New perspectives on fertility in transwomen with regard to spermatogonial stem cells.

When transwomen go through treatment to confirm their gender, their germ cells are affected. They lose their fertility after surgery, so fertility preservation becomes an important topic. We carried out a study looking at tissue from testes of 25 people who had been through the same sex hormone therapy until surgery. Blood samples were also taken. As controls, samples were taken from the testes of cisgender boys and adult men. On average, the samples from the testes of transwomen contained a smaller number of early sperm cells compared to the two control groups. Regardless of the dose or length of hormone treatment, the fertility of transwomen was significantly reduced so that counseling about fertility preservation should be offered before hormone therapy.