Phoenix, AZ (KPHO) — Thomas Beatie, the transgender man who gave birth after beginning to change from a woman to a man, is accused of stalking his estranged wife.
Beatie, 40, who lives in Anthem, was arrested Thursday and booked into the Maricopa County Jail on one count of stalking. He was released on his own recognizance Thursday night.
Beatie is accused of putting a GPS tracking device on his wife’s car in October of 2012, about six months after he served his wife with an order of protection that required her to leave the couple’s home.
The device was found by an Arizona Department of Public Safety officer when he stopped to help the victim change a flat tire, according to an officer’s probable cause statement.
Phoenix police said the victim, who was identified in the statement as Beatie’s spouse, Nancy Beatie, said she believed it was Thomas Beatie who put the GPS device on her car. She claimed Beatie would randomly show up wherever she was at the time, would mention places she had been and questioned her about times that she returned home.
Investigators said Thomas Beatie admitted to installing the device, monitoring it online and recharging the battery whenever it was low on power.
Thomas Beatie was denied a divorce in March 2013 by Maricopa County Family Court Judge Douglas Gerlach because at the time Arizona’s ban on same-sex marriages prevented the union from being recognized as valid.
Thomas Beatie was born a woman and underwent a double-mastectomy but retained female reproductive organs and gave birth to three children.
Gerlach said he had no jurisdiction to approve a divorce because there was insufficient evidence that Thomas Beatie was male when he married Nancy Beatie in 2003 in Hawaii.
He made headlines across the world as the “pregnant man” and appeared on magazine covers and was on several talk shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show.
