What do we know about NHS Masculinising Lower Surgery?

In Wages for Transition, Josie Giles describes the unpaid work trans people do to create their own and one anothers genders. i think about this as i create this information hub from research trans people have done into understanding the deliberately opaque machinations of the NHS.

The situation for lower surgeries in the UK is very bad. Get on the waiting list now and don't read on.

Mood Music

from Brazil
• Aquarela do Brasil - Geoff & Maria Muldaur
from the Prisoner
• Fallout - Albert Elms
and also
• Inertia Creeps - Massive Attack
• It's In My Blood - Coil

Who does what in lower surgery?

Original research by scottish trans redditor Neat-Bill-9229 on who does what and where in UK lower surgeries. Expanded by me as and when i come across new information

New Victoria

• Hospital Overview


• Professor David Ralph
• Mr Don Lee - Phalloplasty + Meta stage 1 + 2.
• Mr Nim Christopher - Phalloplasty + metoidioplasty
• Mr Phillip Rubin - phalloplasty, plastic surgeon, can do MLD


• Mr (Oudai) Ali - Gynacology
• Professor Issac Manyonda - Gynacology
• Mr Chiriaco - UL

Chelsea & Westminster

• Hospital overview


• Mr Miroslav Djordjevic - Metoidioplasty + Phalloplasty (tbc). Teaching new surgeons how to do metas.
• Professor Marlon Buncamper - from Ghent in Belgium, reported by TransActual to be training surgeons in phalloplasty.
• Mr Jeffery Ahmed - Gynaecology
• Mr Rufus Cartwright - Gynaecology
• Mr Giangiacomo Ollandini - phallo, meta, urology (special interest in Andrology and Sexual medicine, gender Dysphoria and infertility). Studied a Masters in Andrological Surgery and gender disorder Surgery.
• Victoria Rose - phallo, according to reddit
• Miss Alexandra Zachou - Urology
• Mr Guiseppe Di Taranto - Plastic surgeon. [ETA, 24/11/23 - performs metoidioplasty] Carries out top surgery with LTC. Note on website + LTC - I hold a Substantive Consultant post within the prestigious Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, NHS Foundation Trust, in central London, where I perform oncologic and reconstructive procedures for general plastic surgery and Gender Affirmation Surgery — To perform metoidioplasty
• Mr Saahil Mehta - Gynaecology
• Mr Dominic Yue - Consultant Plastic surgeon. Nothing about gender.

Waiting List Detective Work

The NHS does not give up this information without a fight or clearly. It falls to the hard work of our community to give up their free time to wrangle it out of them.

Waitlist-to-join-the-waitlist numbers

The community does not currently know what the waiting list for NVH or C&W is, however someone has also done a FOI request on the GDNRSS waiting list i.e. the 'waiting list to join the waiting list'.

• Phalloplasty – 1,151
• Metoidioplasty – 180
• Unspecified - 267
• Total 1,598

Moving onto a real waiting list

Nobody has moved off the waiting-list-to-join-the-waiting-list since 2021.

It may assist you if we clarify that New Victoria Hospital has held its own waiting list since 2021 and it has not taken any new referrals from the separate waiting list held by the GDNRSS. No transfers have been made to the Chelsea and Westminster service from the GDNRSS because New Victoria Hospital made provider-to-provider transfers directly to Chelsea and Westminster from the NVH waiting list.

Information about waiting times

Cribbed from an investigation by TransActual, based on community FOI requests

17th October 2021

survey suggests at least 3 years and 8 months for the surgical team to clear the current waiting list; 4 year wait if referred in 2021

3rd December 2021

Individuals waiting for stage 2 or 3 surgery have received a letter from New Victoria Hospital. They anticipate that these surgeries “will commence from March 2022 and will take around two years for all cases to be operated on.”

16th February 2022

FOI request says 1,944 people are on the waiting lists for NHS phalloplasty and metoidioplasty. Suggests waiting times for some people will be even longer than our forecast of 8 years.

12th March 2022

FOI response, says 967 people on waiting list for surgery, plus 1003 waiting for an appointment related to surgery (such as a first outpatient appointment or surgery review. In addition:

New Victoria Hospital has performed 30 masculinising genital surgery procedures between the service start date of 13 December 2021 and 22 February 2022. This represents an average of approximately 14.5 procedures per month.

10th October 2022

FOI request, 139 phalloplasty and metoidioplasty surgeries took place at New Victoria Hospital between 1st January 2022 and 30th June 2022. This equates to approximately 23 procedures a month.

NHS England’s indicative activity plan indicates an expectation of 472 procedures in the 2022/23 financial year, which equates to approximately 39 procedures a month.

Number of phalloplasty procedures performed at C+W to date

As of 2024, C&W also do phalloplasties

• Stage 1: 7
• Stage 2: <5
• Repair: 0

information

• NHS Gender Dysphoria National Referral Support Service (GDNRSS) info booklet
• General metoidioplasty info
• General phalloplasty info
• phallometa wiki - WIP - check autumn 2026
• What's happening with NHS phallo and meta in the UK? by TransActual
• the S2 Funding Route allows people who can't be seen in a timely manner by the NHS to be funded to go abroad. Community word on the ground is that since 2012, nobody has been heard of to get this for masculinising lower surgeries. There's no harm in trying and wasting their time so long as its not too much of a waste of yours.

Wow! That sucks! I've got so much time to get really good at Tekken. Maybe if i'd gone back to medical school in 2015 instead of getting on a waiting list i'd actually have qualified as a surgical urologist faster than waiting for someone else to do it! Wow! Don't think about it!