There is no single established term for “female sperm.” The concept most people are asking about falls under a technology called in vitro gametogenesis, or IVG, which aims to create sperm-like cells from a woman’s own body cells. The resulting cells are typically referred to in scientific literature as “stem cell-derived spermatids” or “SCD-spermatids.” These are not naturally occurring cells. They exist only in laboratory settings and, so far, only in animal experiments.
Why “Female Sperm” Doesn’t Exist Naturally
Sperm production requires specific biological machinery found in the testes, driven by genes on the Y chromosome. Women carry two X chromosomes and no Y chromosome, so their bodies have no natural pathway for producing sperm. The phrase “female sperm” is a shorthand people use when they encounter news about IVG technology, not a description of something that happens in human biology.
What does exist, at least in early-stage research, is the ability to take an ordinary adult cell from a woman’s body, reprogram it into a flexible stem cell, and then coax that stem cell down a developmental path toward becoming something that functions like a sperm cell. The technical name for these reprogrammed starting cells is “human induced pluripotent stem cells,” or hiPSCs. They are created from the person’s own tissue, making them genetically matched to the donor.
How Scientists Create Sperm-Like Cells From Female Cells
The process begins by taking a somatic cell, any non-reproductive cell like a skin or blood cell, and reprogramming it backward into a stem cell state. These hiPSCs can theoretically become any cell type in the body. From there, researchers guide the stem cells into becoming primordial germ cell-like cells (PGCLCs), which are the precursors to both eggs and sperm in early embryonic development.
The next step is where things get tricky. To push PGCLCs toward becoming spermatids, researchers co-culture them with fetal testis somatic cells, essentially surrounding the precursor cells with the chemical signals a developing testis would normally provide. In mouse experiments, this approach has produced functional spermatid-like cells. No one has successfully completed this process using human cells.
What This Would Mean for Offspring
If two women could one day both contribute genetic material to a child through IVG, the offspring would carry only X chromosomes. Men determine a baby’s sex because their sperm carries either an X or a Y chromosome. An X from the father plus an X from the mother makes a girl; a Y from the father plus an X makes a boy. With two female genetic parents, every possible combination is XX. Every child born this way would be biologically female.
The first proof that two-mother offspring could survive came in 2004, when researchers in Japan produced the first bimaternal mice, animals born from the genetic material of two females. That breakthrough required deleting specific imprinted gene regions to overcome natural barriers that normally prevent two same-sex genomes from combining successfully. The mice survived and developed, but the technique was complex and the success rate was low.
Who This Technology Could Help
IVG research is driven largely by two groups: people experiencing infertility and same-sex couples who want genetically related children. For female same-sex couples, the technology would theoretically allow both partners to be biological parents of the same child, something currently impossible. For women facing premature ovarian failure or other reproductive conditions, IVG could offer an alternative route to eggs or, in the more distant future, to sperm-like cells if their partner is also female.
A 2024 study involving 80 individuals with lived experience of infertility or LGBTQ+ family formation found significant interest in IVG among these communities, alongside real concerns about safety, accessibility, and cost.
Regulatory and Safety Hurdles
IVG for human reproduction faces some of the strictest oversight in stem cell science. The International Society for Stem Cell Research classifies it under its most restrictive research category. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine has stated that IVG should not be considered for reproductive purposes in humans until robust studies in nonhuman primates produce reassuring safety and efficacy data. That milestone has not yet been reached.
Any future human application would need to proceed under institutional review board supervision, with dedicated stem cell oversight committees evaluating the work at every stage. The concerns are not just technical. Creating gametes from skin cells raises questions about consent, the welfare of resulting children, and the potential for misuse, such as creating gametes from someone’s cells without their knowledge. These ethical dimensions are part of why regulatory bodies have taken a deliberately cautious approach, requiring that safety, efficacy, and societal concerns all be addressed before clinical use could begin.
Where the Science Stands Now
As of mid-2025, no human baby has been born using IVG-derived gametes of any kind. The most advanced work remains in mice, where both bimaternal (two-mother) and bipaternal (two-father) offspring have been produced in laboratory settings. The leap from mice to humans is substantial. Human reproductive biology is more complex, gestation is longer, and the stakes of getting it wrong are far higher. Most reproductive scientists estimate that clinical IVG in humans, if it proves safe, is still years to decades away.