A former Race Across the World contestant from Yorkshire who was born without a womb has launched a charity to support other women with the condition on their journeys to parenthood.

Betty Mukherjee competed on the BBC travel adventure show with her brother James in 2024, opening up in front of the cameras about being diagnosed with MRKH at the age of 16.

Betty, who lives in Silsden, West Yorkshire, has only one kidney, and no uterus as a result of the condition, formally known as Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser.

Over the last two years, she has become an advocate for life with MRKH, using her platform to raise awareness and support the one in every 5,000 women affected, as well as documenting her own pathway to becoming a mother.

Former Race Across the World contestant Betty Mukherjee, who was born without a womb, has cofounded a charity to support other women living with MRKH on their parenthood journey.

placeholder image — Former Race Across the World contestant Betty Mukherjee, who was born without a womb, has cofounded a charity to support other women living with MRKH on their parenthood journey.

The now 28-year-old has six embryos frozen after undergoing IVF with her partner and is now considering options such as taking part in a pioneering womb transplant trial, or surrogacy.

Earlier this month, Betty co-founded The Hope Trimester Trust with Georgia Sargent, another woman living with MRKH, to fund the path to parenthood for people with the condition. It was set up to raise money to help those women access IVF and fertility preservation.

Betty said: “For most of us with MRKH, the real barrier to parenthood isn't medicine, it's money. Surrogacy, egg storage, donor conception, adoption, even uterus transplantation - every route comes with a price tag most of us are handed before we've even started saving for it.

“Everything changed when I appeared on BBC's Race Across the World with my brother and started talking about MRKH publicly. The messages that followed showed me how many of us are quietly asking the same question: how do I build a family when the path everyone else takes for granted was never open to me?”

For years, Betty struggled to process the life-changing diagnosis but opened up to her brother James about the emotional weight of it during their time on the programme.

“In that conversation and in that moment the film crew didn't say anything,” she told The Yorkshire Post. “They literally just stood and filmed with a camera and me and James just had this really raw honest conversation that we'd never had before because he was 11 or 12 when I got my diagnosis and it's not something that you speak about with your little brother.

“There was that underlying anticipation of how this is going to be perceived when it is shown to millions of people, but that was a worry that came after we’d spoken - like did I say the right thing? Has it come across right? But in the moment, it literally just was me and James having that conversation for the first time.”

“If we didn't have that conversation then, would we ever? I'm not sure,” she said.

Betty said the reaction was “better than I could have imagined”.

“I think for 10 years, I'd built this up as such a negative thing inside my head, like I'm different and my life's going to look different because there's something wrong with me.

“When you think about being in the public eye, you always think about the negative comments and the hate and the trolls and I'd convinced myself that that was the way it was going to go, that people would sort of reiterate my narrative that I'd built up for myself and yet it was the complete opposite.

“It actually gave me the reassurance that I can actually speak about it and be vulnerable and help other people because I saw that way more than anything negative.”

“What I've learned from after the show is that I don't have to be ashamed of myself,” she added. “Actually being honest and vulnerable is the best thing that could have happened to me.”

Visit thehopetrimestertrust.com