“Gender Confirmation Surgery” can be one of a host of potential surgical procedures, all with the common thread of seeking to help a transgender/non-binary/agender bring their body into more close alignment with the gender they experience.
Surgeries include:
- Vaginoplasty/ vulvaplasty- to give the patient a more female-typical vagina/vulva
- Orchiectomy - remove testes (to curtail the body’s production of testosterone)
- Metoidioplasty/phalloplasty - to give the patient a more male-typical phallus
- Hysterectomy/oophorectomy/salpingectomy - remove the uterus, ovary/ovaries, and Fallopian tube(s) (oophorectomy will curtail the body’s production of estrogen)
- Breast reduction/valvuloplasty - remove breast tissue and shape the chest to be more male-typical
- Breast augmentation - increase the size and improve the shape of breasts.
- Chondrolaryngoplasty (Tracheal shave) - reduce the size/prominence of Adam’s apple.
- Vocal feminization surgery - shorten/tighten the vocal cords to raise the pitch of sounds they produce (to a more female-typical range)
- Facial feminization surgery - any of several surgeries intended to reshape the face to more female-typical features. It may include reshaping the chin/jaw, brow bone reduction/shaping, rhinoplasty (reshaping the nose), forehead reduction/scalp advancement (moving the hairline forward to a more female-typical placement), upper lip reduction, and cheekbone implants/reshaping.
- Facial masculinization surgery - similar to facial feminization surgery, any of many surgeries intended to reshape the face to more male-typical features. Includes many of the same possible procedures, just with different shaping goals.
- Hair transplants - to counter testosterone-induced hair loss

It’s important to know that while many of these surgeries align with the binary notions of sex and gender, neither sex nor gender is binary. Non-binary and agender people may also need these or similar surgeries to align their bodies with the gender (or lack thereof) they experience. All are valid.
There are several other surgeries which aren’t performed as frequently as the above, as well as variations on the above surgeries.