Surgery Could Give Transwomen Wombs Within Five Years

After the Cleveland Clinic announced last week that they are performing uterus transplant surgery on women born without a womb or whose uterus is diseased or malfunctioning, many have asked if transwomen or men will be able to give birth.

Yahoo News reports that theoretically, they could. And it's much closer than you might think.

"My guess is five, 10 years away, maybe sooner," says Dr. Karine Chung, director of the fertility preservation program at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine. Today, medical advances let transgender women adjust their biochemistry to suppress male and introduce female hormones, have breasts that can lactate, and obtain surgically constructed vaginas that include a "neoclitoris," which allows sensation.

Transplant surgery is difficult and dangerous, requiring patients to take antirejection drugs through their pregnancy, but a Swedish team has already successfully transplanted uteri harvested from live donors. They have had five pregnancies and four live births. They plan more transplants at the Cleveland Clinic, from uteri of deceased donors into female patients.

Transgender patients could also benefit, although doctors warn that biological women are better equipped to accept a transplanted uterus, as they have the vasculature needed, pelvic ligaments, vagina, cervix and the natural hormones. But Chung said that "probably at some point, somebody will figure out how to make that work."

"I'd bet just about every transgender person who is female will want to do it, if it were covered by insurance," says Dr. Christine McGinn, a New Hope, Pa., plastic surgeon who performs transgender surgeries on men and women and is a consultant to the new movie�"The Danish Girl," about one of the first recipients of sex reassignment surgery.

McGinn, a transgender woman and mother of twins, says the "human drive to be a mother for a woman is a very serious thing. Transgender women are no different."

The cost will probably be the biggest barrier: Transplants range from $25,000 for a corneal transplant to $1.3 million for a heart, according to the National Foundation of Transplants. We can't even begin to guess how much a uterus transplant will cost if the surgery makes it out of the research phase, and chances are slim that insurance companies will pay for it.

"It's a class issue; you'll only have wealthy people able to do this," said McGinn.