Orange County Resident Undergoes New Transgender Surgery Program

ORANGE COUNTY, CA -- At age 50, Orange County resident Liz Youngs now feels whole. Youngs is one of the first patients to undergo the new gender-affirming program at Cedars-Sinai hospital. The Los Angeles-based nonprofit recently announced its new Transgender Surgery and Health Program, which helps patients transition from one gender to another.

Youngs, who began transitioning from a male to a female when she was 18, received a six-hour gender-affirming genital surgery at Cedars-Sinai under the guidance of program director and doctor Maurice Garcia.

“I’m complete,” Youngs said. “I’m finally happy. I’m comfortable with who I am. I have a whole new life ahead of me.”

Youngs attributes her newfound happiness in large part to the comprehensive services Cedars-Sinai offers transgender people — including gender-affirming and plastic surgeries, hormone management and mental health counseling — through a program designed to meet the needs of this underserved population.

The new program at Cedars-Sinai is one of only two academic medical centers in the Western U.S. that offers gender-affirming genital surgery. Led by Garcia, the program is staffed by specialists invested in helping members of the transgender community at every stage of their journeys. Patients covered by Medi-Cal and Medicare can also find services at the hospital.

The medical center currently offers male-to-female and female-to-male gender-affirming genital surgeries, as well as several other surgical options to best meet patient needs. Patients already have come from the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Asia.

"The bedrock of our program is that we're as committed to follow-up care as we are to patients' initial care, something for which an academic medical center is ideally suited," Garcia said in a press release.

Cedars-Sinai said the need for transgender services is evident. Recent federal and state population studies estimate that about 1.4 million adults, including 218,000 in California, identify as transgender people, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.

Garcia has specialized in gender-affirming surgery for five years. He is an expert in genital surgery as well as male-to-female and female-to-male gender-affirming genital surgery for adults and adolescents. In addition, he provides urologic care to all adults and adolescents.

--Liz Youngs with Dr. Maurice Garcia, director of Cedars-Sinai's Transgender Surgery and Health Program. Photo courtesy of Cedars-Sinai