Gender-affirming surgery disappeared from the U.S. for decades. Now the field is fighting to keep its gains Theresa Gaffney By Theresa Gaffney

https://www.statnews.com/2024/12/23/gender-affirming-surgery-increased-demand-but-future-access-faces-challenges/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9VQwMIihK77lgKc7xC1pnEwc-YPKZ8b6ldmeMYmH9gtfA3rgSMXChKikHp69HOmxZZ5UUs6sMcZU4XooI3Kv2OKnWlIg&_hsmi=339774288&utm_content=339774288&utm_source=hs_email For patients who receive gender-affirming surgery, the experience can feel like a rebirth. “I decided that the old me would die on the table and then the new me would come up from it,” Wendy Grogan, a trans woman who recently pursued vocal and facial procedures, top surgery, and a vaginoplasty, told me. Grogan is one of thousands of patients in the U.S. who receive gender-affirming surgery each year. The field has remarkably transformed in the past decade since insurance coverage started to open up. But trans people and their medical care have also become a major flashpoint in U.S. politics over the last few years. It’s not the first time trans health care has been clawed back. Gender-affirming surgeries almost disappeared in the U.S. after the country’s first dedicated clinic closed in 1966. Now, patients and clinicians alike are worried about what the future holds for a surgical specialty that’s finally beginning to come into its own. Read more in my story on some of the most impressive and rewarding procedures in medicine. I’m still thinking about one 19-year-old patient I met, pictured above, during his first phalloplasty consultation. (And for a hint at how long it actually takes to get these surgeries — that meeting was a year ago this month, and that person still hasn’t had his first procedure yet.)