you can always ask

I can only picture the surgeon heaving a deep sigh, flipping his whiteboard around to reveal "asked" and "didn't ask" columns, and putting yet another checkmark on the only side with any checkmarks.

they had to burn them.

They say that, don't they?

Really I think the hassle is just worth less to the surgeon than to the patient so they're incentivized to lie about it.

With how many religions insist adherents keep their parts for later burial (or other reasons) a patient liaison has to have a waiver in a drawer somewhere you can sign (Formalin is toxic) so they can return your bits or they'd have to deal with church funded lawsuits or at minimum bad PR.

It's a reference to a must-read classic.

If you claim you have a religious for needing them back (reunification being pretty common, as in, you need them so you can be buried with them) then they will run their tests, and give them back to you if they're not a hazard.

My brother used this to keep his gallbladder, and a friend of a friend kept her foot after diabetes took it. Both examples in Tennessee. I don't know if it matters which state you're in, but I'm positive the country would probably make a difference.

Plus, I think it's funny the idea of some medical person somewhere trying to square their incredibly narrow view of religion with a trans woman being so devout in their own faith as to be concerned about burial practices potentially decades in the future, given the stereotype that everyone LGBTQ+ is an evil atheist.