In May last year, Laverne Cox, who plays Sophia Burset in the Netflix television series “Orange Is the New Black,” became the first openly transgender person to appear on the cover of Time magazine. Last month, Jeffrey Tambor won an Emmy award for playing a transgender woman in the comedy series “Transparent,” and dedicated his performance to the transgender community.
The media attention is eroding prejudices and helping people to see that “maybe transgendered people aren’t all sex-mad freaks who live on the streets and take drugs,” says Katherine Cummings, who lived as John, a father of three daughters, before transitioning in 1986 at age 51.
“There has been a big change in societal acceptance,” says Cummings, 80, a librarian and information worker at the Gender Centre in Sydney.
Read These Next
Transgender Tourism: For $2,000 a New Life Begins
Meet the Surgeon Sought After by Transgender Men
That’s encouraging more transgender people to come forward for surgery, says Sam Winter, head of the sexology team at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia. Still, he says, not all patients having their genitalia changed necessarily want the operation.
In all but a half-dozen countries worldwide, the sterilizing surgery, which risks causing permanent disfigurement, is a prerequisite for a change of gender to be recorded on birth certificates and other official documents.
“A lot of trans people don’t find it medically necessary to get surgery — it becomes a social necessity,” Winter says. “In that sense, it can be argued to be cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.”
For Israeli teenager Eimy, the 3 1/2-hour procedure she had at the Piyavate Hospital in central Bangkok was the final step in becoming a woman.
“I want to get it over with and go home as soon as possible,” says Eimy, who prefers to go by “Amy — like Amy Winehouse.”
“It wasn’t simple to come here,” she says. “It’s a big deal.”
Leave a Reply