Precious Brady-Davis was working at an LGBTQ youth center in Chicago when her future husband came strolling through the door.
“Myles [Brady-Davis] had just arrived from the West Coast. He was coming back from San Francisco after college, and he was looking to become immersed in the Chicago activism scene,” she tells Brittany Jones-Cooper, a reporter for Yahoo Life.
In the beginning, the communication between Precious and Myles was strictly professional. That is, until they received a little nudge from a good friend during a conference in Philadelphia.
“It was actually a setup. Janet Mock and I went to lunch, and Myles had previously plugged to her that he was interested in me,” she says.
Sparks flew that night, and the pair returned to Chicago as a couple. Precious is a transgender woman and Myles is transmasculine, and from early on Myles made it clear that he saw children in their future.
“He said, ‘I want to start a family with you. I specifically want to have your child,’” Precious says. “That to me was so beautifully touching, and for me to see a little version of us in the world and what our love represents — that was the deal maker right there.”
Starting their family would take patience. Precious, a communications manager, says there wasn’t a guidebook that she could follow or a lot of resources online. They relied on their community and support from queer friends who were parents.
After finding a good doctor, Precious and Myles both stopped taking the hormones that reinforce their gender identities. “This was a trial-by-error process,” says Precious. Both had days where they struggled with feeling comfortable. Precious says Myles was misgendered by nurse techs and admits that at times it felt daunting to work with service providers who “aren’t culturally competent.”
“I'm so glad that I had a partner who is trans, and through that process understood what I was feeling on the inside. It was not just a physical change, it was an emotional change,” says Precious.
After two years of IVF, Myles became pregnant. As his belly grew, Precious worried about his safety and offered to order him an Uber for his daily commute to work. Myles chose to proudly ride the bus. As a couple, they naturally navigated curious looks from strangers in the grocery store, but there were moments where the dangers of prejudice could be felt.
On the day of their baby shower, Myles went to a local H&M in Chicago to buy clothes. A store associate saw his bump and called the police, and Myles was accused of shoplifting. Back at home, Precious was prepping for their big day when she received a call from Myles.
“Someone just assuming because he’s a Black man and he has a bump that he was stealing. He was not. And this is on the day of our baby shower — handcuffed him and threw him to the ground,” she said. “And so I was just in fear that would happen to him, obviously, a moment of prejudice that he cannot even navigate shopping in a store, being pregnant and transmasculine.”
In December 2019, the couple welcomed their daughter, Zayn. Her birth was a first (known) for the state of Illinois, whose existing system would have misidentified Zayn’s parents on her birth certificate — listing Myles as her mother and Precious as her father. The couple enlisted the help of an LGBTQ advocacy group, which brought the issue to the state of Illinois to explain why it was important to accurately identify Myles as the father and Precious as the mother. State officials sided with the couple and issued a birth certificate that reflected the correct gender identities of Myles and Precious.
Precious says Zayn is calm, fierce and a lover of all things Sesame Street. “She is the light of our lives,” she added.
The new parents decided to document their journey to parenthood on a TLC special called My Pregnant Husband that airs on July 24. In 2016, Precious was the first transgender bride on TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress.
Precious and Myles are both activists who often find themselves in the public eye. However, they have decided to keep photos of their daughter off social media until she is older and can make that choice for herself. Though Precious is excited for people to get a small glimpse of Zayn on the show.
“She reminds me that there’s love in the world and that she doesn’t know what’s happening outside of the walls of our home,” says Precious. “I’m just happy she’s smiling and that she’s giggling and she’s laughing and she has little black girl joy.”
"My Pregnant Husband" premieres on July 24 at 10PM EST on TLC. You can get a first look in the clip below.
This story was originally written by Brittany Jones-Cooper for Yahoo Life.