Sarah Luiz of The Colony, who’s no stranger to the media spotlight, aims to be world’s 1st trans mom
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BIG STAR | Miramax Films once listed Sarah Luiz among its 100 most influential people in the world, and she holds the record for most appearances on Sally Jessy Raphael’s talk show. (Renee Baker/Dallas Voice) |
THE COLONY — Each of us has a story or a script that we fashion and live our lives by. When it takes us down the wrong path, we rewrite the script from a wiser place, and navigate closer and closer to our truth. Sarah Luiz says she knows in her heart of hearts that she’s living a life true to her being — which is why she feels confident she’ll be the first transgender woman to give birth.
Luiz knows it won’t be an easy path. She knows there will be resistance all the way. But she’s a strong woman shaped by life trials very few have endured, and she believes it’s her rightful place and time, at age 44, to become a mom.
To many this may seem as if it’s going too far, and it will require a uterine organ transplant — a controversial and dangerous operation. Doctors are only beginning to perfect this surgery, and no human has become pregnant with a transplanted uterus.
But Luiz has begun the medical candidacy interview process, and she says New York doctors at Downtown Hospital are looking her way.
"They need to have the right person," she says. " If you did this with a woman, amazing. If you do this with a transgender woman, it will receive a lot of attention."
Luiz says the doctors need the publicity to fund their research — and Luiz no doubt can deliver.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Luiz was considered one of the most controversial figures in the world. It was a time when the media exploited transgender people, and Luiz was one of the few who was out.
Miramax Films once considered Luiz among the 100 most influential people in the world. She holds the record for most appearances on Sally Jessy Raphael’s talk show, 13. She sat across the desk from Larry King and toyed with Howard Stern.
The list of TV appearances is seemingly endless, and when Luiz was younger, she was quite the diva. Now a mature woman still full of life, she’s emerging from the shadows after a dozen years of enjoying her privacy. Much of her story has never been told.
Luiz first made news when she sued insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield for her gender reassignment surgery.
She said she’d had insurance through Blue Cross her whole life. "They paid for my hormones and therapy, but not the surgery. I assumed that they would."
Luiz said nobody would take her seriously and finding a lawyer who’d listen was all but impossible. So she took her story to The Boston Globe, which eventually ran two full-length features. The story quickly went national, and Luiz found a lawyer to take the case.
"Fighting the insurance company was like my first opportunity to stand up for myself [against] the bully," Luiz says.
An out-of-court settlement fell short of what she asked for, but she walked away with $15,000 and her dignity in tact. With all the court and family-related expenses, it still wasn’t enough for her surgery.
Luiz began to speak freely about transgenderism, insurance and harassment.
"It was never about the money," Luiz says, "but the awareness and fighting for freedom."
Her plight didn’t go unnoticed. Luiz says when she came home after appearing on "Larry King Live," there were messages from all over the world on her phone. Among the callers was a wealthy Brazilian diplomat, who was taken with Luiz, courted her, and paid for her reassignment surgery. "He was crazy about me," she says, "and he asked me to marry him."
Though they didn’t marry, Luiz traveled to Trinidad, Colo., and had her surgery with the late Dr. Stanley Biber, when she was 25. It was just a half dozen years after her parents had taken her to "healing ceremonies to get the devil out."
Luiz and her mother, though at odds for a time, grew close after her mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. Her father was another story. She says she would "scream at the top of my lungs when I had to go visit him." The couple divorced when Luiz was a toddler.
Luiz eventually married and divorced. She is now single and resides in The Colony, a suburb north of Dallas, after spending much of her life on the coasts.
"I’m finding myself in Texas," she says, "in the middle of these two lives."
About a year and half ago, Luiz started writing a book and putting her life together emotionally and spiritually, to find some closure with her past. She stopped looking outside and started looking in.
The book is also a way to earn money to pay for the uterine transplant operation she desires.
The price tag for the surgery not cheap at $250,000 — but that doesn’t daunt Luiz, who now works as a server at a local restaurant chain.
Luiz says she’s comfortable with who she is now and that she’s "opening the closet door even wider." She has "stood the test of time through it all."
"I am standing tall, really standing tall," she says, "and I don’t have to say I came from a perfect childhood. I am happy to express my journey — from my life as a gay man, a transgender woman, as a woman and the harassment."
Luiz has always wanted a family and has been considering adoption for more than 20 years, but the time has never been right. Now, with the cutting edge medical technology in New York, she wants to have the child herself.
"Am I too greedy to put a live human being through this?" she torments herself with during sleepless nights. "This child may become the most famous child in the world."
She says she answers the question in her heart of hearts, "No."
"I will be a protective parent," she says," and though being special has its crosses to bear, it also has its special joys."
Luiz hopes to give birth to a girl, though she says she’d be happy with a boy, too.
In the end, she exclaims, "My name is Sarah Luiz, and glad I can I’m believe in my dreams!"
Renee Baker is a transgender diversity consultant and can be found online at GenderPower.com.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition January 8, 2010.
This typé of surgery is also performed in Riyadh,Saudi Arabia. Who would think that.
Well I’m 60 years old and if I were 30 years younger I’d go and volunteer for a uterine organ transplant. I’m already married and have been for 35 years, have had three sons (my original wife); but there is something missing in my life and it is being one of a few Trans moms in the world to actually bear a child.
I see her craigslist casual encounters posts all the time!
I’m sorry but I think this is incredibly selfish. There are plenty of children in the world who need adoption or mentoring even.
I can’t say it’s much more selfish than a planned child produced through (cis) heterosexual means, including those pregnancies that may require the use of modern technology.
It might be said that some women – cis or trans – don’t feel complete without a uterus, & the possibility to become mothers. I don’t see why transwomen (or cisgays) should be seen as defacto adoptive parents when most cis heterosexuals don’t consider adoption unless they have trouble bringing new life into the world.
That said I think adoption is valuable & enriching & more people should consider it.
Adoption is wonderful but some States wont allow it. All these kids and so few foster and Adoptive parents.
Why not be able to enjoy the birth of a child, and motherhood. I know some people has had children and adoptive children.
Some states will not let gay or trans people adopt children and transplant surgery may be the only way to have children. Who are we to say it is wright or wrong,the Lord gave us this brain to use to help our selves. We are not playing God to see who shall live or die,but we are trying give and help life.
A tentative surgery of that same kind was held in Spain some years ago.You may see more on this at the following link below:
https://www.gendercare.com/English/uterus.html
i have 2 say, good for her! it is engrained in most of us 2 reproduce & i do beleive that adoption is great thing that often doesnt get considered enough; however the need 2 reproduce isnt always satisfied by adoption. this advancement could B a great step forward for all women who lack the ability 2 reproduce naturaly.
& 2 G: please check your terminology, transwomen are NOT cisgay. your butchering boarders on offensive, b/c your underlying meaning implies trans ppl are gays who tansitioned so they could B precieved as strait. When ““cis gay†is being used, most commonly on Twitter, to describe cis individuals who do not respect or acknowledge the struggle of transgender individuals”(https://feministsforchoice.com/an-accused-cis-sexist-seeks-to-educate-herself-and-others-gives-big-thanks-to-twitter.htm). where cis refers 2 non-trans ppl.
Sorry but a few of you are missing some important considerations. There is more to having a body that is capable of giving birth than having a uterus implanted. We are talking years of drugs before it will even be an environment that MIGHT support life. Not only that there is not one mention in the above article regarding anything other than my right to be the first. I’m disappointed. Normally I can understand and relate and support all trans issues. This I can’t. To go through all that and still have the major probability of being told a woman’s worst nightmare. Your body can never carry a child to term.
I wish Ms. Luis the best but I really don’t think this path is in her best interests or the interests of the trans community as a whole.
The first known attempt at transplanting a uteris was in 1931:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili_Elbe
it is a great idea, just the feeling to be mom is my dream, i hope for a good luck baby
She can have mine. I have a child and am through having anymore. I have no more use for it.
April 2011. The latest on uterine transplant was published by the Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology.
After 11 years of research, Dr. Edwin Ramirez and his surgical team demonstrated that a preganancy can be carried for the first time in history in a transplanted uterus under the influence of immunosuppressive therapy in the sheep model. They are the only Pioneers who have had success with Auto and Allo-transplatations. Dr. Ramiorez has been invited as a guest speaker to many national and international meetings such as Egypt, Sweden, Spain, France, Russia, Africa, Brazil and many more.
Instead of hearing about the surrogate, I’d need to hear about the fetus. The first ones are going to die (so that’s premeditated murder) and the ones which eventually survive are going to have horrible birth defects, so that’s premeditated torture and who’s going to provide medical care for them? The doctor? And then after that, the next predictable issues would be neuro-psychological disorders, physiological behavioral disorders, and personality disorders.
This isn’t a female with a uterine transplant, this is a biological male with zero natural female hormone glands. Every single hormone needed for a fetus to develop would have to be administered on an IV drip for nine months, assuming doctors even knew what those hormones would be or in what doses — which they do not, even for biological females. I predict dead deformed crazy babies. The ethic violations alone are kind of astronomical.
Any doctor who attempts this now, is merely working a few hours of surgery which he knows will be unsuccessful in order to take your money. Science is a couple hundreds years away from such an endeavor, at least. Dr. Ramiorez is a crackpot who should have his license revoked.