organ transplant discussion on lbc right now

So basically the OP is indulging in ill informed scare mongering ?

No reproductive organs at all are taken from deceased donors in this country. Fact.

The closest thing you could donate would be the amniotic membrane after a c-section (out of curiosity, has anyone ever been asked?)

I had an elective caeserean. I don't remember being asked but it was 28 years' ago. What it and placenta is used for doesn't seem to be connected to assisted reproduction so I would have agreed if I had been asked.

So that paper is mainly looking at the young women undergoing hysterectomy as a source for women with MRKH syndrome. This is a DSD - patients are female and have missing vagina/uterus. So in that case it’s a female to female transplant.
The article also talks about how risky it is for the donor to have the hysterectomy-as-donor operation because of the need to keep as much of the ‘plumbing’ intact as possible. So it’s a much much more dangerous operation for the donor to have the uterus removed in a form that can be transplanted than it is to do a standard hysterectomy.

I dont have a huge issue with altruistic donation woman to woman but I do see this as setting a precedent somewhat and in that light yeah, disturbing.

You can altruistically bank cord blood cells - it goes into a communal bank. So you may notvise them but others could if they needed and it was a match.
Slightly different to banking your own child’s cells for own use but same process.

I’ve never heard of anyone donating a uterus. I know unusual placentas sometimes get used for research (have seen a fair few of those) but I assume that’s consented for at the time. After Alder Hey the rules got (rightly) very strict.

I am a woman. I need a kidney transplant! Please don’t let this stop you donating other organs or this woman may die and leave her children motherless

Bowl
'Could the female-to-male transgender population be donor candidates for uterus transplantation?'
Murat Api,1 Ayşen Boza,2,* and Mehmet Ceyhan3
Objective:
To evaluate the eligibility of female-to-male (FtM) transgender people as donor candidates with regard to histologic, surgical, and social aspects.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5780567/#s3title

www.organdonation.nhs.uk/about-donation/what-can-i-donate/tissue/

Are uteri routinely taken from donors? They aren't included on the list of organs. I can't find my donor card but I think I scribbled on it that no reproductive organs or tissue could be used but I'm not sure if they are used anyway.

Confirmed: not on the list. The closest thing you could donate would be the amniotic membrane after a c-section (out of curiosity, has anyone ever been asked?).

Private donation may be a thing, of course, istr there being a means by which you could donate umbilical cords? Too long ago for me to remember now.

My goodness ... I hadn’t seen that ROwan

Bowl wasn't there a Turkish (?) clinical trial that involved the uteri of young female born transmen having hysterectomies as part of their medical transition?

I think you’re both right actually.

Medically this isn’t happening. It’s just not. Our biology is not plug and play and no ethics committee on earth would take the risk with a foetus.

But it is very important to look at what the pressure to make it happen is and where it’s coming from.

It’s the same as the ATH manifesto where it starts going on about training themselves to do surgery on each other. It shows a laughable lack of knowledge on just how complex such surgery actually is but the take home message is that people feel entitled to this and will use threats and pressure to try to make it happen.

That sort of climate leads to ‘maverick’ (ie operating totally outside all ethic and legal framework) clinicians doing Very Bad Things.

I find it very disturbing on several levels.

Are uteri routinely taken from donors? They aren't included on the list of organs. I can't find my donor card but I think I scribbled on it that no reproductive organs or tissue could be used but I'm not sure if they are used anyway.

Fair enough. (Ben sounds pretty annoying btw). But I think the main point is that it is not possible, for the simple reason that only the female sex can gestate. As I said before, trans women are welcome to give it a go (I doubt many will volunteer) but I am certain it will fail. It matters not how many articles Ben has written about how it's literal violence to misgender a patient, but that will not give a male body the magic ability to accept a womb and the brain to regulate the hormone level so as to allow a baby to develop.

NHS England and NHS Scotland
Analysis of public consultation on
proposed service specifications for
specialised Gender Identity Services
for Adults (published earlier this year)

See executive summary for weight given to organisations: GIRES, NUS & Action for Trans Health.

www.engage.england.nhs.uk/survey/gender-identity-services-for-adults/user_uploads/report-independent-analysis-consultation-responses-gender-identity-service-specifications.pdf

OK, but remember that a sociologist researching it has absolutely no bearing on whether it will happen in the medical field.

This will likely be my last riposte, I promise. I don't want to derail anything or get into an argument, merely explain my thinking.

I am 100% sure there is a desire by some in the trans activist community for males to be able to become pregnant.

Additionally I just wanted to point out that actually these activists groups do lobby clinicians, and they have influence. Sociology should not be discounted.

Let's consider this example (which is in no way actually connected to the uterine transplants question, but merely illustrative of the social sciences connection)

The book:

Transgender Health: A Practitioner's Guide to Binary and Non-Binary Trans Patient Care

This is aimed at health practitioners (medics)

It's written by Ben Vincent, PhD

This is Dr Ben Vincent's background:
Ben Vincent (pronouns: they/them) has a bachelor's degree in Biological Natural Sciences specialising in Genetics (2006-2009), and an MPhil in Multi-Disciplinary Gender Studies (2010-2011), both from the University of Cambridge. Their PhD was titled 'Non-Binary Gender Identity Negotiations: Interactions with Queer Communities and Medical Practice', (2013-2016) at the University of Leeds. They joined the University of York in September 2017 as Associate Lecturer, and convene the 2nd year Sociology module 'Gender, Sexuality, and Inequalities'.
Ben is a member of the British Sociological Association (BSA), the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), and a trustee of the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES). Their first book 'Transgender Health: Best Practice in Binary and Non-Binary Trans Healthcare' will be published in 2018.

www.york.ac.uk/sociology/our-staff/academic/ben-vincent/

WPATH and GIRES are influential in shaping medical policy around trans issues in the UK. This is why I personally do seriously consider what sociologists are saying and keep them in mind.

But again, I think we will agree to disagree. I respect your opinion.

OK, but remember that a sociologist researching it has absolutely no bearing on whether it will happen in the medical field. Doctors don't tend to pay a lot of heed to what sociologists think.
And Paris Lees is exceptionally feeble-minded and that tweet just proves it. Maybe Paris can volunteer to have her stomach sliced open and a muscular sac from another person implanted into her abdominal cavity and attached to some random intestine or something. Doubt Paris will be so keen to be the first pregnant transwoman somehow....

People research all sort of weird shit and get funded for it, especially in humanities and social sciences. Hines and co will write some articles that few people beyond academia will read, maybe do a few blog-posts, but it's such an enormous leap to think that this will in any way turn into the NHS giving womb transplants to men.

I sincerely, honestly, truly hope you are right.
But we live in a world where male genitalia is written about in national newspapers like it's on a woman. Where a woman who took her underage child to Thailand for a permanent surgical procedure (illegal in the UK) is celebrated as a heroine. Where we are genuinely debating what a "female" is legally.
So when we have tweets like this from prominent TRAs, and groups that are researching this, I am going to pay attention now. Even if it means it's another layer of tin foil on my hat.

These ideas may be outlandish. They may never happen.

They basically can't happen. They're about as likely to happen as brain transplants.
Actually, maybe they should be performed as a one-off just to shut the TRAs up. They will 100% result in the male body rejecting the organ and will lead to serious medical risks like sepsis. There is no way on earth that they could ever sustain a human life. How the frick would a male body be able to deliver the nutrients and create the conditions needed to grow a baby? How would you even implant the embryo? Totally impossible, no matter how badly they want them.

Yeah but heresy nobody is researching/performing actual uterine implants in males and no funding will be given for it. I am pretty confident that the opinions of a halfwit sociologist (even if she is a professor) and her mates will not carry any sway whatsoever in the scientific community.
People research all sort of weird shit and get funded for it, especially in humanities and social sciences. Hines and co will write some articles that few people beyond academia will read, maybe do a few blog-posts, but it's such an enormous leap to think that this will in any way turn into the NHS giving womb transplants to men.

No one is going to start implanting uteruses into transwomen, no matter loud they shout or how much they believe/want it.

Whatever the reason people have to opt out, it's not really anyone else's business but if it's for that reason, they might need a head wobble.

That refers to freezing of sperm and ova. It's a bit of a leap to where the OP has gone.

The principle sought is parity with those diagnosed with cancer.

That refers to freezing of sperm and ova. It's a bit of a leap to where the OP has gone.

Sure. We shouldn't get too far ahead of ourselves, because this is what the trans activists mean for now. However, again we should keep an eye on potential things that could be coming down the pipeline.

PeakPants
I agree with you on principle, but they appear very supportive of this other researcher and the idea of uterine transplants for males on that social media thread. They are people in academia, with the cultural clout that entails and they are given funding. Might this all just end up as a journal article and never get anywhere? Sure. But I think it's a little foolish to dismiss people in the social sciences on the trans question - they seem to be driving much of this ideology and changes in policy.
We would do very well to remember when everyone was saying Danielle Muscato was a troll, and now we've got Alex Drummond - a "lesbian" backed up by Stonewall....
These ideas may be outlandish. They may never happen. But I've learned we need to at least consider as serious statements of intent. Quite frankly, I bet many years ago we would have thought hormone blockers/cross-sex hormones/operations for under-18s would never be a thing, either.

See current thread discussing lobbying & threat to sue NHS if trangender people are not granted parity of fertility treatment available (in principle) to cancer patients:

That refers to freezing of sperm and ova. It's a bit of a leap to where the OP has gone.

I have seen Sally Hines (the principal investigator) on twitter and she doesn't seem terribly bright (evidenced partly by her obvious confusion between the words principal and principle but more so about her comments on 'TERFs')

Professor Sally Hines (University of Leeds) was one of the signatories in the open letter in support of Bristol student Nic Shall:

(extract)
"As feminist scholars, we are writing to express our concern at the news that disciplinary procedures have been initiated against a PhD student who petitioned against a discriminatory event associated with the University of Bristol.

The student, Nic Shall, wrote a petition opposing an event organised by the anti-trans campaign group “A Woman’s Place”. Shall has been accused by the Vice Chancellor’s office of writing a letter containing false information, attempting to suppress the free speech of fellow students, and bringing the university into disrepute. They have been threatened with expulsion.

We believe that the disciplinary action against Shall represents an attack on the democratic right to free expression, and that it is this action that brings the University of Bristol into disrepute. The student in question is, in effect, being threatened with expulsion for writing a petition. If the University of Bristol is to uphold the principle of free speech and encourage political debate, then students and staff must be afforded the right to openly express their principled opposition to bigotry and discrimination. (continues)

openletterbristol.wordpress.com/

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3259500-Trans-Student-Faces-Expulsion-from-Univeristy-of-Bristol?pg=2

See also Professor Kathleen Stock's comments:
twitter.com/docstockk/status/1012588116601901057