How Ben Got His Penis

When Bluebond-Langner started her rounds, she says, older surgeons warned, “Be careful what you’re known for.” Unheeding, she started assembling the training she would need to perform top surgery, vaginoplasty, phalloplasty and metoidioplasty (a less involved surgery that constructs a smaller penis using only the natal tissue of the clitoris). This training took her all over the world: to Thailand and Canada to study vaginoplasty and to Mexico City, where she learned microsurgery, the technique that facilitates skin-flap transfer by connecting nerves and vessels on a microscopic scale. She began performing complex urogenital surgeries, including phalloplasty for micropenis and trauma. At the University of Maryland in 2016, she performed her first gender-affirming phalloplasty. The surgery, as far as she knows, was a success. (She and the patient lost touch after two years.) A…