Gender affirming care describes inclusive medical, surgical and mental health services needed by transgender, non-binary and gender diverse patients. Gender affirming medical care can include any care that affirms one’s gender and range from routine preventive health care to hormone replacement, surgery, fertility preservation or other interventions. Mental health services may include therapy, psychiatric medication and letter writing.

Recovery After Gender Affirming Surgeries

Recovery time for all surgeries and procedures varies, depending on the individual and procedure. Talk to your doctor about what you can expect after surgery and what may be needed before.

Gender Affirming Surgical Care Overview

 

Chest/Breast surgery

Often referred to as “top surgery,” can include:

• Bilateral mastectomy techniques remove unwanted breast tissue, while also shaping and refining the chest, nipples, and areolas to align with one’s gender identity.

• Breast augmentation is the enlargement of the breasts using breast implants

 

Gonadectomy & Hysterectomy

These procedures are done both as stand-alones, and done as a part of a multi-step genital reconstruction process when desiring to create a new vagina or penis:

• Hysterectomy is the surgical removal of the uterus, but can also include removal of one or both ovaries (oophorectomy) and fallopian tubes, depending on your medical needs and health provider. There are options for egg (oocyte) storage and fertility preservation, as well as robotic-assisted laparoscopic hysterectomy’s that you may want to discuss with your doctor.

• Orchiectomy is the surgical removal of the testes.

 

Vaginal & Penile Construction

Often referred to as “bottom surgery,” can include:

• Phalloplasty & Metoidioplasty are multi-stepped surgical procedures to construct a penis and can include removal of the vagina (vaginectomy), reconstruction of the urethra or urethral lengthening, creation of the scrotum, creation of a penis, and placing erectile and testicular implants. Vaginal tissue or tissue from another part of the body is used to construct the penis. Surgical options are unique to each person’s needs and body so may or may not include all the options listed above.

• Vulvovaginoplasty is a multi-stepped surgical procedure to construct a vagina and can include the removal of the penis (penectomy) and the testes (orchiectomy), and use tissues from the penis to construct the vagina, the clitoris (clitoroplasty) and the labia (labiaplasty).

 

Facial Gender Affirming Surgery 

• Facial surgery includes a variety of procedures: reshaping the nose; brow lift (or forehead lift); chin, cheek and jaw reshaping/augmentation; Adam’s apple reduction/construction; lip augmentation; hairline restoration; and earlobe reduction.

 

Gender Affirming Voice Modification and Surgery

• Laryngeal surgery that changes the length, size or tightness of your vocal cords