the Jake and Hannah had announced they are expecting their first child with headlines hooked on them being the “first” transgender parents. ITV repeated the line in its coverage of their appearance on Lorraine.
Definitely NOT the UK’s first trans parents, but obviously euphoric that we are expecting our first child! ❤️👶🏻👩🏼🤝👨🏻https://t.co/jLelCdHL8G— Jake Graf (@JakeGraf1) January 7, 2020
The trans community has been quick to point out that the Grafs are hardly the first trans parents in the UK, and that portraying them as such perpetuates the “dangerous” idea that trans people are “new”, “novel”, or only worth favourable coverage when achieving a “first”.
Ruth Pearce, a sociologist who wrote the book Understanding Trans Health published by Bristol University Press, said on Twitter: “So, so many trans parents raise kids with both trans and cis partners. I’m part of an entire research project looking just at the specific subset who give birth after starting a transition!”
