Gender reassignment surgery is not only a physical burden, but also a financial burden. (image: Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Feb. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — Transgender human rights issues are once again provoking discussion in South Korean society.
The stories of Byun Hee-soo, a former noncommissioned officer who wished to remain in the military but was discharged after undergoing gender reassignment surgery, and a transgender student who eventually gave up her spot in law school due to hateful and critical remarks that came after she was accepted by Sookmyung Women’s University have brought the issue to the forefront once again.
In this regard, an official at an agency that helps transgender individuals with gender reassignment surgery said that even after they undergo sex-change operations, risking their lives, trans individuals in South Korea have to withstand discrimination and usually end up in difficult situations.
The official plays a role in connecting trans South Koreans with Thai hospitals specializing in gender reassignment surgery.
Transgender people in South Korea are undergoing sex-change operations in Thailand, not in Korea, because of the perception that Thailand is the best place in the world to undergo such a procedure.
As gender reassignment surgery is relatively popular in Thailand, doctors there have more experience with this type of procedure and the results are more likely to be satisfactory.
Gender reassignment surgery is not only a physical burden, but also a financial burden.
A surgical procedure arranged through an agency costs about 20 million won (US$16,420), including a plane ticket to Thailand, local accommodations, food and the procedure itself. The whole process takes around three weeks.
Despite this burden, trans individuals are determined to go ahead with the procedure because regaining their sexual identity is the most important thing in their lives.
Byun Hee-soo, a transgender Army staff sergeant, speaks during a press conference in Seoul on Jan. 22, 2020, after a military panel decides to discharge her. (Yonhap)
Many trans individuals suffer from depression and bipolar disorder before undergoing sex change operations, the agency official said.
Transgender people need to receive a psychiatric evaluation such as “Transsexualism F64.0″ from Korean and Thai hospitals in order to undergo a sex change operation in Thailand.
According to the Korean standard classification of disease and cause of death, F64.0 is issued in the case: “If one wants to be of the opposite sex and wants to live as a member of it, finds their anatomical sex inconvenient and inappropriate, and wants surgery or hormone treatment to have a gender consistent with that belief.”
The official said that “although hospitals sometimes give medical reports to people with moderate depression, when classified as serious depression or extreme choice risk group, a diagnosis comes out after treating depression first.”
What awaits trans individuals when they come back from surgery after such a complicated process is discrimination.
In the case of switching from male to female, no matter how much surgery one has had, one cannot do anything about the basic skeletal structure of a man or the size of hands and feet.
“This is why transgender individuals are eager for the government to pass the anti-discrimination law that encompasses comprehensive sex, not ‘female-oriented,’” the official stressed.
D. M. Park (dmpark@koreabizwire.com)
