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Gender Confirmation Surgery: A Guide for Trans and Non-Binary People
This accessible guide covers the range of gender confirmation surgeries available for all trans and non-binary people, including breast augmentation, chest reconstruction, vaginoplasty, phalloplasty, metoidioplasty, vocal surgery and facial feminisation.
With personal stories and illustrations throughout, this comprehensive resource will help you understand the full range of surgical options available. The guide offers an overview of the whole process, with information and advice about each procedure, including planning and recovery, sexual health and fertility, and insight into what to expect in the years following an operation.
This is essential reading for any trans or non-binary people considering gender confirmation surgery and will help you make the decision that's right for you.
With personal stories and illustrations throughout, this comprehensive resource will help you understand the full range of surgical options available. The guide offers an overview of the whole process, with information and advice about each procedure, including planning and recovery, sexual health and fertility, and insight into what to expect in the years following an operation.
This is essential reading for any trans or non-binary people considering gender confirmation surgery and will help you make the decision that's right for you.
- GenresNonfiction
220 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 21, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 20, 2026
Oh my goodness this book was helpful.
It helped me understand better questions to ask, and the different things I might experience through medical transition. Informed choices are my favourite. Whelan's book provides information that would help readers whose biggest challenge is feeling informed enough to be at ease with the uncertainties of each stage of the process. It gave me some things to think about regarding metoidioplasty, and vaginectomy, and clarified that phalloplasty isn't for me. It also helped me consider building exercises into my routine that would help or prioritize pelvic floor strength, as well as ab strength if I will be unable to put pressure on that area after a hysterectomy, and bottom surgery. The book didn't go into detail about exercises to strengthen that, and it isn't a requisite, but I remember the first reading of this book met me at a time where I was thinking more in-depth about it so it was inspiring in that sense.
It went over everything you might think you need and then some, for a variety of surgeries. I'm looking at the year ahead in 2026 with two more surgeries on the horizon, and I am eager to get back to the book. I read it over a year ago, and it's something I'm still wanting to page through to make sure I'm not missing anything ahead of check-ins and when I go to the hospital for my first in-person consult in the next few months. How's that for the shelf life of a book? Get it for a trans person you know who wants medical transitions as well as to socially transition, as they will likely use it in a way that meets them through a few of them. Where these are the last two surgeries for my medical transition to be complete (barring any complications or revisions), I likely won't need the book afterwards but it's still indispensable ahead of them. It would be great to see this book in a loanable or reviewable library in 2SLGBTQ+ organizations or centres for those wanting print information to ensure they're getting accurate and credible information about gender affirming surgeries. YouTube influencers like Jamie Raines covered some details of procedures and things to think about (bless their groundbreaking hearts for putting that content out there to help the rest of us), but I found this book made that more succinct. It was also a little easier to navigate for the time-crunched who were looking for specificity more than entertainment and supporting information.
In Canada we are lucky to have resources like the folks at GRS Montreal, who have put together a number of downloadable resources on various surgeries. What I like about Whelan's book as a complement to these, is that it's a little more portable, and as a resource for all trans and gender diverse people it certainly goes the distance. It also goes over a lot of information for a basic review of various surgeries, to make a comparison of them a little easier. Also, if someone is trans and using a shared computer where it isn't safe for them to obtain information about their surgery (an unfortunate reality for many queer and trans people), Whelan's book would be the only way they can access this information, which makes it even more important. For this reason it would be awesome to see this book at public libraries everywhere, to ensure that trans people have access to information to help them make the best decisions for themselves about their transition and medical care. I borrowed my copy from a public library and that fact, my love of and work in a library notwithstanding, makes my heart absolutely sing.
Surgery (and forthcoming surgeries) has been a bit frustrating at times because I feel like you can't talk about it in metaphorical ways without people knowing the state of your body (which can be dysphoria inducing if I'm not talking with other trans people about it). The contents of Whelan's book gave me something to look forward to on the days where talking about not having surgery yet sometimes lent a sense of frustration and fear that I wasn't masculine enough, or that people I see every day didn't see me as a man, or fear that people would find my deadname and use it as the lowest common denominator with which to hurt me, which led to a sense of disillusionment with the ways that I could feel more "manly" and gender euphoric (what does manly even mean beyond toxic masculinity, anyway?). I am a very private person for the most part, aside from any writing I do, so it still feels weird to tell people about surgeries or talk about them coming up because it reminds me that I don't have the privilege of an automatically assumed right to privacy that cisgender people do when it comes to their body; In order to access joy, I have to share and overshare about mine (though I am learning to view this differently for the sake of my mental health). Being open about my surgeries ultimately gives people a very, very easy way to hurt me, which is unsettling at the best of times. It's a constant friction with the cisnormative status quo and maybe not everyone gets so wrapped up in the discursive underpinnings of their transness. Nonetheless, Whelan's book gave me a sense of hope about what my body could be and feel like, despite the intermittent discomfort of the journey through the bureaucracy and administration of cisgender norms; A fait accompli if there ever was one. After reading this book for example, I was inspired to take my top surgery "post-op bliss list" more seriously for my hysto and bottom surgery. I'm still trying to figure out what will encompass the post-op bliss lists of that, but I'm taking my time with it. This relatively small dignity (in the big picture) that the book inspired, was a significant part of the non-surgical restorative and healing process. I just wish I'd read it sooner in my journey.
Gender Confirmation Surgery is a must read for those who are looking for information about, or as part of their medical transitions!
Also, a short word to my trans peeps reading this review: here's to our beauty; I hope your surgery is everything you want it to be and then some.
It helped me understand better questions to ask, and the different things I might experience through medical transition. Informed choices are my favourite. Whelan's book provides information that would help readers whose biggest challenge is feeling informed enough to be at ease with the uncertainties of each stage of the process. It gave me some things to think about regarding metoidioplasty, and vaginectomy, and clarified that phalloplasty isn't for me. It also helped me consider building exercises into my routine that would help or prioritize pelvic floor strength, as well as ab strength if I will be unable to put pressure on that area after a hysterectomy, and bottom surgery. The book didn't go into detail about exercises to strengthen that, and it isn't a requisite, but I remember the first reading of this book met me at a time where I was thinking more in-depth about it so it was inspiring in that sense.
It went over everything you might think you need and then some, for a variety of surgeries. I'm looking at the year ahead in 2026 with two more surgeries on the horizon, and I am eager to get back to the book. I read it over a year ago, and it's something I'm still wanting to page through to make sure I'm not missing anything ahead of check-ins and when I go to the hospital for my first in-person consult in the next few months. How's that for the shelf life of a book? Get it for a trans person you know who wants medical transitions as well as to socially transition, as they will likely use it in a way that meets them through a few of them. Where these are the last two surgeries for my medical transition to be complete (barring any complications or revisions), I likely won't need the book afterwards but it's still indispensable ahead of them. It would be great to see this book in a loanable or reviewable library in 2SLGBTQ+ organizations or centres for those wanting print information to ensure they're getting accurate and credible information about gender affirming surgeries. YouTube influencers like Jamie Raines covered some details of procedures and things to think about (bless their groundbreaking hearts for putting that content out there to help the rest of us), but I found this book made that more succinct. It was also a little easier to navigate for the time-crunched who were looking for specificity more than entertainment and supporting information.
In Canada we are lucky to have resources like the folks at GRS Montreal, who have put together a number of downloadable resources on various surgeries. What I like about Whelan's book as a complement to these, is that it's a little more portable, and as a resource for all trans and gender diverse people it certainly goes the distance. It also goes over a lot of information for a basic review of various surgeries, to make a comparison of them a little easier. Also, if someone is trans and using a shared computer where it isn't safe for them to obtain information about their surgery (an unfortunate reality for many queer and trans people), Whelan's book would be the only way they can access this information, which makes it even more important. For this reason it would be awesome to see this book at public libraries everywhere, to ensure that trans people have access to information to help them make the best decisions for themselves about their transition and medical care. I borrowed my copy from a public library and that fact, my love of and work in a library notwithstanding, makes my heart absolutely sing.
Surgery (and forthcoming surgeries) has been a bit frustrating at times because I feel like you can't talk about it in metaphorical ways without people knowing the state of your body (which can be dysphoria inducing if I'm not talking with other trans people about it). The contents of Whelan's book gave me something to look forward to on the days where talking about not having surgery yet sometimes lent a sense of frustration and fear that I wasn't masculine enough, or that people I see every day didn't see me as a man, or fear that people would find my deadname and use it as the lowest common denominator with which to hurt me, which led to a sense of disillusionment with the ways that I could feel more "manly" and gender euphoric (what does manly even mean beyond toxic masculinity, anyway?). I am a very private person for the most part, aside from any writing I do, so it still feels weird to tell people about surgeries or talk about them coming up because it reminds me that I don't have the privilege of an automatically assumed right to privacy that cisgender people do when it comes to their body; In order to access joy, I have to share and overshare about mine (though I am learning to view this differently for the sake of my mental health). Being open about my surgeries ultimately gives people a very, very easy way to hurt me, which is unsettling at the best of times. It's a constant friction with the cisnormative status quo and maybe not everyone gets so wrapped up in the discursive underpinnings of their transness. Nonetheless, Whelan's book gave me a sense of hope about what my body could be and feel like, despite the intermittent discomfort of the journey through the bureaucracy and administration of cisgender norms; A fait accompli if there ever was one. After reading this book for example, I was inspired to take my top surgery "post-op bliss list" more seriously for my hysto and bottom surgery. I'm still trying to figure out what will encompass the post-op bliss lists of that, but I'm taking my time with it. This relatively small dignity (in the big picture) that the book inspired, was a significant part of the non-surgical restorative and healing process. I just wish I'd read it sooner in my journey.
Gender Confirmation Surgery is a must read for those who are looking for information about, or as part of their medical transitions!
Also, a short word to my trans peeps reading this review: here's to our beauty; I hope your surgery is everything you want it to be and then some.
December 8, 2023
Read for PT school project, very informative and great drawings to depict the surgeries
Read
August 19, 2026This book contains some useful information and interesting anecdotes. However the medical inaccuracies I've identified (and more I've likely missed) mean I can't comfortably recommend it to anyone.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews