Girl-turned-boy gets first Rakhi at 16

This year is special for 16-year-old Aftab because, for the first time in his life, someone will tie a rakhi on his hand. Ask him why and he will tell you in the breaking voice of an adolescent male entering manhood that, till last year, he was a girl.

Aftab was brought up as a girl named Farheen Amin Girach. But neither her parents nor Farheen know that she was androgynous, with male sexual organs inside her body while externally she was female. Raised as a girl, she studied at Shree Municipal Girl's High School in Jetpur. However, she underwent corrective surgery in Ahmedabad when her androgynous condition was discovered and had her external sex organs altered to match the male sex organs inside her body.

Dr Hemant Bakshi, the urologist who conducted the sex-change operations on Aftab said that when Farheen's menstruation cycle did not begin even at the age of 15, her parents took her to a doctor. Medical tests revealed that her internal organ structure was that of a male, Bakshi said.

Farheen was clearly 'androgynous' (i.e., someone with both feminine and masculine sex organs). Bakshi said such cases are not as rare as it is thought to be. "This is evident from the rise in demand for sex-change surgery in society," Bakshi said. He, however, conceded that besides androgynous people, many others sought this surgery to acquire external organs that suited their sexual orientation.

"The internal orientation in Farheen's case was that of a male," Bakshi said. "Hence, we removed her external female organs and shaped new male organs for the patient."

Farheen was given the name Aftab after she turned into a boy. He was withdrawn from the girl's school where he studied early and was enrolled in Shreeji Vidhya Mandir, a co-ed school.

"We celebrate Raksha Bandhan at Shreeji Vidhya Mandir," Aftab said. "This would be the first time I would have someone tying Rakhi around my wrist." The girl who would be tying a rakhi on his hand is Karina Gulbani, who was one of Farheen's closest friends.

"Karina was Farheen's best friend and now she is to become Aftab's sister," Aftab said, elated at the thought that he is now a boy and has a body that matches his inner orientation. "It feels so different. "I could feel that I was a boy as I could never be tamed like my two sisters. My behaviour was always that of a male."

Medical experts say that for sex-change a number of operations have to be performed to make the necessary changes in the body.

The minimum is three surgeries, conducted at an interval of about six-months, a doctor said. He further said that where there is confusion about a person's sexual identity, he (or she) should be examined as early in life as possible. Corrective surgical measures are much less painful to the patients at a younger age than later, the doctor said.