Men Will Soon Be Able to Give Birth Using a Transplanted Uterus, Researchers Predict

Critics call the idea 'horrific' and 'monstrous'

Newborn babies sleep in the neo-natal ICU ward of The Apollo Hospital in New Delhi on Oct. 29, 2011. Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images

Medical researchers say it’s only a matter of time before men who want to be women can have babies, as techniques for uterine transplants from live and deceased women donors are advanced.

According to a January article published in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility, several medical teams are actively working to bring transplant procedures to clinical reality for men who want to transition to women.

“The first uterus transplant in a transgender female in the 21st century is anticipated to take place within the next few years, if not sooner,” according to the article written by doctors involved in uterus transplants for women at Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic.

In May 2022, news broke that a doctor in India was planning to transplant a womb from a donor into a transgender person born a male, which could result in pregnancy and birth. If successful, it would mark the world’s first womb transplant for a trans person born a male. It was widely reported the organs would be taken from a deceased donor or from a woman who desired to become a man and had her womb removed in the process.

Anatomical challenges exist, but the article’s authors indicate none are impossible to overcome. So far, babies born to women having transplanted wombs are delivered by cesarean section, which would be the process for men.

A newborn baby is transferred to an ambulance at the Akanksha Clinic, one of the most organized clinics in the surrogacy business, in Anand, India on Nov. 3, 2015. AP Photo/Allison Joyce

The article said that the shape of the male pelvis, with a more narrow pubic arch, would need to be adapted, as would supportive ligaments and connective tissue. Vascular system connections would need to be considered because women can carry more blood through the network of veins connected to the uterus.

Mother, Father, or Both?

The study suggested that it is plausible for men to impregnate themselves by using their frozen sperm to fertilize an egg. A successful pregnancy resulting in birth would likely raise ethical and legal questions for the child and trans person, according to the article.

Doctors have successfully transplanted wombs from live and dead donors into females, most of whom were born without a womb, resulting in pregnancies and birth.

But they have not transplanted female reproductive organs into a male. Yet.

The topic is gaining momentum in the transgender medical industry because of doctors’ growing success in uterus transplants for women.

Last month, a video clip from May concerning a discussion on live donor uterus transplants for trans men went viral.

Parental Rights advocate Megan Brock posted on Twitter video clips of Alicyn Simpson, a male-to-female transitioner, talking about the desire for many in the trans community to have children. The clip had more than a million views and elicited scathing comments from critics.

In the clip, Simpson, who was working for the University of Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital gender program, talked about gender transitioning for youth and uterus transplants for men who want to be women.

According to Fox News, the presentation was titled “Fertility in the LGBTQIA+ community,” but the full video has since been pulled from YouTube.

Simpson talked about the possibility of trans people swapping out body parts. A biological female who wants to be male could donate her uterus to a biological man who wants to be female.

(L-R) Abel Garcia, Billboard Chris, and Chloe Cole take part in a demonstration in Anaheim, Calif., on Oct. 8, 2022. Garcia and Cole have become vocal critics of transgender medical practices since detransitioning back to their sex at birth. Brad Jones/The Epoch Times

“One area that had not been looked at before in any serious way was could the donors be live donors?” asked Simpson, who works with the hospital’s pediatric Gender and Sexual Development Program.

“Live donation has been something the [transgender] community has talked about for decades; it was really thought about as magical thinking,” Simpson said.

Comments on the clip indicated that many were outraged.

“Frankenstein is alive and well,” one woman wrote on Twitter as another posted pictures of Mary Shelley’s classic tale of a mad scientist building a monster from parts of human corpses and bringing it to life.

The Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, became the first facility in the United States to transplant a uterus from a dead donor into a woman born without one in 2019, according to a news release. Photo courtesy of Cleveland Clinic

“Completely enthralled in their own experience and completely disregarding the monstrous efforts that will no doubt end with deaths of infants,” wrote another on Twitter.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, called the idea “horrific” on Twitter. “Children’s hospital gender program navigator touts giving uteruses from ‘live donors’ to trans women,” he wrote.

The scholarly article written by researchers at the Cleveland Clinic said that while current standards talk about performing the relatively rare operation on women, it should be considered for trans people in the name of equity.

The article said that if there is no clear or compelling medical reason that transgender women cannot undergo a uterus transplant, then it is “ethically supportable.”

Ohio's Cleveland Clinic delivered a second baby in uterus transplant clinical trial in July 2020. Uterine transplants for women have become more viable as techniques and technology have increased. Photo courtesy of Cleveland Clinic

Womb transplants from live and deceased donors have been ongoing and resulted in several births in Europe and the United States. In 2014, the world’s first baby born from a transplanted uterus was delivered at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, according to news accounts.

News outlets reported that the case involved a 36-year-old woman who gave birth after getting a uterus transplant from a 61-year-old donor who had already gone through menopause.

Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas made news in 2017 when it announced the first woman to deliver a baby after a uterus transplant in the United States from a live donor occurred.

Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic became the first in the United States to transplant a uterus from a dead donor into a woman born without one in 2019, according to a news release.

But the question remains: should a uterine transplant into a male be done just because it’s possible?

Dr. Marie Hilliard, co-chair of the Catholic Medical Association Ethics Committee, told The Epoch Times via email that there are many ethical considerations when conception is achieved naturally.

Regardless of who receives the uterus, the fact remains that the live donor “has been mutilated by donating the healthy womb” she said.

Womb transplants, while not intrinsically immoral if received from a deceased donor, can create “insurmountable immoral challenges,” said Hilliard, adding, “But overarching everything is the concept that human life can be manipulated and not seen as a gift, but a right.”

In vitro fertilization inevitably leads to the destruction of “spare” human embryos, she said. Medications needed to prevent rejection of the womb put the unborn child at risk.

When humans manipulate procreation, they risk harming human dignity, Hilliard said.

“The bottom line is that human life is a gift to be protected and nurtured from the very moment of conception, which includes the method in which fertilization occurs and gestation is maintained.”