Fertility in feminizing genital surgery

Fertility

It is important to start thinking about your fertility early on — before you enter the transition phase. Hormone treatment affects sperm production, which reduces your fertility. And if your testicles are removed, you will be permanently infertile. If, at some point in the future, you would like to have biological children, this means that you should preferably think about this before starting hormone treatment and/or genital surgery. You can discuss this with your physician and/or psychologist.

Options for preserving fertility: semen cryopreservation

There are several ways to fulfil any future desire you may have to have your own children. What your options are also depends on the fertility of your potential partner. If you want to retain the option of conceiving a child from your own sperm, at some point in the future, you can have your sperm cells frozen. The opportunities that this offers depend on the point in your treatment programme at which you decide to have this done: 1) Before the hormone treatment 2) During the hormone treatment

Please note, it is important that u freeze your sperm cells before a genital operation — before the testicles are removed, as this will make you permanently infertile.

1) Freezing sperm cells before starting the hormone treatment

It is best to freeze your sperm before starting hormone treatment, because during such treatment, sperm production decreases and this can be permanent. There are, however, no guarantees regarding this method; many more factors are involved in biological parenthood which together determine whether fertilisation and pregnancy are successful.

2) Freezing sperm cells during the hormone treatment

If you decide to freeze your sperm cells while your hormone therapy has already started, you should stop this hormone therapy for at least three months. Often — but not with everyone — sperm production will start up again. An additional drawback of an interrupted hormone treatment is that of renewed or increased hair growth (i.e. beard and body hair). And, in case you started taking puberty inhibitors from a young age, a lower voice is another likely consequence.

For more information about semen cryopreservation , see WEBSITE

Adopting a child

Adoption is also an option for fulfilling a desire to have children. For the most up-to-date and accurate information, please visit Stichting Adoptievoorzieningen. The laws and regulations of the birth country of the adopted child are decisive in this respect, and, in some countries, you may not be eligible to adopt due to your gender change.

We do our best to keep this information up to date. Do you have any additions or comments to the information above? Then please mail to [email protected]

This text was edited on 1-8-2022

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Options for preserving fertility: semen cryopreservation

Adopting a child

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We recommend that you go through all the information step by step to get a complete picture of the different treatment options and the process around them!

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Preparing for the genital operation

To qualify for genital surgery, you must be well informed and meet a number of criteria.

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