Fertility Preservation

Gender-affirming interventions significantly improve the mental health, quality of life, and sexual health of trans individuals. Some gender-affirming medical and surgical treatments present risk of diminished fertility or infertility. Various assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) allow for trans individuals who desire future biological children to preserve their reproductive capacity, depending on factors related to the age at which they first received medical intervention and the form of the intervention(s). Fertility preservation (FP) encompasses the cryopreservation, or freezing, of gametes (oocytes/eggs or spermatocytes/sperm), gonadal (ovarian or testicular) tissue, or embryos (a fertilized egg) prior to initiation of treatments that potentially or certainly impair fertility, with varying options based on sex designation at birth and stage of physiological development (e.g., pubertal; postpubertal). Uptake of FP depends on many ...