A history of gender-affirming surgery

Transgender surgical history is traced from its early origins through modern-day advances while highlighting the personalities, ironies, and idiosyncrasies that have made the field so fascinating. While many individual contributions globally are noted, the selected stories attempt to capture only some of the challenges and frustrations that so many within the transgender community faced and fought against in their quest for legitimacy amid their dependency on a medical community that varied in its support and understanding. Surgeons, battling professionalism, respect among peers, technical challenges, and confidence in working with a population many considered invalid, were rare. The hopefulness and progress made in the face of ongoing challenges to access globally will continue to tempt, frustrate, and fascinate those of us privileged to have lived with gender variance and/or work with trans and gender-diverse populations.