Phalloplasty is a type of surgery that takes existing skin, tissue, and nerves from surrounding areas on a patient’s body to repair or form a neophallus, or a new penis structure. In 1946, Harold Gillies, a plastic surgeon who practiced in England, performed one of the first modern phalloplasties that entailed creating an entire neophallus for a transsexual, called transgender as of 2022, man in London, England. The reconstructive need for phalloplasties started as a result of treating blast wounds during World War I and World War II. The techniques from that time allowed Gillies to perform a phalloplasty with urethral lengthening. Lengthening the urethra allows the patient to use the neophallus to urinate, for a transgender person as a means of affirming their gender identity. Phalloplasty procedures improve the quality of life for people who have congenital conditions, physical trauma, or are seeking gender affirmation surgery.

Gender-affirming mastectomy is a type of surgery that removes breast tissue, tightens the skin, and can adjust nipple placement to provide the desired results of a more masculine-looking chest. Mastectomies started as a way for surgeons to remove breast cancer and tumors from the breast tissue. However, as of 2022, surgeons also use the procedure as a means of gender-affirming surgery for transgender and non-binary, hereafter TNB, individuals. If a person identifies as transgender, their gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth and the gender they were most likely raised as, which can produce gender dysphoria, a condition that can last a lifetime. Non-binary individuals may have a similar experience, but they identify outside of or between the identifiers of man and woman. Gender-affirming mastectomy, sometimes called top surgery, improves the quality of life for people who seek the appearance of a masculine chest to both better integrate themselves into society and lessen the mental and emotional burden of gender dysphoria.

Ben Barres researched neurobiology during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries as a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California. His primary research focus was glial cells, which are the most abundant cells of the nervous system that support and protect neurons. There are many kinds of glial cells, and Barres examined their roles in the nervous system as well as in development and disease. Prior to Barres’s work, researchers believed that neurons were the primary players in brain function and that glial cells played a passive role. Barres discovered that glial cells play a key role in creating and eliminating synapses, which are the connections between nerve cells. Barres was transgender and after transitioning at age forty-three spoke frequently about sexism in science. Through his scientific research, Barres brought attention to the function of glial cells in development and disease, and through his activism he became a role model for LGBTQIA+ people in science.