Marci Bowers, M.D. of Burlingame, California, is widely recognized as a pioneer in the field of gender-affirmation surgery. She is the first woman worldwide and the first woman with a personal transgender history to perform gender-affirming bottom surgery.¹She is also the first North American surgeon to learn and perform functional clitoral restoration following female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C).1,2
Dr. Bowers is a pelvic and gynecologic surgeon with more than 35 years of clinical experience. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota Medical School, where she served as both class president and student body president. She completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Washington and subsequently practiced in Seattle at The Polyclinic and Swedish Medical Center.1,3
In 2003, Dr. Bowers left Seattle to apprentice with the late Dr. Stanley Biber, widely regarded as the "Father of Transgender Surgery." In 2010, she relocated her practice to Burlingame, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. To date, Dr. Bowers has performed more than 2,650 primary male-to-female vaginoplasties and over 4,200 gender-affirming surgeries overall.1,2
In 2014, Dr. Bowers was recruited to renew and advance transgender surgical care at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, Israel. She later initiated transgender surgical education programs at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York (2016), Denver Health (2018), the University of Toronto's Women's College Hospital (2019), Northwell Health (2020), and Children's Hospital Los Angeles (2020). The Mount Sinai Transgender Surgical Fellowship—founded with her leadership—was the first program of its kind. Dr. Bowers also performed WPATH's first two live-broadcast vaginoplasty surgeries at Mount Sinai in 2018 and 2019.2,4,5,6
Dr. Bowers is the immediate past president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and currently serves on the Board of Directors of The Trevor Project. She has previously served on the boards of GLAAD and the Transgender Law Center.2
Her work with gender-diverse patients has been featured across major media platforms, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, CBS Sunday Morning, Discovery Health, and the TLC series I Am Jazz. In 2021, she was interviewed by Lesley Stahl on CBS 60 Minutes, and in July 2023, she appeared on CBS News' Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.2,7,8
Dr. Bowers has been named one of the 100 most influential LGBTQ+ people on The Guardian's World Pride Power List and one of HuffPost's 50 Transgender Icons. She has been described in the media as the "Transgender Surgery Rock Star" (Denver Post), the "Georgia O'Keeffe of Genitalia," and the "Beyoncé of Bottom Surgery" (KPFK-FM, North Hollywood). She also appeared in a cameo role during the 100th episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, titled "Ch-Ch-Changes," which focused on transgender issues.2,9,10
