LGBT Couple Making History in Ecuador with a Unique Pregnancy [Details]

A couple in Ecuador has sparked attention because of their unique pregnancy.

Fernando Machado and Diane Rodriguez announced their pregnancy earlier this month on social media, Yahoo! News reported from the Associated Press. The pregnancy is considered as the first of its kind in South America -- the father-to-be is carrying the baby of his transgender partner.

Rodriguez, whose birth name was Luis, is deemed as one of Ecuador's most well-known LGBT activists, according to Yahoo! News. Rodriguez and her Venezuelan-born partner, who was born Maria, announced the pregnancy publicly to help change attitudes in the country's strictly Roman Catholic society.

The couple both take hormones, but they have never went through gender-reassignment surgery, the news outlet noted. Therefore, the child-to-be was conceived the old fashioned way with no known medical complications at present.

"We're trying to break the myths about transsexuality," Rodriguez told the Associated Press from her home in Guayaquil, as quoted by Yahoo! News. "The church is always criticizing gays and homosexuals for adopting children, so it would be a contradiction to criticize us for giving birth naturally."

Church leaders have not issued statements regarding the news, a fact that surprises and pleases Rodriguez, Yahoo! News noted.

The transgender community has built significant advances across South America. Six months ago, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos issued a decree permitting people to change their gender on the national ID cards easily through a public notary. Currently, at least 340 individuals have undergone the procedure. Argentina was farther along with a legislation assuring free hormone treatment and gender reassignment surgery, the news outlet reported.

However, transgender people still experience widespread discrimination in Argentina, Yahoo! News added. Between 2008 and 2011, 79 percent of the murders of transgender individuals reported globally occurred in Latin America, totaling at 664 cases, according to a study by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, or IHAA.

Tamara Adrian, Venezuela's first transgender lawmaker, aims to use her political position to revamp the country's "macho" culture, raise gender equality, and fight for the rights of its lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, TakePart reported.

"In Venezuela we don't have any rights," Adrian, 61, told Reuters this month. "There are some precarious and isolated rules on the issue of nondiscrimination and in the labor sector, but nothing more."

Adrian also said that one of her priorities is the legalization of same-sex marriage, Reuters noted. Marriage equality is one of the issues impinging on Venezuela's LGBT community, and transgender men and women are not allowed to seek legal name or gender changes. These legal blockades forced Adrian to campaign under the name listed on her birth certificate instead of the one she's been using for years.