Master’s Research Project (MRP)
Metoidioplasty (or “meta”) is a gender-affirming surgery that creates a penis using existing clitoral tissue. Patients can customize their results by adding on subprocedures, including scrotoplasty and urethral lengthening.
Because metoidioplasty changes genital appearance and function, illustrated educational tools are essential to support patients’ understanding of meta. Despite the need, no such tools exist and in their absence patients may struggle to understand their options, set realistic expectations, and provide informed consent.
My project partner Grace Gibson and I are developing MetaMorphosis, an illustrated patient education website for meta patients at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, Canada. The site will guide patients through the pre-, intra-, and post-operative stages of meta, with an emphasis on surgical results, recovery, and complications.
Our primary goal is to help trans and nonbinary people navigate the complexities of this surgery.
This project is in the production phase. The website will be launched by the end of summer 2026.
Here’s a walkthrough of the site’s contents:
Output
Illustrated educational website for metoidioplasty patients
Research Team
Student Researchers: Winter Kraemer & Grace Gibson
Content Advisor: Dr. Alexi Millman (Women’s College Hospital)
Faculty Advisors: Dr. Shelley Wall, Prof. Shehryar (Shay) Saharan (University of Toronto)
BOYS Tool
A key feature of our site is The Build-Out-Your-Surgery (BOYS) tool, an interactive gallery of surgical results on different skin tones and body sizes. The BOYS tool shows patients what the surgery could look like on a body similar to their own, which helps with building realistic expectations and making associations between aesthetic and functional changes.
These were some of the very first sketches I created when developing the BOYS tool idea:
Since then the tool has changed somewhat, but the original idea is the same: help people see themselves represented.
Since then the tool has changed somewhat, but the original idea is the same: help people see themselves represented.
Timeline & Planning
Good planning is critical to the success of a long-term project. We had ambitious goals for MetaMorphosis, considering we had just over a year to complete it. We created a timeline and a project scope in the early stages of our project to ensure that we remained on track:
Good planning is critical to the success of a long-term project. We had ambitious goals for MetaMorphosis, considering we had just over a year to complete it. We created a timeline and a project scope in the early stages of our project to ensure that we remained on track:
Research
Our research began with a literature review and media audit to understand the current landscape of metoidioplasty resources. We developed a project proposal based on our understanding of the gaps in communication for metoidioplasty patient education.
The main finding: Communicating the outcomes and risks of different types of metoidioplasty is critical to the shared decision-making process between the patient and their healthcare provider, and currently, there are insufficient resources to do so.
You can read the proposal in full here.
Pre-production
A great deal of time and effort went into pre-production: understanding the gaps in communication and mapping out the solutions. In our community-centred design research course, we created empathy maps, user personas, and context scenarios based on our literature review and conversations with community members (i.e. patients who wanted or had had metoidioplasty).
Throughout Autumn 2025 we developed our pre-production design document, which acted as a guide for production time. You can read the full document here.
Community Research
One of the most important aspects of our work is community involvement. We want this resource to be for trans people, by trans people. In order to keep MetaMorphosis rooted in the community’s needs, we set out to consult with meta patients at Women’s College Hospital. Our goal was to learn about the lived experience of the surgery so that we could share key points of advice on the site. This draws upon the pre-existing dynamics of mutual aid in the trans community: sharing stories so others know what to expect and know they’re not alone.
We applied for research ethics board approval and subsequently conducted two focus groups. Patients told us how they felt about the site and we learned about their experiences with metoidioplasty so far. Currently, we are conducting a qualitative analysis of focus group transcripts for future case study use and integration of patient stories into the website.
In order to communicate metoidioplasty to patients, we needed to familiarize ourselves with the metoidioplasty techniques employed at WCH. We had the opportunity to observe and document several meta procedures in the OR; performed by our content advisor, Dr. Alexi Millman. My sketches of the process are the precursor to the animation clip shown above. The rest of the surgery will be animated (currently in progress).