I just wanted to alert folks interested in facial feminization surgery to a terrific article appearing in the current issue of the
New Yorker. It's long and detailed and shows lots of sensitivity and awareness of why trans women may be interested in facial procedures (with also a few insights into the converse procedures applying to trans men).
The article follows a trans woman ("Abby") through facial procedures performed recently in San Francisco. The author of the article actually attended and observed the procedures.
The article explores the development and motivation of this one trans woman's desire for surgery. It also gives some biographical background on the surgeon (Dr. Jordan Deschamps-Braly, a craniofacial surgeon) and what led him to specialize in feminization procedures. Also, the article describes in some detail the step-by-step process of carrying out several procedures in a long, single day of surgery.
This is a VERY well-written, VERY readable article. I was pleased to see an article this good in a major mass-circulation magazine.
The Story of a Trans Woman's Face
For one patient, facial-feminization surgery gave her what she needed to just be herself.By Rebecca Mead
March 19, 2018
The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/the-story-of-a-trans-womans-face?reload=true". . . Despite the physical changes wrought by the hormones, Abby continued to suffer from a profound self-consciousness about her face. She felt that when she was seen from the front she looked persuasively feminine, and even striking, with abundant hair that framed her face, and wide-set eyes. But when she turned her head she looked far more masculine: the bossing of her brow showed in profile, as did the length of her jaw. She was so conscious of her Adam's apple that she tucked her chin down, to conceal it, and refrained from turning her head, looking to the side with only her eyes. With her dipped head and her inhibited range of motion, her mannerisms became those of a demure Victorian.
"Abby's self-consciousness in the company of others was nothing compared with the unhappiness she felt when faced with her own reflection. Whenever she passed a mirror, she saw the ghost of her former self, and it appalled her. Though Ousterhout had developed his procedures on the premise that his trans patients wished to move through the world without attracting unwelcome notice, Abby's desire to undergo the process was more interior. The person whose reaction to her face she most wanted to change was herself. . . ."
