Petros becomes Patricia

Source: Times of Swaziland

MANZINI – A Swazi male teacher has become a woman after undergoing a sex change procedure.

Her name used to be Petros but she is now known as Patricia.

She is even dating a man.

She decided that she no longer wanted to be a man after discovering that she was trapped in a man’s body.

Patricia said she underwent a sex conversion procedure. She said her male reproductive organs were removed and replaced with female ones.

She said she had no option but to change into a woman to lead a peaceful life.

“I am now at peace with myself,” she said.

Patricia said she was enjoying life as a woman.

She now prefers to be called a woman. She said her partner had accepted her condition without judging her.

“I have a man in my life,” she said.

Patricia said the relationship was so strong that they could be getting married soon.

She revealed, however, that she had not yet met her in-laws but looked forward to meeting them soon.

She is currently working at a private college where she imparts her skills as a teacher to students engaged in taking business courses.

Her students know her as Patricia and are not aware that she used to be a man.

When she was visited this week, she was found busy lecturing in class, taking students through their paces.

When she came out of the class, she referred to this reporter as ‘Aunty’ and greeted him with a perfect woman’s voice.

She quickly registered her reluctance of talking about her past.

She was wearing a red long femine jersey and a multi flowered skirt.

“I have been through a lot and I am now living a peaceful life. I do not want to talk about the past,” she said.

Revealed

She revealed that she endured a lot of pain after having the sex change as people made fun of her.

She said people could not accept that she was now a woman and always poked fun at her.

She said she somehow survived and people had begun to accept her as a woman.

She is happy that only a few who knew her from childhood still refer to her as Petros.

Speaking about her decision to undergo the sex change procedure, she said it was a hard one.

Implications

“I had to be strong because of the societal implications of it,” she said.

She said the procedure was very expensive.

After the successful operation, Patricia said, her story was featured in a South African magazine, which she declined to name.

She said after she had appeared in the magazine and attended other activities organised by the gays and lesbian community, she experienced a lot of bashing from people who teased her.

Friends remember ‘good old Petros’

MBABANE – The woman who now calls herself Patricia was known as Petros at the popular high school she went to in the Shiselweni region.

Friends say Petros was a staunch christian who attended services at Nhlangano Assemblies of God.

He stayed within the Nhlangano urban area with a relative who knew him to be a young man.

“His favourite subjects were Home Economics and Fashion and Design. He was a soloist and sang like a woman,” said one of her former colleagues.

“Knowing him to be a man singing like a woman amused his schoolmates.

“The school administration decided to ban him from singing during the school assembly on Fridays because pupils did not listen to the music but laughed at him uncontrollably. Teachers also laughed their lungs out when he sang.”

At one stage, the principal suspended classes to trace the whereabouts of Petros who had mysteriously disappeared from school.

Rumours circulated around the school that he had gone to a bush to commit suicide. One of his classmates told the school administration that he felt ending his life was better than the ridicule he was subjected by his schoolmates. Petros’s suicide threat was taken seriously as it was made at a time when the school was mourning the death of one Thulani, who had also committed suicide. Pupils combed the bushes from 1pm till 4pm to look for Petros.

The bushes near the compound where he was staying were all thoroughly searched. His flat was locked.

When it was opened, there was no one inside. It was thoroughly searched and Petros was nowhere to be seen.

At 4pm, another team of pupils visited his flat and found him sitting on his bed, eating sour milk.

“He laughed at the pupils and bragged that he was happy to see the whole school abandoning classes to look for him,” said the former colleague.

About the sex change procedure:

* It is known as sex change or gender reassignment surgery; a procedure that changes genital organs from one gender to another. There are two main reasons to alter the genital organs from one sex to another.

* Newborns with intersex deformities must early on be assigned to one sex or the other. These deformities represent intermediate stages between the primordial female genitals and the change into male genitals caused by male hormone stimulation.

* Both men and women occasionally believe they are physically a different sex than they are mentally and emotionally.

This dissonance is so profound that they are willing to be surgically altered. In both cases, technical considerations favour successful conversion to a female rather than a male.

* Newborns with ambiguous organs will almost always be assigned to the female gender unless the penis is at least an inch long.

Whatever their chromosomes, they are much more likely to be socially well adjusted as females, even if they cannot have children.

* Converting male to female anatomy requires removal of the penis, reshaping genital tissue to appear more female, and constructing the female private parts. These parts can be successfully formed from a skin graft or an isolated loop of intestine.

* Following the surgery, female hormones (estrogen) will reshape the body’s contours and stimulate the growth of satisfactory breasts.

* Sex change surgery is expensive.

Overseas, the cost for male to female reassignment is the equivalent of about E40 000 to E160 000.

The cost of female to male reassignment can exceed the equivalent of E350 000.

Figures for undergoing the procedure in South Africa were not immediately available.