Beatie is in Stockholm to talk about his experiences as a transgender male being pregnant with three children and giving birth to them naturally even though he is legally classified as a man.

“My family and I are very honored, humbled and excited to be invited out to Stockholm Pride this year. Sweden seems like an evolving and progressive country regarding human rights and civil liberties,” Thomas Beatie said to the Stockholm Pride website.

Undergoing a sex change operation in 2002, Beatie decided to retain his female reproductive organs in the hope of one day having a child after finding out his wife Nancy was infertile.

Beatie, a former model and beauty queen from Hawaii is now a proud dad of three, achieved through the insemination of donated sperm.

The organisers are hoping that Beatie’s speech will raise awareness of the important issue of transgender people’s rights. In Sweden transgender couples are not allowed to adopt and are forced undergo sterilization after a sex change operation, preventing them from ever having children.

“I hope that the choice of this opening speaker will result in a long wished-for push forward for trans people’s rights, and I am very proud to be able to welcome Thomas Beatie and his family,” said Stockholm Pride chairperson Pär Wiktorsson in a statement.

The opening of the 13th Stockholm Pride Festival, the biggest in Scandinavia, will take place in Kungsträdgården on Monday evening and the celebrations will last for a week with debates, seminars, parties and culminating in the popular parade that attracts thousands of people.