Womb transplants for trans women are a human right, says surgeon

[QuietContraryMary]

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/transgender-women-should-entitled-womb-13972102

"Because once the medical community accept this as a treatment for cis-women with uterine infertility, such as congenital absence of a womb, then it would be illegal to deny a trans-female who has completed her transition.

"The most important step is the harvesting from the donor as great care is required to avoid damage to the arteries and veins supplying the uterus.
Trans females have a much narrower pelvis than cis-women of the same height, but there would still be room for them to carry a child.

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

Men can get as involved as they want in child rearing NOW. They don’t need implanted wombs to do that.

100% this. Funny how 'men getting involved' seems to have women having to do something as the first step - donate their uterus, express milk...

During last Pride a group of lesbians had a banner saying a lesbian is a female homosexual. And they were vilified. Across the board.

There was a bit more to it than that one banner.

The flyer they handed out was considered provocative propaganda by many, and in media reporting.

And a lot of people were very cross with them for pushing in at the front of the Pride parade in front of the intended NHS representation, and holding up the whole parade on a very hot day.

Not looking to derail, but there are readers here looking for context and ascribing the objections to that Pride protest to that one banner is misleading.

conatusnews.com/pride-london-lesbian-activism/

100% this. Funny how 'men getting involved' seems to have women having to do something as the first step - donate their uterus, express milk...

Yes. One example of Dh being highly involved is by bringing me a cuppa and taking them off downstairs at 6 am after a night feed marathon. (Baby is poorly). All I do is phone his phone (sleeping in the spare room to deal with any night wakings from eldest and to get a good night sleep as he works long hours) and that's the signal.

Leaving aside the ethical issues which are many and various.

There would be enormous difficulties connecting the implanted uterus to the bloody supply.

There would be enormous difficulties connecting the uterus to the nervous system.

The control of the hormonal situation that is constantly changing through the different trimesters is far more complex than simply giving someone a dose of oestrogen. I'm not an endocrinologist but it seems as if the role of oxytocin is not well understood on the Male body. So I'm going to guess that this surgeon doesn't know the role of oxytocin in the Male body either.

The implanted uterus would not be attached the the 'neovagina' and the 'neovagina' lacks the musculature of the vagina, so the person would require a section. Then there is the complication of the uterus being implanted into an anatomically Male body, with a different shaped pelvis.

And then you need to throw in the fact that the person will be taking immune suppressant drugs which are known to increase the chance of miscarriage (and how would the recipient know...they cannot bleed), premature or underweight babies.

Other than all of that, it's all good to go

ShihTzup
Flyers included for lurkers.
And complaining that a demonstration was disruptive is missing the point. A demonstration that did not disrupt anything would have been ineffective.
Also worth pointing out for lurkers that those women have been bullied, doxxed and threatened ever since then.

I haven't read all the posts but this is complete Sci Fi. They would have to implant the womb with an embryo already in it. Ivf doesn't have a very high success rate as it is, this would be traumatic and the miscarriage would need a c section to be removed. The experiment would be on embryos and transwomen which is unethical obviously but wouldn't be long term because they wouldnt be able to cope with it. Look at the trails for male contraception.

As for the suggestion that it's a way for men to have babies - men have always had babies, the baby isn't less theirs because they don't gestate it. Pregnancy is what women do.

Jazzbunny. Transwomen are men. Humans cannot change sex.

I'll never understand how people can state this with a straight face.

I've put two different flyers up sorry, this is the flip side of the left one

Are we purely our biology? Or are we a little more than just our plumbing?

I don't know.

Why don't you ask that question to Malala Yousafzai? Or the women who were raped by John Worboys? Or the American gymnasts? Or the woman who is 'made redundant' whilst on maternity leave. Or the woman who has her feet in stirrups having an abortion after being raped? Or the woman who is dying of ovarian cancer because the doctor told her she 'just needs to lose a bit of weight'? Or Savita Halappanavar (oh, apart from the fact that she totally unnecessarily died at the age of 31).

Ask them where they think biology comes into this and ask them if they think they might have had a different life if their biology was different.

And then come back here and tell women that 'biology doesn't matter'.

Forgive my ignorance here, but I thought that a site called 'mumsnet' (a) presumes that you have a child - which I do.
(b) is aimed at supporting mothers with their children (hence 'mum')
(c) isn't really supposed to be out feminism at all

Jazz

1. As pp have said, Mumsnet isn't just mums.
2. Why can't mums be feminists? Or should be only be talking about soft play?
3. Don't you think a site where there are lots of mums (and dads and aunts and uncles and grandparents and all sorts) might just be interested in what happens to the baby...!!?

How can a surgeon be this ignorant about a biological process? Its a complete fantasy based on ignorance.
A high percentage of natural implantations fail, one estimate states 20%.
There is no way for the imaginary fetus to exit a male body. The uterus couldn't contract as the correct hormones would not be present. A mans body wouldn't know if the fetus had died, and couldn't miscarry to expel the dead tissue.

God complex
Male entitlement
Narcissism
Commodification
Men's Rights
Fetishisation of being pregnant
False hope and expectations generated in young male transpeople.
Unethical
Utter disregard, understanding or care for the circumstances of infertile women

No mention of the well-being of a potential feotus or baby who would be detrimentally affected.

Its obsene.

Forgive my ignorance here, but I thought that a site called 'mumsnet' (a) presumes that you have a child - which I do.

If people took the time and effort to read, reflect and understand what was posted on the many different Mumsnet boards they would soon be disabused of pre-conceptions.

This board is called FWR chat. FWR means feminism and women's rights.

It could never be safe to implant a womb into a male and try and sustain a pregnancy. NEVER SAFE FOR THE EMBRYO

Women are chided for a puff of cigarette or eating blue cheese during pregnancy because of the tiny risks this poses to the developing foetus. Lots of drugs (for actual diseases like cancer) are off limits because of the risk to the foetus. So large doses of artificial hormones could never be deemed safe, we just couldn't ever know without experimenting on human embryos, which is what this would be. There could be longer term impacts like cancer. A huge experiment on a human embryo for nothing more than a man's ego trip / sexual gratification / vanity project. There is no need. Men can be parents. They can parent equally and be the primary carer.

I don't know about other women but I felt guilty if I took two paracetamol during my pregnancy - because I actually had some sense of responsibility toward the babies I was growing. What a difference in attitude. Anyone who would willingly do this isn't fit to be a parent.

The fact that people are even discussing this when people are dying from cancer is bloody depressing. Reality is what it is, oh and in other news people can't fly and we shouldn't spend millions of pounds trying to develop human wings because some people really, really, really, feel like / want to be seagulls.

The last 6 posts are why mumsnet FWR boards rock.

It's never going to happen.

I had to take a lot of paracetamol during pregnancy as I had several extremely high fevers at different points. I felt and do still feel so very guilty about that. There's a small link to lower fertility in boys if you take a lot I think. Fuck knows what the impact of the cocktail of drugs will do to a foetus in a mans body.

Expecting a rational understanding of the science might be expecting a little too much given that we are being expected to accept that people can change sex because some fish can do it. Forgetting that the fish are not even the same species or genus or family or order or class as us.

Next up, gill transplants.

How do they intend to implant the foetus? Not up through the cervix as the 'neovagina' is just a skin bag. At the time of implantation the uterus, because I very much doubt the foetus would survive? Later on via key hole surgery? And this at a time when IVF is being rationed. And if the person has a miscarriage, how would they know? One assumes they would have to have regular ultrasound to check? Because they cannot lose the pregnancy in the way that women can. And the foetus would have to be removed by c section. With all the risks that involves.

This is just crazy talk. Gills would be easier.

Would it be ethical to do this in animal studies?

What would be the point?

Zero.

Gill implants! Now there’s an idea. If we’re going to set off down the path of transhumanism, why can’t we start with actual cool things that would benefit both sexes, like gills? Or wings? (Think of the urban planning benefits of everyone having wings.)

I’ve always wanted to be able to breath under water.

Sorry to inject myself into the discussion but one thing that's bothering me about this issue is that we live in a world where a pregnant woman's bodily autonomy is still in question and debates rage on over abortion with women's rights being pitted against the rights of unborn foetuses. However, parts of society seem to be steaming on ahead intent on enabling males to unnaturally carry babies?? WTF is going on, where are the rights of the potential babies who would be effectively experimented on?

Also since when is it 'trans-female' to me that sounds like deliberate water muddying.

The woman that donated the uterus is as invisible as the surrogate mother.

It’s a back door path to making abortion illegal, isn’t it?

“Look at this poor (trans)woman, she has had to fight so hard for the right to carry a foetus and it’s still’s still not working out for her - now DARE you even consider wasting your womb-function, cisscum!”

It seems pretty clear to me that the surgeon, Christopher Inglefield, has made this statement purely as a way of promoting his own private practice, the London Transgender Clinic. I'm sure if you asked any NHS surgeon, they would say this is both unethical and impractical, in that even if you successfully transplanted a uterus into a man, it would be almost impossible for a biological male to carry a baby to term.

Even laying the obvious misogyny, lack of care about the foetus and all the other male supremacist stuff aside...

... in order to learn how to maintain a pregnancy in the hostile environment of a male body, we would need to learn how to replicate the hormonal/endocrine environment outside the female body in an artificial womb.

And if we learned that - which is light years away - there would be no need (AGP gratification aside) for men to do the pregnancy.