Yearly height reduction surgery thread! December 2022 (MtF) : Transgender

[[Edit: Bot flagged the post as NSFW, no problem - although I hope it doesn't make it hard for people to find information]]

This topic comes up often enough for us to attempt consolidating any recent advancements and news on the subject of surgical height reduction. Help build our knowledge and surface the need to anyone reading or attempting to write an article on this subject. ;]

Alternatively, if you're from the distant future and live in a time of complete morphological mastery (crawling through the cached web of the 2000's), hello from the past! This is where we are in the 4D playing field of transgender surgical interventions.

Obligatory link to wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/TransSurgeriesWiki/wiki/other/#wiki_height_reduction

So, let's start with the critical variables:

Height should be reduced proportionally to ensure overall balance (in terms of the vestibular system and for general appearance)
A change in torso height would require a change in arm length to ensure proportions are maintained - torso height is a qualifier which seems obvious but most literature compares arm span against full height
- Mall, G., Hubig, M., Büttner, A., Kuznik, J., Penning, R. and Graw, M., 2001. Sex determination and estimation of stature from the long bones of the arm. Forensic science international, 117(1-2), pp.23-30. 00445-X)
- Kovacevic, M., 2018. Relationship between arm span measurements and body height in Danilovgrad. Journal of Anthropology of Sport and Physical Education, 2(3), pp.33-37.

Women tend to have shorter legs and longer torsos than men ( ratio-wis e)

Contrasting the previous point, leg length has a positive relationship between components of height and physical attractiveness ( I guess our minds change faster than evolution does )
- Sorokowski, P. and Pawlowski, B., 2008. Adaptive preferences for leg length in a potential partner. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29(2), pp.86-91.
- Swami, V., Einon, D. and Furnham, A., 2006. The leg-to-body ratio as a human aesthetic criterion. Body image, 3(4), pp.317-323.

What we know from academic literature:

This is rarely done for ' aesthetic ' reasons
Height can, surgically, be reduced via:
- bilateral femoral shortening
  - Nordsletten, L., Holm, I., Steen, H., Folleras, G. and Bjerkreim, I., 1992. Bilateral femoral shortening for unaccepted tallness. The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. British volume, 74(3), pp.406-408.
  - outcomes seem positive
  - this can be done mid-shaft or in the subtrochanteric regions
Going anywhere near the spine is a risky proposition to say the least
- Kokubun, S., Ozawa, H., Aizawa, T., Ly, N.M. and Tanaka, Y., 2011. Spine-shortening osteotomy for patients with tethered cord syndrome caused by lipomyelomeningocele. Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine, 15(1), pp.21-27.

In popular culture/anecdotal reporting on patient outcomes:

We know limb shortening is not offered readily in the western world save for a few clinics which haven't produced much research/publication on their results or procedures:

LadListen clinic in Ukraine

General medical guidance around limb shortening:

The most prominent academics and practitioners in this field are:

Dr Lars Nordsletten - research context, not as a service
...I can find surgeons who have/are performing the surgery but nothing they've published, so this list is quite small.

My reflection:

Alterations in height seem 'easily' achievable in the context of bilateral femoral shortening ( see this video for one patient outcome [n=0 - I know -_-] ) though the extent to which this addresses dimorphism in other areas like the arms (humerus and ulna) is best considered on a case by case basis. There isn't much literature relating arm span to torso length (in isolation of full height), so some insight would be appreciated here if there are any anthropometric scholars about.

Further reading on ulna and humerus shortening - this is a different rabbit hole for someone else to go down preferably (though reply with anything interesting you find)!

Are you aware of any further experiences, examples or surgical research trials? Reply below!

u/stealth_girl_life

Fri Dec 2 14:38:18 2022 UTC

(1 child)

So I was curious how clocky being tall is as a transfem so I did some crappy back of the envelope calculations (please check my work before taking it too seriously lol).

p_tall_afab(X) = probability of afab being of height X = Probability on normal distribution between (X-0.5, X+0.5)

p_tall_amab(X) = similar to above

p_transfem_amab = statistics vary, but let's say between 0.1% and 1% of the amab population

Let's assume a countries population is N, and both the amab and afab population is N/2.

p(trans | women is of height X)
= given that you see a woman of height X, what is the probability she is trans
= number of transfem AMAB of height X / (number of AFAB of height X + number of transfem AMAB height X)

Number of AFAB height X = N/2 * p_tall_afab(X)
Number of trans AMAB h X = N/2 * p_transfem_amab * p_tall_amab(X)

Now for some numbers:
using https://tall.life/height-percentile-calculator-age-country/ for percentiles in the UK (no idea how accurate this thing is)

We basically take the difference between the percentiles of X+0.5 and X-0.5 to get the probabilities.

If you're a 180cm transfem AMAB in the UK, the probability p(trans | women is of height X) is between 2% and 16%, the former if 0.1% of AMAB are transfem, and the latter 1% AMAB are transfem.

and if you're a 190cm AMAB in the UK, the probability is between 28.6% and 80%, again depending on the probability of being trans.

So yea tldr, depending on how prevalent being trans is and how tall you are, you could range from not particularly clocky to very clocky purely based on your height. This calculation obviously makes a number of assumptions (e.g. that transness and height are independent, proportion of genders also depend on age, i ignored transmasc, etc.). The country you live in could also make a big difference, and obviously is height is just one component among many in determining how visibly trans you appear

u/zante2033

Fri Dec 2 18:32:35 2022 UTC

(0 children)

Yeah, there are certainly other metrics to play with but it's an interesting formula. :p

At the moment my understanding is that, in the context of shortening, the most important relationship is between upper leg and full arm length. AMAB morphology has scope to play with length in the femur but the full arm (humerus & ulna) is a more complicated intervention. I haven't seen much literature discussing alteration in that area (whether for biomechanical deficiencies or otherwise).

Edit: Here's a video showing femoral shortening results with strangely comical piano music

Yearly height reduction surgery thread! December 2022 (MtF)

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