Nonsurgical Gender Affirming Practices Explained

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Gender Affirmation typically refers to the process transgender, non-binary, or gender diverse individuals go through when they start to live as their authentic gender, that is — start to express their authentic felt self, rather than living as the gender that was presumed for them at birth.

Gender Affirmation is often associated with Gender Affirming Surgery, but the latter is only one way of aligning certain physical aspects with one’s gender identity.

In fact, there are likewise many nonsurgical options that can support the Gender Affirming proces as for the desired physical characteristics, not to talk about other realms such as Social Gender Affirmation (think of “coming out,” or using other pronouns for oneself) and Legal Gender Affirmation (like name and gender change on official documents).

In any case, here further below you find an overview of nonsurgical physical Gender Affirming Practices and the links to the posts on our website that further discuss those.

• Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy;
• Voice Therapy (Speech Therapy) to help gain vocal characteristics that match with one’s gender identity;
• Chest Binding which is used used to compress chest tissue (usually the breasts) to make a person’s chest look flatter;
• Packing in order to give the idea or appearance of a (flaccid) penis;
• Padding in order to create larger breasts, hips and/or buttocks;
• Genital Tucking which is used to hide the bulge of a penis and scrotum so that they are not or almost not visible through clothing;
• Physical Exercise in order to create more masculine or feminine bodily structures;
• Hair styling (including wigs) and makeup to look more male, female, or neutral;
• Hair removal through laser treatment, electrolysis, or waxing to look more feminine;
• Clothing and cross-dressing to look more male, female, or neutral;

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