Advice

Girl + girl = pregnant?

Anonymous
Question

If a girl and a girl have sex, can they get pregnant?

Without some help…no.

In order for a pregnancy⁠ to occur, the first thing you need is a sperm⁠ and an egg. Individuals who have ovaries⁠ are going to be able to provide the ovum⁠ (or egg) while individuals who have testes⁠ are going to provide the sperm. So if you have two individuals who have ovaries, you’re going to be missing one things necessary to create a pregnancy (namely, sperm). Two eggs won’t make a pregnancy, even if you could get them together (which wouldn’t happen on its own anyway since ova don’t come out⁠ of the body the way sperm do). Though it is wise to remember that any sort of sex⁠ between individuals (no matter what their sex or gender⁠) can have STI risks associated, so it is still important to think about protection.

If two cisgender⁠ women (people who were assigned female at birth based on their genitals⁠ and still identify that way) want to create a pregnancy, they can do so but it will require some assistance. A sperm donor (whether that is someone the couple knows or a donor chosen from a sperm bank) would be needed. The women can then decide how they wish to go about trying to become pregnant. Generally this involves one of three options. They can either have one partner⁠ have intercourse⁠ with a person with a penis⁠, try self insemination or seek the assistance of a medical professional to do a procedure like intrauterine insemination (IUI) or invetro fertilization (IVF). Each option has risks and benefits that the couple would want to weigh before deciding how to go about the process.

Also, if we are talking about a pair of women where one of them has a penis and testes (such as a trans woman who has not had bottom surgery), then a pregnancy could result if they have sexual⁠ contact. Gender is a concept that is both fluid and something that is constructed. If one (or both) of the individuals is trans, genderqueer⁠, etc., if partner has a uterus⁠ and the other has a penis and testes, then it would be possible for a pregnancy to result from sex in that case.

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    • Patricia Hu

    Judging from the number of users I see experiencing pregnancy scares on the Scarleteen message boards, particularly from situations besides genital intercourse, you’d think sperm cells were some magical weapon of mass fertilization, powerfully wiggling their way through clothes/towels/fabric, and leaping off hands to impregnate every person around them within a 50 mile radius. Look out for scary sperm! Get outta the way! They’re coming right for you! (pun intended)

    As a volunteer for Scarleteen, I’m here to tell you none of this is physically possible. It just isn’t. As a former laboratory technician at a fertility clinic, having worked directly with sperm and semen (and without having ever gotten pregnant doing so, no less!), I want to tell you why.