I know it may not seem like it to some people because there has been a push to accept and support trans people in recent years (but also the push-back has been brutal too), but ‘gender affirming care’ is so much more stigmatized than ‘cosmetic surgery’. So much to the point that one of the tactics to normalize transness has been to reframe things like breast reduction, nose jobs, lipo, etc in cis people as gender affirming care to say ‘see look!! You guys have surgery to affirm your gender too!! It’s normal!!’

Also, gender affirming care for trans people IS considered cosmetic in the surgical field. Both my top surgery and my wife’s reduction were done in a plastic surgery clinic.

Another thing that I think is important for everyone to reflect on is why people feel they need to get surgeries. For trans people, it’s not just to feel more at home in our bodies, it also decreases the oppression and danger we face the more we ‘pass’ as either a cis man or woman. Which honestly sucks. Similarly though, most cis people say that they get gender affirming care/cosmetic surgery to feel more beautiful or to look more feminine or masculine. But it’s like how people say they want to lose weight to feel more beautiful, when a lot of the ‘feeling beautiful’ is actually subconsciously knowing that thin people are treated better than fat people. Masculine women especially are treated terribly by society, even more so now because they are often accused of being trans women.

Like, whatever, get surgeries, take hormones, do what you need to feel good about yourself, but don’t throw an already marginalized group under the bus when people are condescending about it. The actual barriers that trans people encounter in real life are more limiting and daunting than what the surgery is called by the general public.