Pitts Children’s Hospital looking into transplant of vagina/uterus from live donors

[RichardBarrister]

The Gender and Sexual Development programme at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh has been researching and presenting on transplant of female reproductive organs such as vagina and uterus from live donors into tw.

The ‘study’ carried out asked 182 tw if they would like to have female body parts transplanted so that they could experience menstruation, pregnancy and child birth. 94% of respondents said yes.

I know this has been discussed as a desire in various forums for some time but seeing a Children’s Hospital that also treats gender dysphoric children with puberty blockers and x sex hormones was still a surprise.

Apart from the fact that it seems medically impossible when you consider the complexities of a female body and how brilliantly designed we are, does this sound rather concerning when a hospital that also treats vulnerable young girls is looking to source organs and carry out transplants?

What do the donors do without a vagina?
An ovary transplant would also be necessary as this is involved in menstruating but how would you make ovaries function in a male body?

Modern science is still a long way behind on women’s health and understanding of our bodies - how do they think they know enough to replicate our reproductive capability in a male body?

I've told dh that he's to allow any of my organs to be used after I die, EXCEPT for my reproductive organs. My uterus, ovaries and anything else connected to reproduction go to the grave with me. Even woman-to-woman uterus transplants are unethical IMO, let alone implanting one in a man.

Tweets with a speech from Alicyn Simpson.

twitter.com/MegEBrock/status/1613662887305777152?t=Fj8FNCHKnWFZsZ5Z48yfXw&s=19

twitter.com/MegEBrock/status/1613662954150313984?t=zK0zqJ0kn7Ok7kTjRHe_1A&s=19

So 94% of survey respondents in this study said they would like to have female body parts so that they could experience menstruation, pregnancy and child birth.

Happy to be corrected, but if I understood the articles about donor transplant from female to female, it looks to have been the uterus only that was transplanted, and purely with the intention of permitting the recipient to give birth. And pregnancy was achieved via IVF, with the uterus being removed as quickly as possible after birth. So definitely not to give those women a menstrual cycle?

Am I the only one who thinks that after a couple of menstrual cycles we'd see a huge drop from 94%? You know, after the novelty wore off?

I remember back in the 1970s a rather pompous headmaster who was a friend of my parents used to say that if women and men alternated having babies no family would have more than three children. Probably right.

This is a common conversation topic among gender diverse young people. The first time I heard a young woman saying she wished she could give a young man her breasts.

Agree.

There is a kind of male who sees any attention or special consideration women get around periods and pregnancy as a privilege. They resent that they can't have this perceived privilege. They lack the ability to empathise with women or the inclination to listen to women's actual experience.

Self ID welcomes these misogynists if they decide to identify as women.

Same. I'm not taking the chance that in future (this future has apparently now arrived hence OP) my reproductive parts will be left alone. Mine are past their use by date and I still dont trust that they wont be used for something as unethical as this. Even if they just want samples for testing for the likes of this, it's a no from me. I will have no part in Frankenstein experiments that I massively disagree with. Ftr I'd be set against another woman getting my reproductive parts too for different reasons.

I'm also dead against being opted in but had done nothing about that. So two birds, one stone.

That is horrific.

Yes. This.. Thank you Nauticant.

I'm not surprised to hear this, but what an indictment of these young people's grasp of how bodies work. The cosmetic surgery industry allied with all the filters on social media have really done a number on their grasp of what's normal and what bodies really look like, especially after surgery. Surgery has been pushed as a perfectly normal, routine thing to do but there's nothing like as much attention paid to the cases where it goes wrong or where it was never going to go right, because it's all just too difficult (e.g. phalloplasty).

This needs posting on every page. I wish we could pin posts to the top of pages!

And yes. This is animal cruelty.

Just like gestating a lamb in a bag is animal cruelty.

The vulnerable people who would offer up their bodies to these types of experiments are exactly the kind of young people who believe, not just pretend, when someone who claims they are the opposite sex.

This.

That's the film I was thinking of, couldn't remember the title.

Lmao. So “cis” women can’t talk about our periods and uteri and vaginas because it’s transphobic and NOT ALL WOMEN HAVE PERIODS/BIOESSENTIALIST/GENITAL OBSESSED but 94% of TW want vaginas/uteri? I thought vaginas didn’t define womanhood!

Wtf how is this a thing

This

I cannot have children because I was born with a congenital abnormailtiy of the uterus. But apparently I'm not brave and stunning enough to get the option of a uterus transplant

I mean I wouldn't go for it because transplant surgery is a massive deal and for some reason I feel a bit wierd about the thought of having someone's uterus transplanted just to have children rather than say a heart or a lung to stay alive, in a way that I just can't articulate fully, but that's me personally.

But still it would be nice to be first in the queue for body parts that are actually designed for my body

They’re as mad as a box of frogs. They’ve even got the Gender Unicorn linked. www.chp.edu/our-services/aya-medicine/gender-development/resources

Apart from the very idea of harvesting female reproductive systems for the purpose of implanting them into men-with-identities being wholly unethical, my main feeling about this is

how very fucking grotesque.

Is it mean to suggest that I suspect that most trans women would experience exactly 1 proper period before deciding not to bother...

I'm at the particularly annoying period is imminent stage of my cycle, my boobs are sore, I have cramps and am basically waiting for the joys of hand washing stuff in cold water and potential leakage fun.

Being a woman doesn't define who I am, but my period definitely affects my moods!

Where are they going to get the blood glue from to supply these organs and the hormones to sustain it??

I just watched a TikTok with men and women both trying a period pain simulator.

I don't think any of the men would have been queuing up for a uterus afterwards. And that's without the blood and expense.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6121040/

Journal of Law and Biosciences

…Transgender women may seek UTx as a way of expressing and consolidating both a maternal and feminine identity, namely a parental identity that aligns with gender identity and thus in this context, uterus transplantation has the potential to realign reproductive capacity. Again, the question here is not necessarily one of having children; transindividuals may already be parents and have had children prior and post to any gender affirming treatment, depending on what type of surgeries and hormonal therapies they may have chosen, if any. The question is one of securing an experience imagined as important to one's (gender) identity and hoped-for parental bonds and whether this is enough to impose a public duty, correlative to an individual right to uterus transplantation. …

😳
I’m going to dig a bunker in my garden and live in it with my family until the world is safe to emerge.

Ah but they aren't the menfolk pretending not to be the menfolk.

Simultaneously the most oppressed yet most powerful minority group of all time.

The word "imagined" leaps out at me from that. If I imagine I'm black, please can I be entitled to be on any shortlist reserved specifically to BIPOC people? I can put dark make up on if it helps.