Bowers, Marci

Dr. Marci Bowers emerged in the first years of the 21st century as one of the premier surgeons performing sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) in the United States and the world. She performs SRS at Mount San Rafael Hospital in Trinidad, Colorado, continuing the practice in sex-change surgery begun there by Dr. Stanley Biber in 1969. Their work has made Trinidad a mecca for those men and women seeking to transition, that is, to align through surgery their sex and their gender identity.

Born Mark Bowers in 1958, Dr. Marci Bowers had known from her childhood that her male genitalia did not align with her gender identity as a woman. She began transitioning about 1996. In 2003, at the invitation of Dr. Biber, she joined him in Trinidad and began working with him on sex reassignment surgeries. By the summer, she had succeeded him in the practice, becoming the first American transsexual surgeon to perform SRS in the United States. A Wisconsin native, Marci Bowers attended the University of Wisconsin before going on to receive her medical training at the University of Minnesota where she completed her studies in 1986. She did her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington in Seattle where she initially practiced at The Polyclinic and, since 2002, at Seattle Reproductive Healthcare. Dr. Bowers worked solely in obstetrics and gynecology in Seattle until she joined Dr. Biber in Trinidad, Colorado. Since then, she has divided her career between her practices in Washington and Colorado.

Dr. Biber was among the first surgeons, along with physicians at both the Johns Hopkins and Stanford university medical centers, to perform SRS in the United States. Using the penile inversion techniques originally developed by the French gynecologist, George Burou, at his clinic in Casablanca during the 1960s and 1970s, Biber passed his techniques on to Dr. Bowers who has continued to make innovations in the complex surgery of converting penis and scrotum into vagina and labia, in particular the use of the glans in clitoral construction. Dr. Bowers also performs her surgeries in line with the Standards of Care set forth by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), formerly the Harry Benjamin Institute, of which she is a member.

In 2009, Dr. Bowers began using her SRS expertise to perform innovative reparative gynoplasty for African and Middle Eastern women who have been subject to female circumcision, a severe mutilation of female genitalia. She began working in this area in France with Dr. Pierre Foldes, a urologist, supported by the Clitoraid Foundation. She brought her work back to the United States where she has initiated reparative gynoplasty in her clinic in Trinidad. In particular, she has worked to rebuild not only labia but the clitoris as well, restoring feelings of “wholeness” to women and the potential for sexual pleasure.

The recipient of numerous awards, Dr. Bowers is board certified in obstetrics and gynecology. She is also on the board of the Ingersoll Gender Center and the advisory board for the Midwives’ Association of Washington State as well as a member of WPATH, the European Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

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