Recent data from a Pew Research Center survey underscores the growing visibility and acceptance of transgender individuals in the United States. Among adults under 30, 5.1% identify as trans or nonbinary, with an increasing number embracing their identities as trans men, trans women, or nonbinary individuals.
Cynthia Elliott, MD, owner of Clearwater, Fla.-based aesthetic medical practice Skinspirations, says she recognizes the unique opportunities aesthetic medical treatments present in supporting transgender individuals on their lifelong journey of self-discovery and self-expression. Non-surgical aesthetic treatments have become a vital tool for individuals of all genders, enabling them to achieve their desired aesthetic appearance, she explains.
Elliott says At Skinspirations, increasingly popular gender-aligning facial aesthetic treatments include enhancing masculine features by crafting strong chins and chiseled jawlines with horizontal brows or feminizing faces by permanently erasing facial hair and creating higher cheekbones, fuller lips, and tapered chins. These transformations are possible using injectable treatments, laser hair removal, and non-surgical body contouring.
She encourages her patients to communicate their goals candidly, adding, “I had a new patient who presented to me as a man; when I asked him what he’d like to change, he answered, ‘I want cheeks like yours.’ When I told him he would look very feminine if I gave him cheeks like mine, he answered, ‘Exactly.’ We both knew at that moment what his appearance goals were.”
“Over the following months, we elevated his brows, tapered his chin with filler, and narrowed his jawline with Botox; one of my aestheticians even lent him a skirt,” Elliott says. “It was a gratifying project for all of us.”
