Paul Kirk Transvestites are almost always men and very often hetero- sexual. They enjoy dressing as women either some of the time or permanently. They may dress up in full female regalia in public or in private. They might also be quite satisfied by wearing a single item of female underwear beneath normal male clothing. Transexuals, on the other hand, are people – either male or female – who are not satisfied with the gender they are born with. They may or may not dress as the opposite sex but are unhappy with their sex organs and may often mutilate
themselves.
Transexuals frequently suffer from severe anxiety and depression.
A trawl through the Internet reveals a number of hospitals that offer gender reassignment surgery. The operation is not called a sex-change in medical parlance as it cannot completely alter the sex of the patient. A male-to-female
operation will give the patient female organs, but not the ability to have babies or breast-feed. A female-to-male operation will not allow the patient to father a child. Gender reassignment surgery usually requires the approval of at least three psychiatrists. Potential patients are also usually expected to have been under counselling for at least two years. A number of institutions also expect patients to have lived as a woman for a period of time. The maximum period of time a national serviceman could have been in Aubrey Levine’s care was considerably less than two years – not enough time to even have the necessary
counselling.
Expensive lifelong hormone treatments are also needed. These were simply not provided in most cases. Sex-change
operations cannot be reversed. If the operations fail the patients are left permanently damaged and asexual.
In a male-to-female operation the testicles are removed and the penis “degloved”. In other words, the outer skin is left together with the urethra or urine tract and the innards removed. This skin is then turned inside out and used to line the walls of the female organ that is created by making a hole in the groin. A female-to-male operation is considerably more complicated and involves the crafting of an artificial penis. This operation calls for skin to be removed from the body, formed into a penis and grafted on to the body to grow. This leads to the bizarre situation where a sex-change patient must live for some months with a penis attached to their body in an odd place – usually the shoulder. Recovery from both operations is extremely slow and painful. Patients are typically not able to work for at least three months. Male patients must also undergo breast augmentation. In male-to-female operations electrolysis is often needed to remove excess body hair. The operations are extremely dangerous and patients run a great risk of developing infections. The sex-change
programme at one provincial operation was halted after a number of patients died from complications. The army sex-change operations in South Africa were paid for by the state. In civilian life, such operations cost more than R100E000 and are not performed at state hospitals.