Some pretty darn exciting articles have been coming out of late about the future of lab grown penises and penile transplants which I thought were worth sharing.
Though most of these articles do specifically state that this technology will not be applicable to trans men, I suspect that rather than it being a case of “it can’t be done for trans men” that it’s more a case of “we haven’t factored trans men into the equation” and I’d imagine, if the defense forces are funding this, that the whole thing is also quite political.
I do think it’s very much worth keeping a careful eye on developments here, as I really don’t imagine it’s a very far stretch, seeing on a cellular level we’re all pretty much the same.
I’d encourage anyone who has any appointments with lower surgery specialists to be talking to them about this as we’ll really need these surgeons on our side to push this. I’m not aware of any studies where anyone has actually attempted to use correlating clitoral cells, and if they CAN do it with men who have completely lost their penis and hence have no, or very limited cells to donate, then surely…
Regardless, both articles are a pretty fascinating read:
Laboratory-Grown Penises Ready To Be Tested In Humans
Scientists ready to test lab-grown penises on men
And on another note, I will be opening the shop again this coming Monday 29th June at 7am Sydney time.
I agree there must be politics at play here. That, or his own attitude (or both.)
“Imagine being genetically male but living as a woman,” he said. “It’s a firmly devastating problem that we hope to help with.” –The scientist, Atala, is quoted as saying.
I find it interesting (and disappointing) that he is references boys born with ambiguous genitalia, but makes sure to mention that this procedure is not for boys/men born without the “Y” chromosome. When it comes down to it, that’s our “anomaly.”
Furthermore, if his development can be applied to boys with ambiguous genitalia, what is it that makes the success hinge upon “penile-specific cells?” It’s been awhile since I’ve studied cell biology, but I don’t have any recollection or comprehension of how a sample of cells of someone’s penis are different genetically than their other cells. They’ve expressed themselves by forming a penis, but that doesn’t make them different genetically. From what I gather of Atala’s work, he’s taking a person’s cells and growing them the scaffolding that directs them to form a penis. To me, the question will be about the chromosomal make-up, i.e., that presence of the “Y” or the portion of the “Y” responsible for development of a penis. If we need that, then there’s more work to be done, but I would think a simple genetic splicing would be sufficient.
This does appear to be not that far out of reach for us. I look forward to that and to a day when the exclusion of trans people is as readily seen as bigoted. When the quote I included at the beginning here doesn’t include the conditional “genetically.” That researchers don’t go out of their way, either because of politics or their own attitudes, in order to clarify that they have every intent to exclude us from their hopeful work.
the lab grown penis is not for transman and the penis transplantation can be for transman but they don’t want to make. “What we say the donor” says a doctor in the us.
Transmen have always been the indirect beneficiaries of procedures designed first and foremostly for natal men. It’s a start.
What’s interesting is that the clitoris has erectile tissue, just in smaller amounts, but since my metoidioplasty, I get hard and erect, so I don’t see why those cells couldn’t be used on the scaffold to build an adult size penis. I would think that if the mold allowed it, the sponge erectile cells would have space to expand as well.
They can make for transman! But the people in the USA have a Problem with transgender you dont now?
I have talk with an Doctor and he say there arent*t differentes between male and female. The genitals are made from the same
material in embryo.
And when the Method came out any other can do the same methode for transgender.
And the article is more than 4 years old. There must come other sientists …
When they can print in the future kidney or someone else then also will be able to print penis.
It would be great if all trans men in the world united to fund research specific to us (/expand on existing research like this). I read that there should be around 30 million trans men in the world. If everyone donated 1 dollar a month, we’d have 30 million dollar / month available to spend on research. Then I’m sure scientists will not forget about us.
P.S. …What grouping with some scientists with the will and ideas and doing a Patreon? The more specific the better.
I was thinking… these stubborn doctors are using the erectile tissue as an excuse but they can’t argue with why they can’t just use it as the donor skin graft for phalloplasty with an erectile device implant.
Has there been any news on this?
Best place to check is https://transthetics.com/bionic-penis/ but with Covid, it’s been much slower going due to factories and supply chains just being all over the shop at the moment. I’ll hopefully have another tangible progress update soon!
Doctprs want to Performance first penis transplantation in transman.
looks like both the clitoris and penis has the same tissue cellular makeup https://www.webmd.com/men/what-is-corpora-cavernosa
Hello! I am a 18+ years old guy who was born as a female. Do you think the procedure will be successful in between 10 years?:)
I’m definitely not in a position to be able to say, but it’s definitely very interesting to keep an eye on what’s happening with artificial organ printing which will only improve.
I read about this doctor almost a decade ago, he released an interview that he would rather never give any man a penis transplant that allow his work to be used by transmen. He’s incredibly hostile, so it’s more than just politics, it’s outright bigotry.
I also want to correct a few people here who are referring to transman as not having a Y chromosome: trans happens because when we form our body reads our genetic data once to program brain cells and again to program genitalia cells separately and happens to read it incorrectly once. Some people even have it read incorrectly twice and they live as cis even though their genetics are ‘wrong’.
Most people will never have their genetics evaluated that way so most people aren’t actually aware of their ‘sex chromosome’ status, especially since many genetic testing companies use YOUR answers for whether you are male or female and fill it out like you are XY simply to differentiate the chromosomes.