I am Male to Female transgender and I desperately need facial feminization surgery (FFS).

I am a woman with strong male facial characteristics. I cannot function in society because my masculine face causes people to assume I am a man, dressing as a woman. Every time I am in public, even for the shortest time, I expect at some point to be stared at, snickered at, pointed at, or misgendered. All these things have happened to me too many times to count. On two separate occasions, total strangers were so fascinated by my freakish appearance that they felt the need to take a picture! When these things happen, they are very painful, and because of this, I rarely go out of my house for any length of time. The anxiety is too much for me to handle most of the time.

For several years now, I have been trying to get my medical insurance to agree to cover my surgery. There have been at least two years of appeals and denials including two times in front of a judge to try and get this surgery covered under my medical insurance. Finally, in 2016, “Medically necessary transgender surgery and related procedures” are covered by my insurance! I thought it was done, that I could finally get the surgery I desperately need to start integrating back into society and feel useful. I was wrong. My insurance company agreed to cover Facial Feminization Surgery ONLY if one of their non-experienced, in-network surgeons do my surgery! This surgeon has never done this type of surgery before. I have absolutely no assurances that he can make my face feminine at all.

My medical insurance's refusal to refer me to an FFS specialist demonstrates that they feel the term “medically necessary” means to be functional. In reality though, Facial Feminization Surgery, in order to serve it's intended purpose, needs to be done in an aesthetically pleasing and gender correct way. This is not surgery that should be learned by trial and error on the patients face. There has already been decades of advancement in the area of Facial Feminization Surgery. In order to take advantage of these advancements, surgeons who are interested in doing FFS need to be trained to do so effectively.

Currently, there are only a small number of surgeons specializing in FFS. One example of a highly successful FFS surgeon is Dr. Jeffrey Spiegel. His explanation of FFS is in the video above.

Please sign this petition asking for a new requirement:

Before performing Facial Feminization Surgery, the surgeon must have knowledge, training, and experience doing Facial Feminization Surgeries under the supervision of a successful FFS specialist.

With this new requirement, Male to Female transgender patients will be able to endure this very invasive but necessary surgery knowing that they have the best chances of successful results.

Without this requirement, any surgeon could be allowed to "practice" on our faces with only a small chance of any successful results and likely end up worse off than before.