A New Hope

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First Patients Get Laboratory-Grown Vaginas

I have more hope for the future than I had yesterday.

It stated the subjects were already biologically girls. So it sounds more like they took from pre-existing cells to fabricate those organs. I'll be amazed if they are able to fully transform mtf as if it were natural. It's far too early for any mtf transgender to have hope at the moment.

I would disagree on it being too early for hope. Hope of the future and what science can do is very much appropriate even at this early stage.

Not if it's pseudo hope based on pre-mature data. If you want to have hope on stuff that probably won't be completed in either of our lifetimes that is fine. I'm just not going to cling to hope for anything anymore... it's just painful when it doesn't come true. For me it's just best to swallow all the negative and use it as substance to gain the mental energy to end one's life.

Just a heads up - testes contain stem cells, so it might be worth looking into banking them before you remove them, perhaps to produce egg cells later.

We're really, really not that far off being able to accomplish a complete sex change, perhaps even by the end of the decade. Who can access it mainly depends on regulation, rather than anything else. We might even, in the next few years, modify the skeleton to achieve a normal female build - important if we're going to be putting a uterus and birth canal in there. Building functioning ovaries might take a bit more time, but IVF? Sure.

Welcome to the future. We have cookies.

NewScientist article on it here.

I'm not counting on it. For now, I've found the current procedures to be good enough. It's just accessing them that's the problem.

You seriously think we can't turn stem cells into vaginal lining? Males already have stem cells, too...

I'd give it 2-3 years if allowed to develop normally, 2-3 decades restricted by the state.

I have a feeling that the only reason that this is one of the first organs remanufactured this way is because it is one of the simplest to make from stem cells. Scientists are way more interested in curing cancer and other severe diseases than what society feels is esoteric and undeserving.

I would pay my life savings to have this done, but really, it would do me so little good other than to feel a tiny bit better. It would not help the fact that I will forever look like a linebacker in a dress.

Because, as Valkyrie Ice pointed out, the ability to perform complete sex changes is a consequence of being able to perform some very valuable procedures. You might not set out to grow a uterus, but the techniques needed to make other organs will soon find there way into being used for natal women who for whatever reason lack a womb, and from there it's not a big leap to transwomen.

As for looking like a linebacker in a dress... I really am optimistic that we'll be able to modify the skeleton enough soon. Not enough to make you petite, but probably enough to fit just within female norms.

BTW, when I say males have stem cells, I'm referring to pluripotency, the ability to turn into any adult tissue in the body. Those are the cells they've found. I want to get some banked soon, but I don't know if those services are available in the UK - or whether I'd be able to find a surgeon willing to extract them. It would be a very nice thing to have, though.

I'll likely be dead from either old age or suicide before this ever becomes available to us. And besides, it doesn't help my real problems, which are my face and size.

We can already do a lot with the face...

I'm no singularitarian, but I consider it very likely that we'll be able to modify the skeleton before this decade is out. As well as grow almost all organs from stem cells and transplant them, and we'll probably be seeing the first cloned humans being born... thing is, we're advancing far faster than people realise.

Oh hello. Not a billionaire yet, but someone who is very interested in biotech, and is pursuing an engineering degree...

I'm not prepared to assign a high probability to Valkyrie Ice's bet, but I do think we'll get partly there at least - a womb transplant, and IVF using egg cells developed from the woman's own stem cells, with a normal birth. I'm more optimistic on our chances of feminising the skeleton, which is somewhat more pressing of a matter.