About me
I’m Katja Tetzlaff, a professional medical illustrator and instructor. I completed a BS in Molecular Biology before finishing an MS in Biomedical Visualization, where my research included novel medical illustrations of how a transgender person’s body can change over time through hormone therapy.
While Western medical illustration has promoted a narrow representation of the human form, imagery pertaining to sex and gender notably lack diversity. As it is a widespread issue across medical education, my hope is that the work I create with my clients helps change this narrative.
This work seeks to fill the gap in medical illustrations about transgender, non-binary, and intersex people, and depictions of human diversity related to gender, sex, and sexuality. With every project, I advocate for inclusive representation to make materials that are accessible, accurate, and affirming, provide a sliding-scale for accessibility, and redistribute a portion of all profit to Black and BIPOC grassroots trans mutual aid funds in “the South.”
About the work
Health is for everybody and every body, and everyone deserves to be represented.
In addition to custom medical illustration, I also collaborate with and provide professional consultation to a range of educators and organizations to make their curriculum, educational materials, or publications a more realistic, holistic depiction of all people.
All successful medical illustrations balance scientific and artistic needs but illustrations related to diverse representations of gender, sex, and sexuality have other considerations.
About working with me
Never worked with an illustrator before? No problem. I’ll help you through it.
Stock photos generally show idealized, and inaccurate, genitalia; images that are almost always copies of outdated white, aesthetical, and anatomically incomplete references. That’s where I come in.
If you would like to collaborate on a project, request a training or consultation, or commission medical illustrations, please go to my contact page or email me to get started.
Katja Tetzlaff 