Womb transplants for TW 'possible'.

[MouthBreathingRage]

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/transgender-woman-should-allowed-womb-22270768

It feels a bit... Frankenstein's Monster type science. Surely this is unethical at best? Will women be given the option to 'opt out' of donation to a science experiment?

[TwoTribes]

Yes you can opt out. I have.

[MashedPotatoBrainz]

Surely it goes beyond just having a womb. They can't replicate the entire female biology can they? Or are we just shells where the womb operates independently from everything else?

[SarahTancredi]

I dont know how drs can say its identicalnamd should be possible. The female body undergoes so many changes in pregnancy and our bodies are geared up for it in ways a male.body isnt and not just through a lack.of a uterus. What about the pelvis. They are different shapes and ours are geared up to adjust in pregnancy the hormones relax the joints.

Men have bigger lungs so wheres the space going to be when the pregnancy progresses.

What will happen when the uterus isnt able to expel the baby when premature labour or miscarriage occurs?

Can you really artificially re create this.

I will be opting out. I'm.happy for my uterus to go to biological women . But not for male validation

[AgnesNaismith]

I want to opt out but would happily donate any other organ...is that possible or do you have to opt out of the whole lot?

[Winesalot]

I look at this in the same way I look at the transwomen who take massive drugs to lactate enough to breast feed.

It is milk that a) must be conveying these drugs directly to the baby and how is that healthy. b) been proven to have less nutrition than milk from a female so that these babies are not getting full nutrition c) has invoked transwomen to profess arousal during breast feeding because their nipple is being suckled (and isn't that what all women feel?? And it must be a very erotic act feeding your child so it is now another thing transwomen are being excluded from).

So, how will the male body 'switch on' and monitor all the processes to maintain this life without a substantial drug regime? And like the growing number of surrogate children that are coming out and saying, 'I feel like I was created in a transaction to satisfy someone's demand for a child', how does the child's future mental health feature in all of this?

[PurpleHoodie]

I'm currently on the list.

I decided last year to opt out. Just need to get round to doing the admin.

[Michelleoftheresistance]

Er… the immense fuss and control over what necessary medications women are allowed to take in pregnancy in case of harming the baby?

Compared to the intense high dose medications and medical interventions that would be needed to try and get a foetus to full term in a male body? How does that work? How many foetuses get experimented on to achieve this and die in the process - what ethics are around that? Who's looking at whether the drug/medical interventions needed is ethical in impact on the child being created?

And ethically do we create humans just to see if it's possible?

It's all a bit pie in the sky really but there's one hell of a lot of ethical barriers to this, because the child's interests should be at the centre of it, and the priority for all adults involved.

[LemonadeAndDaisyChains]

Wonder how that would work?
OK, the article says the "plumbing in" would be fairly straight forward, but surely a trans woman's hips and body frame would be different to that of a biological woman's?
I doubt the carrying of a baby and pregnancy itself would be straightforward.
What about all the hormones that come along with pregnancy?
Interesting concept but can't see it working myself.

[notheragain4]

Of all the medical advancements we need to make, it frustrates me that talent and resource is being wasted being channelled into this.

[merrymouse]

Christopher Inglefield is a plastic surgeon and he is spinning a yarn.

It isn't yet possible to successfully create a vagina or a penis, so why he would suggest that it is possible to create an entire reproductive system is anyone's guess.

Perhaps he means that he could transplant a womb into a body and it wouldn't be rejected, but that is not the same as transplanting a womb into a body that can support a pregnancy.

Supplemental hormones could be taken to replicate the changes that occur in the body when a woman is pregnant.

Yeah right.

If science had advanced this far, any woman with a womb would be able to have a baby, IVF would never fail and infertility would be a thing of the past.

[SarahTancredi]

Of all the medical advancements we need to make, it frustrates me that talent and resource is being wasted being channelled into this

Yes we cant even re implant ectopic pregnancies yet. Women of colour are still 5 times more likely to die in child birth.

Of course men having a baby is more important to work on

[Michelleoftheresistance]

Having had the appalling experience of a baby die inside me, I wonder if ethics are also considering the life affecting impact on the TW, as those experimented on are likely to experience this over and over and over again as processes are developed.

Trust me, that one never leaves you.

[Parkandride]

@Michelleoftheresistance

Er… the immense fuss and control over what necessary medications women are allowed to take in pregnancy in case of harming the baby?

Compared to the intense high dose medications and medical interventions that would be needed to try and get a foetus to full term in a male body? How does that work? How many foetuses get experimented on to achieve this and die in the process - what ethics are around that? Who's looking at whether the drug/medical interventions needed is ethical in impact on the child being created?

And ethically do we create humans just to see if it's possible?

It's all a bit pie in the sky really but there's one hell of a lot of ethical barriers to this, because the child's interests should be at the centre of it, and the priority for all adults involved.

Yup, the misery that pregnant women go through as there isn't the evidence available to prove most medications are safe - yet this is ok?

I am hugely pro scientific progress but cannot see how this would be ethical

[nauticant]

It's a brainwashing trick. It is to get out there the idea that a womb transplant is "theoretically possible" (at some undefined future point) in order to spread acceptance of the view that women's biology isn't exclusive to women.

People pushing this have no interest in thinking about the likelihood and the timetable of womb transplants. They're not interested if it were to turn out not to be possible. They have the single goal of de-sexing women's bodies.

[Xanthangum]

This advert is 50 years old. How transphobic.

[Milotic]

My biologist friend says it wont work for carrying a child.

Theyll essentially be walking round with a dead womans womb. And that wont get around millions of years of evolution.

[bogoblin]

@Michelleoftheresistance I'd thought of the immunosuppressant drugs you'd surely need but yes absolutely this - it says to consult your GP/whoever if you want to take so much as an antihistamine during pregnancy! Never mind all the other stuff you'd need to take.

I've just been doing a bit of googling surrounding the organ donation thing and the organ donation NHS website does say they will speak to the family in case of organ donation. I will be making it very clear to mine that I don't want my womb donated. Corneas, heart, lungs, whatever, fine, but the womb just makes me feel a bit weird

[Kantastic]

It's ridiculous. I assume whatever researcher is saying it's possible has his eye on some lucrative pot of resarch funding.

But I think it's not all bad. No man (or transwoman) will ever carry a baby to term, but hopefully whatever lucrative pot of research funding is in question will go towards improving the scientific understanding of pregnancy, which is as poorly understood as every other aspect of female biology.

Female infertility would be cured completely before male pregnancy became even close to possible. And all the complications and dangers of pregnancy would be much better understood. They might end up saving womens' lives, though I'm sure they don't care about that.

[MrsBodger]

I have read this before so not sure why it’s in the Mirror now. Suffice to say Mr Inglefield’s area of expertise is in cosmetic surgery, so he does ‘top’ surgery and facial feminisation/
masculinisation for trans patients. Personally I’d recommend any transwoman wanting to get pregnant speak to a medical professional who actually specialises in pregnancy.

[PuppyLove2000]

“Just looking at the potential number of trans females who might seek uterine transplantation surgery and it’s abundantly clear it could become a vital medical service." How the fuck is this vital when actual women I know are miscarrying babies or unable to have IVF. No Stan, you can't have my womb.

[SarahTancredi]

And if men can have babies then where would that leave maternity leave etc it would surely give companies a greenlight to discrimination against women if men started having babies

[Crosswithlifeatm]

How would this work?
As a menopausal woman I take hrt.Because I have a uterus I take progesterone to prevent my uterine lining building up.If men take progesterone it has an antifeminising effect but they would need to take it if they had a uterus.
Just sustaining a uterus in a Man is fraught with danger to that individuals health.
Also if it is possible surely women should benefit first as they at least have the hormonal pathways to sustain it .

[feelingverylazytoday]

The process of pregnancy and childbirth is not just confined to the uterus, or even just the reproductive organs, it seems to involve or affect the whole body. Scientists are still discovering new information about pregnancy. The female body is 'designed' to carry and nurture the foetus, the male body is not. Transplanting a uterus into a male body will not overcome this.

[Xanthangum]

(Arrg. Anyway, I have asked to remove the double post)

Incidentally, when I was looking for that picture Google helpfully suggested I was looking for 'Can Men Get Pregnant?'

... which led to this helpful website: www.healthline.com/health/transgender/can-men-get-pregnant

Two bits to compare from that page - at the top:

"Yes, it’s possible for men to become pregnant and give birth to children of their own. In fact, it’s probably a lot more common than you might think."

And then, further down: "If you no longer have or were not born with a uterus:
To our knowledge, there has not yet been a case of pregnancy in an AMAB individual. However, advances in reproductive technology could make this a possibility in the near future for folks who have had hysterectomies and those who were not born with ovaries or a uterus."

Which of those two is a young person (who may not be acquainted with terms like AMAB) going to understand?

[ThinEndoftheWedge]

Remember many TW are fathers.

Children don’t count.