Trans men can still have children of their own after years of taking testosterone. Scientists in the lab have prepared their eggs for fertilization
Until recently, the issues of human reproduction seemed relatively clear. A man impregnates a woman, or a fetus is formed in a woman's body through the penetration of a sperm into an egg. Although this relatively simple equation has been complicated to some extent by the fact that infertility is on the rise in the population, science has an answer to that too. An egg can fertilise artificially. Despite this laboratory intervention, however, it has generally always been the case that eggs are produced by the female reproductive organs and sperm by the male ones - and the fetus itself then develops in the woman's womb (the subject of so-called surrogacy, where the child is carried by a surrogate mother, would then be worth a separate text). So when information about pregnant trans men appeared, voices began to be raised that such a thing is against nature. But the condition for this atypical pregnancy was the preservation of the female reproductive organs and the withdrawal of hormone treatment in the form of testosterone administration so that the ovaries would come back to life. But now it seems that trans men might have another option to produce their own children.
How testosterone turns women into men
One of the key components of transition is testosterone therapy - this leads to a body that had feminine characteristics beginning to change into a visually masculine body. A man's voice starts to change, body proportions change, he starts to grow a beard, etc. Of course, part of hormone therapy is then the effect on the female reproductive organs, resulting in so-called anovulation and amenorrhoea, a condition where the ovaries stop releasing eggs and the menstrual cycle stops. If testosterone administration is stopped (or discontinued), then these effects can be reversed - but this is not always the rule. In practical terms, this means that trans men desiring children of their own should ideally prefer to rely on collecting their own eggs before transition (but this is essentially unrealistic if transition is initiated at puberty, or before the individual begins to ovulate). But new research is now showing that the rules of the game may be different. That is, if sterilisation, which is no longer required for formal sex change in almost all of Europe, but which the Czech Republic still insists on, does not take place during transition.
The ovaries can generally be described as a kind of reservoir of thousands of underdeveloped eggs, with one maturing each month and being released from the ovaries to potentially fertilise sperm and create an embryo. This is a process that occurs quite naturally in a woman's healthy body. In the case of trans men, however, the situation is different - i.e. it corresponds to the condition already described above. If trans men do not undergo sterilization, their ovaries are in a kind of stand by mode. Those trans men (and they can be counted indeed in units) who have so far become pregnant and thus filled the headlines, then had to "revive" their ovaries again precisely by discontinuing testosterone therapy - and started taking estrogen as well (which is a rather demanding process for the body, not to mention the need for sufficient time). But according to the scientists, there is another way - they have managed to remove eggs from the "dormant" ovaries of trans men and prepare them for fertilization in purely laboratory conditions.
The research team of reproductive biologist Evelyn Telfer from the University of Edinburgh has therefore concluded that it is possible to obtain viable eggs from trans men even after years of testosterone therapy, which otherwise inhibits ovulation. In practical terms, this would then mean that trans men desiring children could avoid the often unpleasant medical care and treatment based on the administration of female hormones, which can be not only physically but also mentally very challenging. "It's really exciting and very important work - and it's going to be a very important advance that will potentially help a lot of people," commented Samir Babayev, a reproductive endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic,on the results of the research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed but only presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Reproductive Research. It should be said that although the research could eventually offer a solution for trans men to start a family, the researchers add that their findings would undoubtedly be appreciated by women who have undergone cancer treatment in childhood/adolescence that damages the ovaries or subsequent egg production, for example. In their case, it would hypothetically be possible to remove part of the ovaries and grow eggs.
And then, in the context of the reproduction of trans people, there is one more new development, which concerns trans women for a change. In fact, Indian experts have announced that they are currently working on the first uterus transplant into the body of a trans woman. "This is the future, we can't yet say when exactly this procedure will happen, but it will be soon," said New Delhi surgeon Narendra Kaushik. The trans woman who is to undergo the procedure has just flown in from Denmark to see him. Meanwhile, uterus transplants have already been done all over the world, but due to the difficulty as well as the financial cost, the number of procedures is in the dozens. On the other hand, in more than 20 cases, everything was successful to the extent that the patients gave birth to healthy children.
