Boston Children’s Hospital posted a video promoting hysterectomies as a form of “gender-affirming” medical care, along with several other clips explaining vaginoplasty, facial feminization surgery and other medical treatments they offer.
The term “gender-affirming care” refers to sex change treatments to help people with gender dysphoria to present as the opposite sex, including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries. The video featured a doctor describing hysterectomies — the surgical removal of the uterus — as a form of “gender-affirming” treatment while smiling as upbeat music played in the background.
“A gender-affirming hysterectomy is very similar to most hysterectomies that occur,” Dr. Frances Grimstad of Boston Children’s Division of Gynecology explained in the video. “A hysterectomy itself is the removal of the uterus, the cervix — which is the opening of the uterus — and the fallopian tubes, which are attached to the sides of the uterus.”
“Some gender-affirming hysterectomies will also include the removal of the ovaries, but that’s technically a separate procedure called a bilateral oophorectomy, and not every gender-affirming hysterectomy includes that,” she said. “People who are getting gender forming hysterectomies do not have to have their ovaries removed.”
