Marci Bowers | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1958-01-18)January 18, 1958 (age 68) Oak Park, Illinois, U.S. |
| Education | University of Minnesota |
| Occupation | Surgeon |
| Known for | Gender-affirming surgery,clitoral restoration afterfemale genital mutilation |
| Children | 3 |
| Website | marcibowers |
Marci Lee Bowers (born January 18, 1958) is an Americangynecologist and surgeon who specializes ingender-affirming surgeries. Bowers is viewed as an innovator in gender confirmation/affirmation surgery, and is the firsttransgender woman to perform such surgeries.[1][2][3][4]
Bowers operates atMills-Peninsula Medical Center inBurlingame, California, andSan Mateo Surgery Center inSan Mateo, California. From 2003 to 2010, she practiced in the town ofTrinidad, Colorado, where she apprenticed underStanley Biber, a pioneer insex reassignment surgery, before going solo in July 2003.[1][5][6][7]
Bowers is also an international expert on functionalclitoral restoration (also called clitoralreconstruction surgery) afterfemale genital mutilation and cutting. From 2007 to 2009, she practised underPierre Foldès, pioneer of clitoral restoration surgery.
She has spoken about her practice and other transgender topics in several documentaries, interviews, news reports, and articles. Media appearances have includedThe Oprah Winfrey Show (2007),The Tyra Banks Show (5 episodes),Today,Matt Walsh'sWhat Is a Woman?, andCBS Sunday Morning feature. She is also the featured surgeon in the six-part 2006–2007 television seriesSex Change Hospital. In May 2020,The Times featured Bowers on their Science Power List.[8]
Bowers was born inOak Park, Illinois, and grew up inOconomowoc, Wisconsin, as one of four siblings. At the age of 19, she hitchhiked toSan Diego intending to begin her gender transition, but was unable to afford surgeries. She was briefly a member of theUnification Church, which she later described as a "cult".[9] Bowers subsequently returned to Wisconsin and enrolled in college. She went on to attend theUniversity of Minnesota Medical School where she was the class and student body president.[10] After anob/gyn residency at theUniversity of Washington, she continued in Seattle as an obstetrician and gynecologist atThe Polyclinic andSwedish Medical Center.[5][11][12]
Before moving toTrinidad, Colorado, Bowers practicedobstetrics and gynecology at thePolyClinic/Swedish Medical Center inSeattle. In her 20 years practicing obstetrics, she delivered more than 2000 babies.[10][11] She has served as Obstetrics and Gynecology Department Chairperson at Swedish (Providence) Medical Center, and was named the only physician member of the Washington Statemidwifery board. She is a member-elect of theEuropean Academy of Sciences.[10]
WhenStanley Biber retired in 2003 at the age of 80, Bowers took over his practice, and since then, has done more than 2000 genital reassignment surgeries, performing as many as 12 gender affirming surgeries weekly. While performing surgery in Trinidad, Bowers estimated revenue at US$1.6 million per year to the hospital.[11]
In 2010, she relocated to theSan Francisco Bay Area and continues to practice in Burlingame, California.[13][14] She has also helped initiate transgender surgical education programs atSheba Medical Center inTel Aviv (2014),Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York (2016),Denver Health in Colorado (2018), andUniversity of Toronto (2019). The transgender surgical fellowship at Mount Sinai is acknowledged as the first of its kind in the United States.[citation needed]
In 2018 and 2019, Bowers performed the first live surgicalvaginoplasty surgeries in surgical educational programs sponsored by theWorld Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH)Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.[citation needed]
Bowers was the president of WPATH from 2022-2024[15], and has served on the board of directors for bothGLAAD and theTransgender Law Center.
Bowers is the first U.S. surgeon to performclitoral restoration surgery for survivors offemale genital mutilation, whom she does not charge for surgery.[16] She was trained for this specific operation underPierre Foldès and has now performed more than 500 clitoral restorations at her clinic in San Mateo.[17]
She has led medical missions toBurkina Faso (2014),Nairobi,Kenya (2017 and 2019). Working with local plastic surgeon, Abdullahi Adan, and others, this specific surgical venue is a first for Africa after the failed opening of the Pleasure Hospital[18] in Bobo-Dioulasso.
Bowers's first known television appearance was a role in "Ch-ch-ch-changes" (2004), a season 5 episode ofCSI: Crime Scene Investigation that focused on transgender issues. She also served as a production consultant for the episode.[19]
She appeared briefly in the 2005 documentary-seriesTransGeneration, produced byWorld of Wonder; soon after, World of Wonder turned their attention to Bowers herself and her practice, in their 2007 documentary seriesSex Change Hospital—a six-episode series that follows 12 patients before, during, and after surgery.[19][20]Sex Change Hospital premiered onMore4,[20] and was rebroadcast onE4 in the UK andWE tv in the US. She and her practice were also the focus ofTrinidad (2009), an independent documentary directed byPJ Raval and Jay Hodges.[21] The filmmakers examine the success of Dr. Bowers's practice, and the transgender people who travel to the town of Trinidad, Colorado, for sex reassignment surgery. The film premiered in the US on theShowtime channel.[22]
Bowers appears as herself in the television documentaryGender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric (2017), and in the reality seriesI Am Jazz from 2016 to 2018 (seasons 3 through 6)[citation needed]. She has been a guest on US talk shows includingThe Oprah Winfrey Show[23] andThe Tyra Banks Show.
She has been interviewed for several publications.[24] She is the author of at least five book chapters in surgical textbooks.
In 2020, Bowers made an appearance in the HBO documentaryTranshood, where she performed 19-year-old Leena's gender reassignment surgery.[25]
In 2022, Bowers appeared inThe Daily Wire documentaryWhat Is a Woman?[26]
In an interview with journalist and authorAbigail Shrier, Bowers expressed some concern over early suppression of puberty. Talking toEmily Bazelon ofThe New York Times Magazine in June 2022, Bowers distanced herself from others interviewed by Shrier, stating: "The most important thing is access to care, and that is a much bigger problem than the issue of how the medical community and transition is failing people."[27]
In 2005, Terry Keith, a pastor for the All Nations Fellowship church in Trinidad, toldThe Pueblo Chieftain "Our reputation as sex-change capital of the world has brought shame and reproach on the community."[11] That same year, two pastors circulated a petition for the closure of the clinic. They cited aJohns Hopkins University study that they claimed was proof that gender confirmation surgeries were an ineffective treatment for gender dysphoria.[28] The petition was rejected.[11] Bowers said that the church misrepresented the study data: "If you look at the actual study itself, the satisfaction rates and happiness rates after [surgeries] were overwhelmingly positive, their interpretation of the study was that the respondents—the patients themselves—couldn't possibly be accurate about what they were feeling, because they were crazy in the first place. There's been nothing like it since—and it's very important to point out that it's from 1972."[28]
After Pierre Foldès's study inThe Lancet (February 2012), his results were met with skepticism from British gynecologists who wrote a rebuttal to his findings, questioning his methods and outcomes. Bowers is conducting ongoing studies using standard measures of female sexual function to definitively affirm Foldès's conclusions, but as Bowers has stated, "There is no happier text that I receive at three in the morning than someone stating they have had their first orgasm in their life."[citation needed]
Bowers and her wife have three children.[9]
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