This intimate documentary centers on Alfred, aka Freddy, McConnell, a 30-year-old transgender man who makes the fateful decision to carry his own baby to term. In early interviews, he claims this is the most practical means to an end, yet viewers see for themselves that it’s not an easy path.

McConnell, who was born female before undergoing top surgery and hormone therapy as a young adult, kicks off fertility treatments by swapping out testosterone for folic acid. While there are physical changes as a result—he becomes visibly less muscled, and his skin takes on a softer look over time—director Jeanie Finlay places equal, if not even greater emphasis, on her subject’s emotional state. As McConnell’s body regains female characteristics, he becomes increasingly comfortable talking about his feelings, which leads to some raw and often insightful commentary. (When he starts having periods again, he bitterly calls it “emasculating.”)

Despite moments in which he can seem stuck in his own head, McConnell makes for a compelling figure. The process he undergoes is taxing in ways that a conventional pregnancy is not, and yet his commitment never wavers. His partner, CJ, who themselves is a transgender man, at one point laments that they can’t just have sex like a typical heteronormative couple. Instead, McConnell must test his ovulation levels daily so as to see whether it is the right time to inject himself with sperm, a routine that quickly becomes tedious.

But the film is never a pity party for too long. It spends considerable time exploring the relationships that provide McConnell with much-needed support, and that in turn, elevates the film into a touching portrait of familial love. CJ initially comes across as a pillar of emotional stability—although there are warning signs, beginning with their sticker shock over the cost of fertility clinic visits—until a twist pulls the rug out from under both McConnell’s and viewers’ feet.

That leaves McConnell leaning on his mother, Esme, who still lives in the conservative seaside town near Dover, England, where Freddie was raised, and who provides some of the film’s most genuinely heartwarming moments. Finlay gradually homes in on the fact that Esme had a difficult time as a young parent to Freddie, and so her story resonates with his in a unique way: both point out that there is no such thing as the ideal or perfect mother.

As a man experiencing pregnancy, McConnell comes to feel adrift between genders, and his sense of isolation becomes more pronounced over the course of the documentary, but this also engages our sympathies, especially in tense moments involving family friends or relatives, who try to either pigeonhole his condition as specifically “female” or compare their own prior pregnancies to his. In one such instance, the camera stays focused on McConnell’s face, which betrays his growing disconnectedness as a group of mothers discuss maternity wear that allowed them to still feel feminine.

Finlay always has empathy toward her subject, although there are moments in which she resists probing too deeply, lest she aggravate McConnell’s already stressed-out mood. She also frequently cuts to footage of different life forms that produce offspring through traditional sexual means, including the titular aquatic creature. Yet she never explains that male seahorses give birth. Perhaps Finlay was trying to avoid being too on the nose, but it’s a curious oversight.

Seahorse nevertheless succeeds off the strength of its brave, unconventional subject, as well as its message that anybody is fit for motherhood, regardless of gender.