I/O
A Startup Looks to Reinvent Sperm Banking — and Serve Trans Women
Dadi offers a relatively inexpensive test to put clients at ease
Ifreiyou’re in your thirties, childfree, and in possession of a working uterus, chances are good that someone, somewhere, has asked if you if you’re planning on freezing your eggs. Maybe your employer notified you that they now cover the costs of egg freezing, maybe your parents won’t stop forwarding you articles about women who are so happy they froze their eggs, or maybe — like me — you’re bombarded by ads for egg freezing services when you hop onto Facebook or Instagram.
Yet for all the discussions of frozen gametes, the other half of the equation rarely seems to come up. Even though the process of harvesting and freezing sperm has been around longer, and is significantly easier, than egg freezing — people looking to preserve their eggs must go through weeks of hormone injections and painful procedures to harvest their genetic material, while those who want to save some sperm need only masturbate — many men don’t feel any urgency around their declining fertility.
When sperm freezing does enter the conversation, it’s often because of a major illness like cancer, or, in the case of many trans women, a concern that hormone replacement therapy and…
