PHOENIX >> A transgender man in Arizona who was accused of stalking his estranged wife last year pleaded guilty to one count of disorderly conduct Tuesday.

Thomas Trace Beatie, formerly Tracy Lehuanani Lagondino in Hawaii, had a change of plea hearing in Maricopa County Superior Court and now is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 16 on the misdemeanor.

He pleaded not guilty last December to one count of stalking, and the case was getting close to going to trial.

Phoenix police said after Beatie was arrested that the victim found a GPS tracking device under her car in September 2014 and reported it to authorities. Charging documents identified the victim as Beatie’s spouse.

Police investigators said Beatie admitted to installing the tracking device in 2012 and monitoring it though an online account.

Beatie said Tuesday that “the car in question was joint marital property” and he “might have placed a GPS device on my own car” to protect the welfare of his children from “a woman who threatened to leave the state with my kids.”

Beatie, 41, was born female, but he began testing to determine his psychological gender in 1997. He underwent the first of his gender-reassignment surgeries in 2001.

Under Hawaiian law, he was able to have his birth certificate amended and be legally recognized as male. 

Beatie married his partner Nancy in early 2003 in Honolulu and became pregnant because Nancy was unable to have children. Thomas Beatie conceived with donated sperm and gave birth to children who are now 4, 3 and 2 years old. The couple eventually moved to Arizona.

He then hit the talk-show and tabloid circuit as the “The Pregnant Man.” 

“During pregnancy, I was and still am fully legally male,” Beatie said in an email Tuesday. “I am fully transitioned.”