Sex change U-turn

A young man has gone under the knife twice after regretting an earlier decision to change his sex from male to female.

Two years ago, the 21-year-old went to Thailand without the consent of his family for his first operation after being convinced that he was a girl at heart.

As part of the procedure, his genitals were removed.

However, although he has physically become a woman, his appearance remained masculine.

This put a lot of stress on the man as he would get stares from strangers.

To make matters worse, his family added to his pressure, blaming him for ruining his family name.

The young man, who was not named in the report, decided to have another operation to regain his manhood.

But the surgery was complicated as his genitals had to be reconstructed.

He also has to inject himself with male hormones periodically for life in order to stay “manly”.

Dr Cai Rong Fu, a doctor who has been counselling sex-change patients in Singapore for over 40 years, warned those who want to go for a sex-change to think carefully and not to arrange for an operation without psychological assessment.

Dr Cai was the first psychiatrist to see sex-change patients and has now counselled over 2,000 patients in Singapore.

According to him, the youngest patient he has seen was just 13 years old.

During an interview, Dr Cai said that when a person wants to change their sex, he or she must go through a psychological evaluation conducted by two doctors.

This is to ensure that they have “gender identity disorder” and the traits of the opposite sex.

After the assessment, they will be asked to dress up as the opposite sex for six months and ingest or inject hormones for at least one year before they are “certified” ready for operation.

On the average, two to three women would see him about becoming men.

For men wanting to turn into women, Dr Cai sees an average of one each month.

ORIGINAL SOURCE
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