Imperial College Womb Transplant Survey Redux

[IAmDavidLewis]

Unless someone is pulling an elaborate prank, the womb transplant survey isn't a hoax. Judge for yourself at www.surveymonkey.com/r/SPKJKTB and drive.google.com/open?id=1PQuMJAkGc7jex5Kgr9EEvlIqkSmsbBGg

I saw the screenshot of the survey go past on Twitter at the end of last week. Meeting all of the criteria (on a Wednesday), I got in touch via the email address. I wasn't expecting to get a reply, but I did. It seems that Imperial College's vetting process is as robust as the average Labour Constituency Party's. Anyway, the email included a patient information sheet with such delights as:

"... gain a greater understanding of the desire, and therefore need, to perform womb transplantation as part of gender reassignment surgery" - whether a desire should automatically be turned into a need is debatable.

"It also assesses feelings of your current options to acquire motherhood..." - because women's life experiences are just trophies to be collected?

"... a cyclical regime would be given instead, to enable the recipient to experience periods." - well, I suppose spending that 20% difference in pay on tampons would only add to the experience.

"Immunosuppressive medications would need to be taken as long as the graft was in place, to reduce the risk of the body rejecting the transplanted womb. These would continue through pregnancy." - because risking the health of a baby is a-okay when you're feeling fully validated?

"... after the recipient has completed her family, the recipient will be advised to have the womb removed to minimise (cancer) risks." - yes, this is effectively surrogacy without the continued need for an uppity woman.

"You have been invited to participate because you are a male to female (M2F) transgender woman. You therefore have Absolute Uterine Factor Infertility (AUFI), a condition which affects one in 500 women of childbearing age. This may be congenital, such as in M2F transgender women..." - Umm, no. I'm male. Males can't have AUFI because we're... umm... MALE! Oh, and the cute infographic which equates trans women with women who have CAIS and MRKH is really interphobic. That it also puts me on an equal standing with women who've had a hysterectomy due to cancer is just insulting to women.

On similar lines, the included paper "Uterine transplantation in transgender women" incorrectly states that the protected characteristic of "gender reassignment" means that trans women cannot be subject to discrimination. On this falsehood, the authors then proceed to state that should womb transplantation "become an established treatment option for women with AUFI, UK and EU legislation would make it legally impermissible to refuse to perform UTx in transgender women solely because of their gender identity". Note the common trick of slipping seamlessly from the protected characteristic "gender reassignment" to the undefined term "gender identity" with no shame whatsoever.

After wading through all the BS, I did what any self-respecting, activist trans woman would do. I signed the consent form and sent it back, again not expecting a reply. And then I got the link to the SurveyMonkey survey (seriously, what is it with Woke Bros and SurveyMonkey? Could it be the lack of internal scrutiny? Nah, must just be coincidence).

To be continued...

I am so confused about the reason why people need to transition. On the other hand we are told that biological sex does not exist or is a spectrum and that gender identity is the really innate characteristic which should be honoured. That approach demands that women shut up about their bodies because bodies have nothing to do with being a woman.

Then we have this trend of implanting wombs in male bodies and supporting male breastfeeding.

YY nepeta. Also I think Jones et al say in the participant information for the Imperial study obtained by the OP @IAmDavidLewis that they intended to give MTF trans patients female hormones cyclically so that they can "experience periods" suggesting that this would be somehow desirable.

@Haworthia

How they can talk about men suffering from congenital Absolute Uterine Factor Infertility (AUFI) with a straight face baffles me.

Because they're batshit insane?

This makes me want to take my name off the organ donor register, the idea of my womb being implanted into a bloke after I'm dead makes me feel ill. (I suppose I could get around that by having a hysterectomy while I'm still alive, and then the rest of me could be made use of.) Either way, it's deeply disturbing, and it's disturbing that I'm thinking of ways to get around it, if it ever comes to this dystopian nightmare.

I believe it's been confirmed that the organ donor register doesn't currently cover donation of any part of the reproductive system, female or male. Long may this continue.

Here we are, over 7 billion humans on the planet and rising fast. We are overpopulated and this threatens not just our own species but all the others as well. Our own actions are causing climate change, which is another huge threat to life on Earth. Billions of our species don't have enough to eat. In poor countries children die from preventable diseases because they don't have enough to eat, they don't get vaccinated, they don't get good medical care.

Millions of women every year go through pregnancy and birth without decent medical care. As a consequence many mothers and babies die or are left with lifelong medical problems from preventable cause. Millions and millions of other women suffer from problems like endometriosis which are not well understood because they've never been a priority for research. Women reporting chronic pain and other problems don't get taken seriously and don't get effective treatment.

And here we have a group of 'scientists' deciding that this thought experiment of trying to make males pregnant is the most interesting topic they could work on. I despair.

Oh, and on the point of having a hysterectomy while you're alive to avoid any risk of your womb being taken after death - the author of that very interesting blog post says there are now believed to be risks to future health from hysterectomy that have only recently been recognised. She mentions cognitive decline, but I didn't follow that link.

She doesn't spell it out, but she would seem to be suggesting that doctors would do better to be researching better ways to treat the problems that lead to a hysterectomy at the moment - ways that leave the uterus in situ wherever possible. I don't find this difficult to accept. The body is so complex that there must be all kinds of unintended consequences when one part is removed.

I'd like to see our government or ideally the UN/WHO/some other worldwide body taking a lead here and putting a firm stop on the idea of womb transplants into male bodies. I'd actually ban them full stop. IIUC, human cloning is banned worldwide. This seems to me to be similar, ethically.

*What I meant there is I'd ban womb transplants into female bodies as well. I'm extremely sympathetic to women who have fertility problems, but this is a fertility intervention too far for me.

This is an update. Thank you for re-directing me here.

Uterus transplant is already a reality in the USA, Brazil and Sweden - 70 already carried out: apnews.com/article/b8c4a4da006bf965b6706dc7ac6962b4

Here in the UK Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust's "womb transplant" team: wombtransplantuk.org/uk-research-team has recently been seeking out "target patients". They asked 182 transsexual men via a questionnaire whether they would like a uterus and vagina, to which they replied: "Yes, please". See this January 2021 report: "Perceptions and Motivations for Uterus Transplant in Transgender Women" -jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2775302. There is a reason why this "market research" was done in the US.

I wrote to the "womb transplant team" with a simple question: "Do you think it is now time for a UK-Gov ethics committee to direct your research, similar to the Warnock Committee which led to the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority? The implications of your work are very troubling [gentle word] to many people. Please?" I have received no response. I have not bothered my MP (Labour) because he has shown no interest in any aspect of "trans".

It is currently illegal to offer biological men assisted reproductive techniques (IVF) under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008. See S33 (1) "The woman who is carrying or has carried a child as a result of the placing in her of an embryo or of sperm and eggs, and no other woman, is to be treated as the mother of the child". Also S 34 and the explanatory notes (www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/22/notes/division/6/1) The 2008 does not foresee the possibility of male pregnancy.

Gender dysphoria is a mental disorder (s25 of the GRA2004). The distinguishing traits of that disorder include (1) narcissism and (2) lack of empathy at the extreme end. I believe that transsexual men are the last people on Earth who should receive any transplanted organs - what the heck have they done with the organs which God gave them for procreation, viz penis and testicles?

I want a discussion of these legal and psychological/ethical issues. I do not want to wake up to find that a Minister has been persuaded by Stonewall or the Imperial surgeons to surreptitiously change a few words in the HFEA to permit the implantation of embryos into men. The GRA 2004 was passed without any discussion with women and without an Equality Impact Assessment - they didn't exist. Most women would have said "no" to a “new class” of women.

We need some deep and authoritative thinking about the issues in this rapidly developing field, please. I personally believe that only biological women who have been brought up and socialised to understand the lifetime responsibilities and selflessness of motherhood should be recipients of IVF embryos. There is another, as yet unchartered area: transplantation of a full set of uterus and functioning ovaries. Maybe this could also be technically possible one day. I'm sorry, but I would not be in favour for the reasons which I have explained.
Time for a Royal Commission?

I would be interested to know who is funding the Imperial college research and who was on the ethics board that reviewed it.

AdHominem: Not clear from either their website of the Charity Commission website.

I feel sick.
There is no mention of the baby in all this, is there.

I have little medical knowledge re the immunosuppressive drugs used at organ transplant. Do we know if they are contra indicated in pregnancy? Sorry for the thick question.

Nb I see in the link the following:
"immunosuppression-related risk of cancer following uterus transplant was described in the patient information leaflet, the risks were not described in detail and were not robustly characterized." So the respondents had a dose of the researcher not being totally clear about some part/s, I think?

Most things are contra-indicated in pregnancy, including coffee!

I came across a story of an XY woman (androgen insensitivity syndrome) who was given estrogen to "grow" her minute womb, and then IVF, which worked. This was hailed in the Mirror as the world's first "male" birth. But there was no uterus implantation, and her hormonal system was female in all other respects due to the early onset of her Disorder of Sexual Development. This is not relevant to fully developed men with GD.

I thought that the imperial college study was just feasibility, as in how many men want to have a uterus implant (not transplant).

Where women have had this done they have had the uterus removed after they have given birth and of course there would have been lots of babies who died in the attempts, prior to the few live births.

I will write to my MP but could do with some link - have you got anything on this @Scientistranswidow - to evidence all this?

I'm a bit behind on this.

thought that the imperial college study was just feasibility, as in how many men want to have a uterus implant (not transplant).

Yes it is, but they are claiming it would be possible, and that MTFs are simply another type of infertile woman just like women who have had a hysterectomy or congenitally have no uterus. See the links in David Lewis' google drive at the beginning of this thread for information about how they claim they would be able to do it. As pp point out, it's not as simple as they are making out but it makes the case that male bodies can be modified to be exactly like a woman's.

I wouldn't advise opening a Google drive link. I think it can be a pfishing tactic. They then have your Gmail address.

I am happy to vouch for the OP. I've met him, and he's on the level. Don't take my word for it necessarily if you are wary of google drive links, as you are right to be. But I wouldn't recommend if I thought it was dodgy.

@OhHolyJesus Thank you for asking me more about this. For information Dr Srdjan Saso, MRCS MRCOG DIPM PhD, is the surgeon and obstetrician (gynaecological oncology) at Queen Charlotte (maternity) Hospital, Hammersmith, part of Imperial group of hospitals, leading the research - www.imperial.ac.uk/people/srdjan.saso01. He is, I am sure, well protected by the usual medical fraternity vows of "see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil". They protect each other's back for fear that they may one day be attacked.

The problem is the lack of any moral pushback or even questioning due to (1) the small remit of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority - I would like to see it widened (2) the PR promoted by the NHS that GD is "not an illness" - while at the same time providing specialised Gender Identity Services (psychiatry, endocrinology and surgery) through 7 or 9 specialised UK hospitals. The GI psychiatrists at Imperial, for example, work at a clinic just off the Fulham Palace Road and (3) the Civil Services of UK and all OECD countries have been so emasculated and infantilised for years that they never presented any organisational resistance to an international "big business" "social" (of "Environmental Social Governance")/ trans agenda. See @MForstater @SexMattersOrg. The Civil Service even has its own internal Trans support group called "a:gender" @agendergovuk.
Digging into this concerted brain-washing is taking time, but it is happening. Graham Linehan (substack) is doing sterling work exposing the silencing of dissenting voices and the spread of trans influence by stealth which effectively neutralises opposition to gender identity ideology. You have to look widely and choose which areas to campaign in. LegalFeminist.org.uk is also doing excellent work.

@Scientistranswidow thank you for young detailed explanation.

Do you know anything about PET? I was previously convinced that this wasn't a real possibility. Now I'm not sure sure...

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act and Uterus Implants in males www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4186810-the-human-fertilisation-and-embryology-act-and-uterus-implants-in-males

Thank you for bringing PET to my attention, as I had not heard of it. I will keep watching.
Re "gender discrimination" - www.bionews.org.uk/page_155094 - publication of PET. This article is by a PhD student called Amarpreet Kaur (Indian) at the Dept of Sociology, University of Cambridge. NO, just no. I hope that he (it is he) gets bored by the gender woo woo and finds something else to do.

Bumping this because it's relevant to news stories today.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4544110-uterus-transplants?

This is Ben Jones' current clinical trial for which he's recruiting participants and for which (presumably) they'll be approaching women's families for womb donations after death.

clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04244409?

I'm absolutely confident that this can only be done for biological women and the inclusion criteria state "Female" which would be reassuring if he didn't have form for equivocating (as this thread indicates).

And, if there weren't people like India Willoughby who claim to have a cervix to the point of offering to show it on TV. If, as a society, we're colluding in immersive fictions, would an assertion that one had a cervix that had had to be removed for dysplasia (setting aside that it never was a cervix) be sufficient? If IW had a uterus transplant connected to the not-cervix in the appropriate anatomical position, could it now be asserted to be a cervix?

I should be absolutely confident that this is a straightforward clinical trial with wholly female participants (donors and recipients) but now I'm not.

Exclusion criteria number 7 'skin or intestinal neo vagina'. So rules some tw out. A minority, to be sure.

However disingenuous he would like to be, this criteria in particular excludes MTF trans people

Meet HFEA criteria for IVF

I wonder if this would not exclude FtM detransitioners unless they were excluded on the grounds of Previous multiple/significant surgeries and what the baseline for that would be?

As per the inclusion criteria FtM detransitioners might meet some of the requirements of HFEA if they now also met the psychological criteria for the trial.

I wouldn't be considering any of this if the researcher didn't have form for equivocation.

If you think that UCL would use survey monkey, if you think medical technology has advanced to the point of womb transplants creating babies and also use the phrase "woke" YABU

Dr Mengele lives.