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from the "tomorrow"-give-or-take-nine-months dept.
Richard Paulson, President of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, has said that transgender women could give birth as soon as "tomorrow" using donated wombs:
Those born with male assigned sex organs cannot conceive children biologically; however, this may soon change, at least according to one fertility expert. Transgender women—those who were assigned male at birth—could give birth as early as "tomorrow," Richard Paulson, an obstetrician-gynecologist and the president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said, according to The Telegraph. Thanks to advances in transgender medicine, donated wombs may be able to help transgender women conceive on their own, Paulson said during the society's annual conference in San Antonio, Texas.
Since at least 1999, transgender men have successfully given birth to healthy children, The Washington Post [archive] reports. More recently, Trystan Reese, a transgender man and his partner Biff Chaplow, gave birth to a healthy child last August. Despite their successes, the process is much more complex for transgender women. Primarily because a man's pelvis is a different shape than a woman's, making the birth much more complicated. Still, Paulson insists that it's possible, but notes the birth must be conducted via cesarean section.
"There would be additional challenges, but I don't see any obvious problem that would preclude it," Paulson said. "I personally suspect there are going to be trans women who are going to want to have a uterus and will likely get the transplant."
Only eight children have been born worldwide to mothers (born female) who had a uterine transplant, with the first such birth occurring in 2014. As we have reported, the first attempted uterine transplant in the U.S. failed last year.
Here's a 2016 article on the topic at Scientific American, which notes that surrogacy (which can have its own problems) is illegal in some countries. The article raises the question of unnecessary risks to the patient, as well as unknown risks posed to the fetus by a "potentially unstable biological environment" modulated by hormone treatments.
Not mentioned: the prospect of creating an artificial embryo using the DNA of two biological men, which is expected to be possible imminently (predicted by researchers two years ago to be available in 2017). Since men have both an X and Y sex chromosome, they should be able to have either a son or a daughter using such a technique.
If an artificial womb is developed in the future and it has a lesser chance of causing complications than a traditional pregnancy, would it be unethical for a woman to conceive a child naturally? Fetal lambs have been grown for up to four weeks in an artificial womb, so we may get an answer in the coming decades.
Also at the Sacremento Bee.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by number11 on Monday November 06 2017, @05:02PM (6 children)
Eh, these days most killings aren't done with muscles. A female can work an AR-15 just as well as a male, and a .380 pulled from a handbag will kill you just as dead as a .44 Magnum. So why are there fewer female killers (whether multiple or one-off)? Most likely because, like many other species, human females tend to be better socialized than males, and less aggressive. Aggression is well known to be one of the effects of testosterone.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Grishnakh on Monday November 06 2017, @05:23PM (4 children)
Exactly, I couldn't have said it better myself.
That aggression served a useful purpose in the distant past, before we invented "civilization" and "law", but as a male, I hate to say it, but we're really obsolete, and don't have any significant advantages over females any more, just giant disadvantages (i.e., tendency to become violent). The incarceration rates are proof of this. The only big advantages I can still see to being male are 1) upper-body strength, which does come in handy for things like opening vacuum-sealed jars or dealing with stuck bolts (though impact wrenches can deal with many of these better than brute strength), or 2) generally taller height which is useful for getting things of the top shelf (but this is waning too; lots of young girls these days are 6 feet).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @06:34PM
Wrong. [wikipedia.org]
Are they now? ~40% of males in US prisons are black men who make up just ~7% of the general population. ~25% of incarcerated criminals have ASPD from ~5% of the general population. How are males innocent of any wrongdoing accountable for the behaviour of other males? How many gangland wars do you think are (in reality) fought over females? [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @07:00PM
and 3) spiders, nothing like that 3am phone call, eh?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday November 06 2017, @07:03PM
The obvious rebuttal here is risk taking. When risk taking is heavily discounted [soylentnews.org], it can be hard to think of why the gender that specializes in risk taking could have value.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday November 07 2017, @05:08AM
Here's a statistic you won't hear very often.
Mens' prison sentences are 6 times longer than womens' on average, for the same crime.
That has a non-trivial effect on the gender distribution in prisons.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Monday November 06 2017, @07:57PM
You have a very American centric view, guns might be the great equalizer compared to physical strength but strength is always available and an AR-15 (or whatever form of firearm you prefer) is not. In countries without easy access to guns it's still more common for people to beat each other to death, or actually even more common is stabbing someone to death with some form of blade. Even in America you are several times more likely to be stabbed to death then shot by an AR-15. Stabbing doesn't require great physical strength either but it does help since it requires you to be somewhat closer then if you are going to shot someone, unless I guess you stab them when they are a sleep or in the back.
For female serial killers or mass murders I seem to recall the preferred method is poison or drugs so that doesn't require much strength at all. It could also be a matter of poisoning a male to equalize the physical disadvantage. But all that is really required is the will to kill, and females do have that to.
The issue in question was that in the post I commented there was a suggestion that the world would be better place if the male of species went away and I seriously doubt that is the case. Women kill, if there is nobody around that is stronger to hold them back whatever makes you believe they wouldn't utilize their abilities. Nothing would stand in their way. This has just touched on biological aspects and not even mention the topic of how or if society or culture turn men into killers. It's not about men killing more for one reason or another, men clearly are. The question could be why are not women doing it more or what is making men do it more often. But still I don't really buy into the idea of an all peaceful female future utopia.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/table-12 [fbi.gov]
Just looking quickly at the FBI stats for murder. There is still a lot of people getting beaten to death by hands. Lots of stabbings. The only real reason gun violence is so high in the murder rate is handguns. The AR-15, or rifle, killings are rare. For mass-murder it might be an obvious choice, cause if you gotta kill a fuckton of people you don't want to have to stand around and reload all the time. So it's really more about magazine size and a high rate of fire in that case then anything else.