Argentine Undergoes
Sex-Change Surgery
AP from the Web,
December 5, 2007
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Dec.
4, A 17-year-old Argentine has undergone surgery to become a female only months
after winning a court battle in the first case of its kind involving a minor in
this country, a representative for the teen said Tuesday.
A judge in 2004 ruled the teen had to wait until age 21 for the operation, but
the parents appealed successfully, swaying a court panel to issue a decision in
September authorizing surgery as a minor.
The teenager was operated on at a private clinic in La Plata, near the Argentine
capital. Courts have withheld the teen's name because she is still a minor
and local media have not published the identity.
"Everything went perfectly," said Alejandra Victoria Protestation, who
represented the teenager in court and is also legal counsel for the Argentine
Homosexual Community. "Now we just need to ask to get her legal
identification changed to reflect her name as a woman."
The teenager has a condition called gender dysphasia, doctors and experts ruled,
saying she was born with a man's body but is psychologically a woman.
In order to undergo surgery to acquire female genitalia, Protestation said an
exemption was necessary from Argentine law prohibiting "mutilation."
In the United States, no court permission is necessary but most doctors are
hesitant to operate on minors, said Denise Éclair, executive director of the
International Foundation for Gender Education in Waltham, Mass.
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