NHS told: give trans patients equal access to fertility service

[miri1985]

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/04/nhs-trans-patients-equal-access-fertility-services

Anyone betting the EHRC don't take the same action to force the NHS to give women access to laser or electrolysis brought on by PCOS or menopause

The women who have been accepted into the UK womb transplant trial have had to pass strict criteria

"The women who will be selected for the trial must all meet criteria set out by Womb Transplant UK, which include being 38 or under, having a long-term partner and being a healthy weight.

More than 300 women have approached the team, of whom 104 meet the criteria."

I would doubt that transwomen would pass the established criteria

"The UK charity supporting research into womb transplantation is specifically founded to "enable women born without a womb , or who have lost their womb, to have a child"

I can imagine a possible future challenge to the charity!

How is there any such thing as a ‘surrogacy community’ when commercial surrogacy is illegal?

Surely surrogacy in the UK is mostly about private agreements between loved ones and has nothing to do with any sort of ‘community.’

Though it's hard for a woman to be approved now I imagine a lot could change in the 40-odd years till I'm 60, like the donor mentioned above. I guess I'll have to keep and eye on the situation.

Jamie - www.surrogacyuk.org/home

How is there any such thing as a ‘surrogacy community’ when commercial surrogacy is illegal?

Surely surrogacy in the UK is mostly about private agreements between loved ones and has nothing to do with any sort of ‘community.’

Commercial surrogacy is indeed illegal. Surrogacy in the UK is either via agencies like Surrogacy UK or via FB groups for independent altruistic matches - communities and meet ups. Commercial surrogacy is illegal so it's altruistic surrogacy with expenses only. They are private arrangements, but not necessarily between people who have been longstanding friends or family members.

women born without a womb

Which is pretty much how transwomen see themselves.

In that case contacting strangers for the purposes of obtaining a surrogate mother should be banned.

Women’s rights seem to be going backwards.

In that case contacting strangers for the purposes of obtaining a surrogate mother should be banned.

Surrogates contact IPs - not the other way around

IPs don't initiate contact with a surrogate

They are still contacting a stranger whether they initiate that contact or not.

How well regulated are altruistic agreements? Who monitors what’s seen as a ‘legimate expense?’

I’m absolutely against paid surrogacy of any kind. Altruistic surrogacy I’m not quite sure how I feel about it - it’s such a huge thing to do and I imagine it could be potentially open to abuse. Who monitors it?

bowl expenses are monitored by CAFCASS. They can and do ask to see proof of expenses paid and a breakdown of what's been claimed when assessing suitability for a parental order to be granted.

That's post birth. Up front there is limited regulation because UK law forbids it. It is illegal for a lawyer to be involved in any kind of surrogacy arrangement.

In the cases of host surrogacy where IVF is involved, cases in UK clinics have to be approved by the ethics committee for an embryo transfer to take place

However there's no doubt that greater regulation would offer significantly greater protection. So the answer to your question is 'not well regulated enough', because the law doesn't permit it. I think this is wrong and most surrogacy campaigners strongly advocate for greater regulation of UK surrogacy.

The outcome of this will simply be that fertility treatment for women will be cut further. There won't be any new treatment for anyone who is trans.

I note here that a sizeable percentage of activists encouraging this are also those who want Self ID and have no surgery and no need for fertility treatment.

This whole thing has more in common with restricting access to abortion than extending rights.

Interesting banana - thank you.

Bit of a catch22 in terms of regulation. I hadn't thought about that

R4 World at One have just had an interview about a call for all women to be able to freeze eggs from a certain age if childless.

They have said they plan to look in more depth at fetility and have asked for comments.

(I only caught the final couple of minutes)

It's a campaign by Prof Geeta Nargund at St George's

Apols for daily mail but haven't seen it picked up anywhere else on Google news

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6027481/IVF-expert-says-let-women-freeze-eggs-free-NHS-avert-fertility-crisis.html

This might be a slight de-rail but

No-one mentions sexual pleasure in all of this. From what I read, do correct me if I am wrong, puberty blockers result in sexual disfunction of the person taking them. That means if I am reading this right, that children are not only rendered infertile, but also deprived of a fulfilling sex life. Both outcomes imhop are abuses of power of those entrusted to oversee the child's welfare (Ie safeguarding, yet again)

Thought this old article from Juliet Jacques (part of a series on the Guardian website) was interesting:

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/dec/14/transgender-freezing-sperm

Seems to me that JJ has a realistic (and almost GC!) understanding of the difficulties of trans parenting.

(As an aside, does anyone know anything about Juliet? She seems to have been banned from twitter... I only looked her up because I’ve enjoyed this old blog and we share musical tastes!)

No-one mentions sexual pleasure in all of this. From what I read, do correct me if I am wrong, puberty blockers result in sexual disfunction of the person taking them. That means if I am reading this right, that children are not only rendered infertile, but also deprived of a fulfilling sex life. Both outcomes imhop are abuses of power of those entrusted to oversee the child's welfare (Ie safeguarding, yet again)

That's my understanding, too.

I wonder whether there's a certain squeamishness about thinking of an person's sexual pleasure while that person is still a child, so people avoid it.

After all, if you can disconnect from rational thought and embrace the cognitive dissonance that is trans ideology, I expect it appears equally reasonable to disconnect thoughts about the child from thoughts about their future sexual pleasure.

louise I agree with you. The NHS choices website talks of surgery creating ‘functioning’ penises and vaginas with ‘acceptable appearance’ but it sounds like what most people might expect by that description in terms of function- including sexual pleasure- is going to be extremely limited.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/treatment/#surgery

This thread is really worrying me.. about both people already in the queue for fertility treatments and for the children and young people being encouraged to affirm themselves by surgery and medicalisation at such young ages.

R0wan

I think GC feminists campaigning against this is a real mis-step. (I am a GC feminist.) trans people have as much right to maximise their chances of parenthood as anyone else (ie, in the current NHS, a complete lottery of a chance).

Fully support their rights to access this sort of treatment - not more than anyone else, but on the same basis as anyone else.

How the hell is the nhs meant to afford this?

Fertility treatment isn’t going to be available through the nhs for much longer at all, is it?

not more than anyone else, but on the same basis as anyone else.

but that is the issue. The current system of access isn’t consistent, it’s patchy and only a tiny fraction of say, women undergoing cancer treatment are able to access it properly.

For a pressure group to create voluntary sterility then demand higher levels of access than other groups is unethical.

This isn’t a case of ‘trans=no treatment’ - please dont soon it as that. it’s looking at what resources are available and why some groups or some postcodes get better treatment than others.

Treatment should be based on clinical need. Not postcode and not perceived worthiness.

Well they could just pay to do it privately like all the women who do it because they are worried that they won't find someone to have children with in time.