Phalloplasty is a type of surgery that takes existing skin, tissue, and nerves from surrounding areas on a patient’s body to repair or form a neophallus, or a new penis structure. In 1946, Harold Gillies, a plastic surgeon who practiced in England, performed one of the first modern phalloplasties that entailed creating an entire neophallus for a transsexual, called transgender as of 2022, man in London, England. The reconstructive need for phalloplasties started as a result of treating blast wounds during World War I and World War II. The techniques from that time allowed Gillies to perform a phalloplasty with urethral lengthening. Lengthening the urethra allows the patient to use the neophallus to urinate, for a transgender person as a means of affirming their gender identity. Phalloplasty procedures improve the quality of life for people who have congenital conditions, physical trauma, or are seeking gender affirmation surgery.

Metoidioplasty is a type of gender-affirming surgery that creates a small-sized neophallus, or new penis, from an enlarged clitoris. Gender-affirmation surgeries are procedures that alter a person’s body, typically sexual characteristics like the genitals, to align a person’s sex with their gender identity so that they can move through society more comfortably. Such procedures treat gender dysphoria, which is the distress or discomfort that may be felt by transgender people. Transgender people’s gender identities differ from the genders they were assigned at birth, usually conflated with the sex they were assigned at birth. As opposed to a phalloplasty, a procedure where a neophallus is created using tissue from other areas of the body and not just the existing genital tissues, metoidioplasty allows transgender individuals to have a penis with less noticeable scarring, preservation of erogenous sensation, and, if the patient desires, the ability to urinate while standing. The technique was first suggested in 1973, then performed in 1974, however, doctors and researchers did not refer to it as metoidioplasty until 1989. Since its implementation, several modifications have ensured lower risks and better results for patients. Metoidioplasty improves the quality of life for people seeking gender-affirmation surgery by treating gender dysphoria.

Christine Jorgensen was a transgender woman and activist in the United States who lived during the twentieth century. She was one of the first US citizens to publicly disclose her gender transition from male to female through gender-affirming surgery and hormone replacement therapy. By 1949, when Jorgensen began her transition, few individuals had undergone gender transition. Various popular media outlets reported on Jorgensen’s gender transition and surgery, which allowed Jorgensen to educate the American public on topics such as gender identity and sexual orientation. Jorgensen authored an autobiography in 1967, which detailed the journey of her life from early childhood to the end of her forties. Although many transgender people continue to fight for acceptance and equality in the US as of 2024, Jorgensen’s advocacy and activism increased transgender awareness for the general public at a time when existing and living openly as a transgender person received little recognition and support.