FYI Aryan
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: feel my love <[email protected]> Date: Sun, May 8, 2011 at 3:37 PM Subject: Video Published in 6th May 2011 The Trauma Of Illegal Sex Change Surgery video no. 261 Date: 06-05-2011 Name of the Community Correspondent: Christy Raj Location/ State: Karnataka Issue: Gender http://indiaunheard.videovolunteers.org/christy/the-trauma-of-illegal-sex-change-surgery/ All over India, sex change surgery remains a grueling experience because it is done secretly and unprofessionally. Castration is illegal in India, and Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) is legally ambiguous. Therefore, those who wish to undergo a sex change operation have to go to private clinics, and suffer physical and mental trauma. The cost of the operation is very high there (around 45 lakhs). Christy Raj, our Community Correspondent in Bangalore, is intimately acquainted with the sufferings and difficulties attached to SRS. Numerous friends of his have been through it, and he himself hopes to be able to undergo the operation one day, however hazardous it is. The transgender community is still discriminated against massively in India, and there is total ignorance amongst the public of their needs. Thus, Christy Raj felt committed to do a video on SRS, one of the most critical aspects of a transgender’s experience, to make the public aware of what members of his community go through. A proper SRS not only consists of a surgical operation. It also includes counseling, before and after the operation, hormonal treatment to enhance the physical changes, and a medical follow-up, to prevent the risks attached to the surgical intervention. But when the intervention is carried out in private clinics, transgender patients hardly receive any of these, and are left vulnerable to various infections, medical complications, and post-intervention psychological distress. To improve his community’s situation, Christy Raj is engaged in Sangama, an NGO that provides support for the counselling process. He also belongs to an activist network that lobbies the government to susbsidise the surgery, as is the case in Tamil Nadu. He has numerous friends who have undergone SRS and now lead happy lives, utlimately at peace with their gender identity. He hopes that his video will help improve the situation of the transgender community, and eventually grant them the right to fully choose their sexual identity. Editor: Manish Kumar -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lgbtdiscuss" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lgbtdiscuss?hl=en-GB.
