[Facial femalization in transgenders].

Transsexualism is a gender identity disorder in which there is a strong desire to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex. In male-to-female transsexuals with strong masculine facial features, facial feminization surgery is performed as part of the gender reassignment. A strong association between femininity and attractiveness has been attributed to the upper third of the face and the interplay of the glabellar prominence of the forehead. Studies have shown that a certain lower jaw shape is characteristic of males with special attention to the strong square mandibular angle and chin and also suggest that the attractive female jaw is smaller with a more round shape mandibular angles and a pointy chin. Other studies have shown that feminization of the forehead through cranioplasty have the most significant impact in determining the gender of a patient. Facial feminization surgeries are procedures aimed to change the features of the male face to that of a female face. These include contouring of the forehead, brow lift, mandible angle reduction, genioplasty, rhinoplasty and a variety of soft tissue adjustments. In our maxillofacial surgery department at the Sheba Medical Center we perform forehead reshaping combining with brow lift and at the same surgery, mandibular and chin reshaping to match the remodeled upper third of the face. The forehead reshaping is done by cranioplasty with additional reduction of the glabella area by burring of the frontal bone. After reducing the frontal bossing around the superior orbital rims we manage the soft tissue to achieve the brow lift. The mandibular reshaping, is performed by intraoral approach and include contouring of the angles by osteotomy for a more round shape (rather than the manly square shape angles), as well as reshaping of the bone in the chin area in order to make it more pointy, by removing the lateral parts of the chin and in some cases performing also genioplasty reduction by AP osteotomy.