Gender-affirming care
(noun)
Gender-affirming care (also known as gender-affirmative or trans-affirming care) encompasses a range of social, psychological, behavioral, and medical interventions designed to support and affirm an individual's gender identity (Source).
Examples: Supporting youth in expressing their affirmed gender via clothes, their affirmed name, and their affirmed pronouns; providing gender-affirming therapy to youth; helping their caregivers understand the youth’s gender identity and act supportively; connecting youth to medical interventions such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or gender-affirming surgery (e.g., Facial feminization surgery, masculinizing chest surgery ("top" surgery), etc) (Source).
Why it’s important to know this: Gender-affirming care can be an important part of medically necessary treatment to alleviate gender dysphoria. At the same time, not all youth will want all (or sometimes any) of these options and that every person’s gender-affirmative care should be tailored to their individual needs. Terms such as “sex-change operation,” “pre-operative,” or “post-operative,” are considered outdated because they suggest that all transgender people have surgeries in order to transition (which is not true) (Source).