Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty
A new study from Amsterdam UMC and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Australia shows that transgender women can retain the ability to produce viable sperm if they pause hormone replacement therapy after years of use—upending a major talking point against such care.
As part of the study, published Jan. 17 in Cell Reports Medicine, clinicians from both research institutions observed the effects of hormone therapy for nine transfeminine women who were transitioning. Norah van Mello, one of the authors of the new study, told The Daily Beast that the women in this cohort had been on hormone replacement therapy for an average of around 58 months, or nearly five years.
Participants were drawn from The Netherlands and Australia, with the youngest member of the cohort starting hormone therapy at the age of 18, and the oldest starting at age 33.