By Ben Spencer and Pat Hagan for the Daily Mail
Published: 22:20 GMT, 15 February 2019 | Updated: 09:52 GMT, 16 February 2019
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British surgeons could be the first in the world to transplant a womb into a transgender woman who was born male.
Experts investigating whether the procedure is possible for those who have switched sex to female are convinced it is not only medically feasible but ethically justified.
The surgical team from Imperial College London and Oxford University have ethical approval from the NHS for 15 womb transplants on infertile women, which are expected to start in the coming weeks.
Womb transplants, which cost £50,000 per operation, were developed to allow women to carry a baby if they were born without a womb or have had it removed through illness. Roughly 15,000 women in the UK could benefit.
Trans females have a narrower pelvis than women but there would still be room to carry a child
But the team is also considering trialling the procedure on those who were born male, after they were approached by a number of transgender women. The organs would be taken from dead donors or from women who decide to become men and have their wombs removed in the process.
Writing in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, the scientists said it would be perfectly possible to put a womb into a male body so that they could carry a baby to full-term. And they say it may be ‘legally and ethically impermissible’ not to consider performing the procedure.
Ben Jones, a surgeon at Imperial and member of the Womb Transplant UK organisation which is planning the first operations this year, said a questionnaire of transgender women will help to determine ‘whether or not there is a desire to undergo this process’.
Several transgender men – those who were born women and then switched – have already given birth in the UK.
