Grant: Fellowship: POR Awards - Transition to Leadership Stream - Phase 1

This project is a patient-driven study on well-being after gender affirming genital surgeries for trans men. All members of this community engagement committee (CEC) will identify as transgender men and have undergone a gender-affirming genital surgery (colloquially referred to as 'bottom surgery'). Our goal is to determine research priorities and plan a research project which will address the sexual health and well-being of transgender men who have had bottom surgery. To date there are no community-based projects addressing this topic area and academic literature is lacking; it is important for us as community members to lead the discussion regarding our own health and well- being. The CEC will determine research priorities and questions, methods and knowledge translation activities for my dissertation. One of the foundations of CBPR is capacity building; committee members will first receive training on research ethics, CBPR and methods. After training on the above mentioned areas occurs, CEC members will decide on our research priority areas.These may include what aspects of sexual health and well-being are important to understand through this research, what to measure, what types of surgical intervention to address and what existing measures may be incorporated into our work. The outcome of the time we spend working together will be a draft of a survey about sexual well-being after bottom surgery. This survey will be piloted through workshops with community members and their feedback used to revise the draft. Additionally, we will plan knowledge translation activities for work together which currently include a video series and information for healthcare providers. We will also plan further funding applications to support more capacity building in our community as the research process occurs.