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ZARAQ KHAN: We talk about fertility preservation options in this review article because we believe that that is a very important part of the overall medical care for a transgender individual. My name is Zaraq Khan, and I'm the interim chair of the Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Division, as well as have a joint appointment with Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery in the Department of OB-GYN at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. One of my primary interests include fertility preservation for cisgender females and transgender patients.

Today I'll be talking about our review article, "Fertility Preservation for Transgender Individuals." To me, this article holds a special place in my heart, because we've been very recently involved with our transgender clinic at the Mayo Clinic. Working with people from the LGBTQIA population has given us a new sense of direction to fight for the rights of the transgender individuals in our community, in our society and making sure that they get similar rights to cisgender people.

Having the ability to have biological children, even after gender affirmation procedures, is exceedingly important. And we know that newer studies globally are showing more and more of the importance of that principle. And it is also highlighting how that principle has been ignored for so many years. That is why we felt that it was very timely to come out with a review article explaining to you all our colleagues across various fields of medicine, in trying to explain to them what different techniques are available for fertility preservation in transgender individuals.

Our goal was to start working with the Transgender Clinic at Mayo Clinic. And that was a very unique and eye-opening experience for us. We saw that truly, transgender individuals were never asked questions about fertility preservation or potential childbearing or having biological children in the future. This is why we felt that this article was very timely and very important, not just for OB-GYNs, but also for people from different fields of medicine.

At Mayo Clinic in our Transgender Clinic, we have a multidisciplinary group of people, all the way from surgery to medical oncology to pediatric endocrinology, as well as to medical endocrinology and reproductive endocrinology. And our goal for this review article was to try and put all those thoughts together of various ways for fertility preservation for the transgender patient.

In this paper we cover not only transgender adults, but also boys and girls that could be very challenging discussions to have. We, in this paper, go over various important ways that we can have fertility preservation. For example, for trans women, the biggest, most common way of fertility preservation would be semen cryopreservation. But we also talk about various other unique techniques that can be used for trans girls that are prepubital. Likewise, for trans men, we also talk about egg freezing or ovarian tissue freezing. And similarly, we also talk about trans boys and different options that we can provide to those that are prepubital.

In my opinion, the most important and interesting part of this article is not just the science and the various techniques that have been described. I think what's also important is how these gametes that are cryopreserved can be used in the future. We have tables in this paper that show future use for gametes if the transgender individual has a male or a female partner. Or maybe the transgender individual wants to be a single parent. All these options have been described in this paper.

And truly, what I tell my trainees, in the year 2020, there's 20,000 ways of building a family. And I think when you read this paper, you will understand and know how the different ways are present there for all our patients, including transgender patients, for fertility preservation for the future. We hope you found this presentation from the content of our website valuable. Our journal's mission is to promote the best interests of patients by advancing the knowledge and professionalism of the physician community.

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