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Gender-Affirming Surgery

Surgical Procedure

Gender-affirming surgery is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to bring them into alignment with their gender identity. It is most closely associated with transgender health care, though it is also known by other names such as sex reassignment surgery or gender confirmation surgery, and some cisgender people pursue individual procedures under the same umbrella. Feminizing procedures include vaginoplasty, vulvoplasty and breast augmentation, while masculinizing procedures include phalloplasty and mastectomy, and patients typically also follow a course of hormone therapy alongside surgery. Sweden became the first country to let transgender people change their legal gender after such surgery, in 1972, with Singapore following in 1973 as the first country in Asia to do so.

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