Chin Reduction for Facial Feminization

Q: Dr. Eppley, I am a transgender male to female who is investigating how best to further reduce the masculinity of my face. Overall, my face has a width problem with wide temporal muscles, laterally protruding cheekbones, and a wide chin. I spoke with you on the phone a few months ago about the temporal reduction which I still plan on doing with you later this year.

However, I am also concerned about my chin. I had a chin reduction with another surgeon, and he used a submental burring approach. This was effective in making my chin more rounded and less square, but it’s still a wide chin. And considering the fact that I am looking into doing temporal width reduction and cheekbone reduction one day with you, I realize that if this wide chin issue isn’t dealt with it will look even more disproportionate.

1) What do you think is the best way to deal with a wide chin? Would I be correct that a wedge osteotomy to remove a center wedge of bone and pushing the two sides together would create the narrowed chin shape that I desire?

2) Can temporal width reduction, cheekbone reduction, and a chin reduction procedure all be done together?

Thank you!

A: I am not sure why with a submental chin burring technique you did not get enough width reduction. That technique can create as much narrowing as an intraoral wedge reduction chin osteotomy. They are just two different ways to achieve the same result. I suspect your surgeon was simply not aggressive enough and may not have been comfortable doing so. A wide resection of the side of the chin can definitely make it more narrow and probably more so than an intramural midlne wedge osteotomy.

Temporal, cheek and chin reduction surgeries can all be done together and would make the most sense to do so given the overall objective of a total facial narrowing effect.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana