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Hunter Schafer has entered an exciting new chapter in her life.
The 27-year-old actress revealed that she underwent gender-affirming bottom surgery in December 2025, sharing the news in a new interview with Elle.
Schafer had kept the procedure private until now, but she made it clear that she has no regrets about taking this step in her transition.
“I just had bottom surgery in December, which was amazing, and I love it so much,” Schafer told the magazine.
The actress also explained that the decision came after spending considerable time trying to embrace her body as it was.
For years, she had appreciated the “gender-expansive” aspects of her identity and wanted to explore that part of herself before deciding whether medical intervention was right for her.
“For a long time I’ve embraced the gender-expansive part of myself, and I really wanted to try to make that previous body work, because I thought there was something really cool and badass about it,” she explained.
Ultimately, however, Schafer decided that undergoing surgery was the right choice for her.
And she’s not shy about sharing how happy she is with that decision.
Schafer also reflected on how her understanding of queerness has evolved over the years. While she once viewed her identity through a broader, more fluid lens, she now feels more grounded in how she identifies herself.
“I’m a woman. I’m a girl,” she said, according to Elle.
That doesn’t mean Schafer has abandoned her appreciation for the possibilities that come with exploring one’s identity. Rather, she has come to recognize the difference between how people think about identity in theory and how those ideas play out in everyday life.
“Maybe it’s a good thing to share, for the tension I was talking about between those two worlds [reality and ideology],” she said of her decision to discuss the surgery publicly.
Of course, the procedure also came with a lengthy recovery period.
Schafer described renting a large apartment earlier this year so she could recover comfortably. She also had to significantly limit her movement while healing.
“I think my limit was 150 steps per day, which is nothing,” she recalled.
That’s a pretty dramatic change of pace for an actress whose career increasingly demands physical activity.
Fortunately, Schafer has had opportunities to explore a different side of her abilities on the set of Blade Runner 2099, in which she stars alongside Michelle Yeoh.
Schafer said she particularly enjoyed the action elements of the project because they allowed her to focus on movement rather than overthinking everything.
Her latest revelation also comes after Schafer spoke publicly about the challenges transgender people face navigating government policies.
In February 2025, the actress revealed that her replacement passport had been issued with a male gender marker after her original passport was stolen. She had previously changed the marker to female nearly a decade earlier.
Schafer attributed the change to the Trump administration’s policies on sex and gender recognition, while acknowledging that her status as a white celebrity gave her certain advantages that other transgender people might not have.
Still, she emphasized that the government’s decision didn’t change who she was.
“I don’t give a f–k that they put an M on my passport,” she said at the time. “It doesn’t change anything about me or my transness.”
Now, by sharing her experience with gender-affirming surgery, Schafer is offering another glimpse into her personal journey — this time, on her own terms.
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