Transgender women could carry children ‘within 10 years’
For many trans women, having reassignment surgery is the biggest step towards the body they should have been born with. It’s not yet possible, though, for a trans woman to become pregnant and carry her own child.
But speaking to Yahoo! about the likelihood of female-to-male womb transplants, a leading fertility doctor estimates it could be “5 or 10 years away, maybe sooner”.
Dr. Karine Chung, director of the fertility preservation program at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, listed some of the challenges already solved when it comes to helping someone born a biological male become pregnant. Hormone therapy can prepare the body for pregnancy, creating essential hormones like progesterone and testosterone. Arteries can be construed to supply the uterus with blood and alternate ligaments to those found in biological women can be used to support it.
Still, given a successful transplant, an expectant mother would have to take anti-rejection drugs throughout the pregnancy to ensure her body doesn’t reject the foetus, but as Yahoo notes: “for many [trans women] the risk is worth the reward”.
The biggest obstacle after a transplant would be implanting an in-vitro grown embryo to the new womb. Usually done via the natural cervix, it would likely require the surgically constructed vagina to be connected to the uterus – something that has never been attempted but which according to some plastic surgeons “is theoretically not a major surgical feat”.
It’s difficult to speculate whether or not the NHS might offer such a transplant to trans women, but given the high financial cost of transplant surgeries it’s likely the procedure would be limited to private clinics.
It’s early days for procedures like this, with only 9 cisgendered women having been given the surgery and only three births so far.
Words by Connor Young
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