Transsexuals find new body doesn’t ensure happiness
There are no official statistics on the number of transgender people in Vietnam and how many undergo gender reassignment surgery.
But post-operative transsexuals say the painful and expensive medical procedures they endured didn’t give them the normal lives they were expecting.
Several local transgender men have sought sex change operations overseas because the surgery is not performed in Vietnam.
In 2000, singer Cindy Thai Tai, who spent US$30,000 for sex reassignment procedures in Thailand, became one of the first locals to go public about her gender reassignment surgery.
Dr. Nguyen Thanh Nhu of Binh Dan Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City said he wasn’t familiar with any cases of local women undergoing surgery to become men. However, men seeking surgery to become women were relatively common.
Surgically altering a man’s sexual organs to resemble a woman’s was simpler than making a woman’s resemble a man’s, he said.
Dr. Nhu estimated more than 100 Vietnamese transsexual men, most aged around 30, had undergone sex reassignment surgery abroad to become women.
Much pain
Many transsexuals said they had suffered terrible pain after sex reassignment surgery and had been poorly informed about post-operative procedures, including the need to take female hormones for the rest of their lives.
“Most transsexuals in Vietnam have only focused on the surgery and used hormones inconsistently,” Dr. Nhu said. “Their post-operative care was also neglected by doctors.”
Lan Vy, who works for an AIDS awareness charity targeting transsexuals called Bau Troi Xanh (Blue Sky), said she had paid $2,000 for breast implant surgery in Thailand in 2002.
“It was like tearing off parts of your flesh,” she said. “They anaesthetized just a part instead of the whole body as I expected. They locked me on the operating table and covered my eyes before making incisions.”
Vy said she underwent more surgery two years later, which was even more painful, to modify her genitals.
“The surgery lasted for six hours and was horribly painful,” she said.
Transsexual Thai Thanh from HCMC said she had undergone sex reassignment surgery twice at a cost of $5,500.
“I couldn’t feel the pain from any particular part of my body because it was too terrible,” Thanh said.
The language barrier meant she was not properly informed of postoperative procedures, Thanh added.
Little gain
Nguyen Hong Khanh, chairman of Bau Troi Xanh Club, said a recent survey of 300 young homosexuals in HCMC found most of them had suffered discrimination from their family and the public.
Khanh said even after undergoing gender reassignment surgery many transsexuals were unable to live normal lives.
“I can never be a truly normal woman,” said Bau Troi Xanh Club’s Lan Vy said. “I always wish I could marry and enjoy a happy life with a man.
“Some men just like to experience a strange feeling when being with us and then they leave, saying they have to marry a real woman and have children,” she said.
Thirty-five-year-old singer Ai Xuan, who underwent surgery in Thailand in 2004 to become a woman, said the surgery was her last choice after three failed suicide attempts, partly motivated by constant discrimination.
Xuan said her boyfriend had left her recently because, although his family had recognized her as his wife, she couldn’t bear his children.
HCMC hairdresser Tuyet Nhung said her appearance was at odds with her identity papers, which said she was a man. “I am unable to sell my motorcycle or my house,” the 27-yearold said.
Some transsexuals said they had been rejected by their parents, brothers and sisters, who were shocked at their new appearance. Many had resorted to prostitution to pay for their treatment and beauty upkeep.
http://www.thanhniennews.com/features/?catid=10&newsid=44444
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