ABSTRACT
In surgery, particularly plastic and reconstructive surgery, it is generally easier to resect tissue than to add it. This explains why a phalloplasty is considered a much more complex surgical procedure than a penectomy, with or without vaginoplasty. It also explains why so little is known about the history of transsexual surgery in female-to-male transsexuals. Virtually no data exist on the number of women who underwent mastectomy, hysterectomy, and/or bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (BSO) to relieve severe gender dysphoria prior to the twentieth century.
