Corrective or Cosmetic?

[tiana]

Are gender confirmation procedures corrective or cosmetic?

 

[Crystal Bacon]

Corrective, with a clear cosmetic goal of matching what the original equipment would have been. I don't think there's any argument that the current procedures shouldn't be improved. Cf wake forest university’s work in growing viable neovaginas for vaginal agenesis patients. See also currently work in India using peritoneal lining for the neovagina.

One could imagine anything from parts to the entire external female or male genitalia being created, even to the point of creating functional gonads.

 

[mochimash]

Are gender confirmation procedures corrective or cosmetic?

It depends on the exact type of procedure. For MTF, genital surgery is corrective for sure. I personally could see an argument for considering corrective permanent depilation procedures on parts of the body that generally do not have hair in women (but where the given person has hair), as well as hair replacement on parts of the body that generally do have hair in women (but where the given person in fact does not have hair). Unfortunately, most insurance companies would not agree with that assessment. At any rate, anything other than genital surgery could be considered cosmetic.

For FTM, top surgery, hysterectomy and genital surgery are corrective. Any other types of procedures would be cosmetic.