Next stop on the trans train: Figuring out a way to help former men achieve this

Next stop on the trans train: Figuring out a way to help former men achieve this

Being born with “junk” and declaring yourself a female is the easy part. Scientists are now working on the hard part: figuring out a way to enable “transitioning” biological men to get pregnant and give birth to a child.

According to an op-ed in Scientific American, Mats Brannstrom, a doctor at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, performed the first successful uterine transplant in a woman two years ago. He oversaw the successful birth of her child shortly after. Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic in the United States also performed one of the first successful uterine transplants in a 26-year-old infertile woman.

These transplants have transgender people asking their doctors if the surgeries can be performed on them, so they can carry and give birth to their own children. 

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“Ever since I was old enough to understand the concept of parenting, I wanted to be a mother,” Chastity Bowick, a transgender medical case manager, told StatNews. “I didn’t know how that would ever happen, but that’s what I wanted.”

Joshua Safer, an endocrinologist at Boston Medical Center, noted that some of his patients have asked about the possibility of transplants, according to Scientific American. Other doctors, like Cecile Unger at Cleveland Medical, have had small numbers of their transgender patients ask about it — they also ask if they should have the gender re-assignment surgery at the same time as the transplant.

The procedure is still experimental, even in women, and there are no definite answers as to whether a uterine transplants would work for a “woman” with reconstructed sex organs. Doctors cite major barriers for transgender women — namely, the right hormonal balance.

Marci Bowers, a gynecological surgeon, told Scientific American that one of her concerns is a potentially hostile environment for the fetus.

Giuliano Testa, a transplant surgeon at Baylor University Medical Center, also told Scientific American that though he would never perform that type of surgery, it is still a possibility to happen. “At the end of the day it is two arteries and two veins that are connected with fine surgical techniques.”

A professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University, Mark Sauer, told Scientific American, “A lot of this work [in women] is intended to go down that road but no one is talking about that.”

If there is very positive news right now for these pioneers in “gender reparation,” it is that, should they succeed in conceiving, the next step in parenting for liberated Americans — abortion — is one that science has down cold.

This report, by Amber Randall, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

LU Staff

LU Staff

Promoting and defending liberty, as defined by the nation’s founders, requires both facts and philosophical thought, transcending all elements of our culture, from partisan politics to social issues, the workings of government, and entertainment and off-duty interests. Liberty Unyielding is committed to bringing together voices that will fuel the flame of liberty, with a dialogue that is lively and informative.

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