What Is Facial Feminization Surgery?
A complete guide to facial feminization surgery: the procedures involved, how Design My Implants plans each case around your own anatomy, and what to expect from consultation to recovery.
Taking This Step
Exploring facial feminization surgery is a significant step, and it deserves real answers rather than vague reassurance. Facial feminization surgery (FFS) is a set of procedures that soften and rebalance masculine facial features into contours that align with your identity. For many people navigating gender dysphoria, these changes are not cosmetic in the casual sense — they are a meaningful part of being seen and recognized as who you are.
This guide walks through every procedure involved in facial feminization surgery, how we plan it, and what makes our approach different: every recommendation starts with a CBCT scan of your own anatomy, not a generic template.
What Procedures Are Involved?
Facial feminization surgery can involve one procedure or several, planned together or staged over time. Depending on your goals and anatomy, a full plan may include jaw and chin refinement, forehead and brow contouring, cheek augmentation, rhinoplasty, hairline lowering, a tracheal shave, and lip feminization. Some people pursue a single change; others coordinate multiple procedures into one recovery. Your consultation and CBCT scan determine which combination makes sense for your face specifically, not a standard package.
The Procedures Involved
Jawline & Chin Refinement
A masculinized jaw is typically wider, squarer, and more prominent at the angle than a feminine jaw; a masculinized chin tends to be taller and more forward-projecting. Feminizing this area is primarily a reduction and reshaping procedure — narrowing and softening the jaw angle, and shortening and tapering the chin to a softer point.
Custom PEEK/DMI implants come into play when reduction alone can’t fully achieve the goal: correcting asymmetry left after bone reduction, refining chin projection once the jaw has been narrowed, or building in a contour transition that freehand reshaping can’t reliably reproduce on both sides.
Because this work involves fine, often asymmetric adjustments close to the mandibular nerve, we start with a CBCT scan of your own bone anatomy so your plan is designed to fit your actual anatomy, not an estimate made mid-surgery.
Brow & Forehead Contouring
Reducing a heavy, prominent brow ridge is one of the most requested changes in facial feminization. Depending on your anatomy, this is usually contouring or reduction of the existing bone, planned from your CBCT scan so your surgical team can account for your real bone thickness and frontal sinus position in advance.
A full forehead plan often combines brow reduction with broader forehead reshaping. Before any procedure, you and your surgical team review the 3D digital design from every angle, including profile, so you know what to expect before you’re in the operating room.
Cheek Enhancement
Feminine faces typically carry more volume and a higher point of projection through the cheeks. Depending on how much structural change you want, this can be achieved with fat grafting, filler, or a custom implant sized from your own CBCT scan.
Filler and fat transfer add soft-tissue volume and are temporary to semi-permanent; a cheek implant is a permanent structural addition. Properly sized implants sit deep against the bone, so the edge stays neither visible nor palpable on most faces.
Nose Feminization
Rhinoplasty performed with feminization goals in mind typically narrows a wide bridge, refines a bulbous or wide tip, smooths a dorsal hump, and adjusts the angle between the nose and upper lip.
Because the nose sits at the center of the face, we plan any nasal changes alongside jaw, chin, brow, and cheek work so your whole profile stays proportionate. This is a reshaping of your own cartilage and bone, performed by your surgical team as part of your overall plan.
Hairline Feminization
A masculine hairline tends to sit higher, with more temporal recession. Feminine hairlines are generally lower and rounder at the temples. Depending on your starting hairline and hair density, we may recommend surgical hairline lowering, hair transplantation, or a combination of both.
When forehead and brow contouring is also part of your plan, hairline position and forehead reshaping are planned together, since moving the hairline changes how much forehead remains visible afterward.
Tracheal Shave
A prominent Adam’s apple is one of the most visible masculine features outside the face itself. A tracheal shave — also called chondrolaryngoplasty — reduces the projection of the thyroid cartilage through a small, well-concealed incision, typically placed in a natural neck crease.
Because the vocal cords sit just behind the treatment area, this procedure calls for careful, conservative shaping planned directly with your surgical team. It addresses prominence only; voice work, if you want it, is a separate conversation.
Lip Feminization
Feminine lips tend to show more of the upper lip at rest. We typically address this with a lip lift — shortening the distance between the base of the nose and the upper lip — combined with added volume or definition through filler or fat grafting.
Because lip and chin proportions read together visually, lip feminization is often discussed alongside chin work during consultation, so the lower third of your face balances as a whole.
Redoing Previous Facial Feminization Surgery
If a previous procedure didn’t get you the result you were hoping for, you’re not out of options. Revision cases benefit the most from CBCT-based planning, because a 3D scan of your current anatomy shows exactly what changed in your first surgery and what’s realistically achievable now. We’ll walk through your scan with you and your surgical team before recommending anything, so you understand what’s possible before committing to a second procedure.
Our Approach
Every face needs a different combination of procedures to reach a result that looks like a more feminine version of you, not a generic outcome.
Scan-Based Planning
Every recommendation starts with your own CBCT scan, not a template.
Collaborative Design
Any custom implant is reviewed and refined with you before your surgical team signs off on the plan.
Honest Sequencing
If your case needs staged procedures, we’ll tell you why and help you plan the order.
What Does Facial Feminization Surgery Cost?
Facial feminization surgery pricing depends entirely on which procedures your case needs, whether any require a custom implant, and how many procedures you combine into one recovery. Because every plan starts with your own CBCT scan and goals, we don’t publish a flat price — it would either understate a complex case or overstate a simple one.
Book a complimentary consultation and we’ll walk through which procedures apply to your goals and give you a personalized quote based on your actual plan, not an estimate.
Ready to See Your Design?
Book a complimentary consultation to find out which procedures apply to your case and what your plan could look like.