I don't want to excuse people who tease a kid with red hair or a girl who had a broken nose that healed crooked or a teen who is overweight - but -

there are some degrees of facial deformity that excite such innate revulsion and disgust that it makes normal social interaction virtually impossible, at least for new acquaintances or people of greater sensitivity. This is not about 'making life hell' for someone so much as it being difficult to keep the gaze clear of something that the brain detects as 'wrong' or keep a steady face when suddenly encountering something effectively grotesque. Some people are trained in acceptance and compassion to a degree that is difficult - just like surgeons may see a cracked chest and not see blood and gore, but instead see function and lines of cutting. However, others of us enter an operating room and, overcome by the gore, pass out. It is unconscious, reflexive, not prejudice but instinct.

So, on these grounds, there are some deformities which need to be covered up, managed or removed to permit effective function in society. Not because people are bad, evil or nasty, but because they are people.

Your last paragraph implies that physically deformed people should go out and get reconstructive surgery for the benefit of the people who have to look at them. Because looking at an ugly face is so much more painful than knowing that you have one yourself and everyone is staring. Please correct me if I misunderstood what you meant.

No, not for the benefit of people who have to look at them, but not solely for their own benefit either. It is instead to everybody's benefit that people be able to work together productively.

I think what he is trying to say is that most people know in their logical/empathetic mind that a person with a deformed face is still a person worthy of compassion and interaction and should not be made fun of or excluded for any reason. But the sad truth is that no matter how "nice" people may be to the person with a facial deformity, that person is always going to be aware that they are different, weird, something to be pitied.

So to a degree, the people are not getting the face transplant because they are forced to because society can't accept them. They get the surgery because they can't except themselves. That the only thing that pushes people to accept the risk of death in order to change themselves.

Basically the right idea. I was saying that as much as people may want to treat a person well, they may not be able to mask their innate surprise or other negative reactions to someone who presents significantly unusual features. There is a physiological response that can't be completely managed, particularly at first. This will create problems for the person, problems that would be better resolved if possible.