Fertility Considerations in Transgender Persons

Hormonal therapy and gender-affirming surgeries in transgender people have known deleterious impacts on future fertility using one's own gametes. This review focuses on fertility preservation, including the effects of medical hormone treatment on fertility, available and experimental options of fertility preservation in transgender adults, including sperm cryopreservation for transwomen and oocyte cryopreservation for transmen, and options for prepubertal transgender adolescents, including testicular and ovarian tissue cryopreservation. Transgender patients continue to face barriers and receive infrequent counseling regarding fertility preservation. Physicians should ideally counsel and discuss fertility preservation options before transgender patients undergo hormone therapy of gender-affirmation surgery.