For the first time in the country, a government hospital in Tamil Nadu will perform sex reconstruction surgery on transgenders this week.
CHENNAI: For the first time in the country, a government hospital in Tamil Nadu will perform sex reconstruction surgery on transgenders this week, marking and to their ordeal at the hands of quacks.
In the first batch, eight transgenders are slated to undergo the surgery at the Government hospital in Vellore district on July five.
The surgeries will be performed free of cost following a government order issued by the Social Welfare Department in April last.
Since sex change was not legal in the country, transgenders had been thronging quacks to remove their genital organs.
Due to unscientific surgical processes followed by quacks, many transgenders had developed complications like urinary infections and allergies.
In one or two cases, people had died too, South India Pitive Network President S Noori told. Tamil Nadu has an estimated population of 60,000 transgenders of whom 50 per cent undergone the sex reconstruction surgery.
They throng to quacks practising in Cuddappa in Andhra Pradesh and Dindigul in Tamil Nadu and shell out between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000 to remove their genitals.
Noori said a majority of transgenders work as commercial sex workers to eke out a living and it was a herculean task for them to pay Rs 10,000 for the surgery.
To cope with the demand of transgenders, the State Government had announced that sex reconstruction surgeries would be performed in all Government hospitals free of cost.
Besides they would undergo medical tests for HIV, the transgenders selected for the surgery on July five would also attend counseling sessions as a preparation to the physical transformation.
Soundarya, a transgender, said," I've always felt like a woman mentally and I am eagerly awaiting to undergo the surgery and physically transform myself into a woman."
"We're grateful to the Tamil Nadu Government for understanding our sorry state of affairs and issuing such a landmark order. We hope other states will also follow suit," she said.
A second batch of transgenders was being screened to undergo the surgery, official sources said.
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