I am a lady trapped in male body; this is what a transsexual woman would say. This is also the reason for the occurrence of transsexualism. In most parts of the world, this topic is highly controversial, probably because it is in conflict with the basics of religious beliefs or cultural and societal customs. From discrimination to harassment to downright violence, transgender people experience these from the public or worst, their own kin.

Sexuality and identity are two different issues. One is born with certain sexuality, either male of female. Identity is one’s gender preference, be it straight, bi or whatnot. This materializes when a person feels separated from his assigned sexuality and what he senses his real gender is. To ‘tweak’ this, medical steps are needed. Here is where sex reassignment (SR) surgery takes place. This procedure will help alter the physical form and operation to match their preferred sexual characteristics or as the American Psychiatric Association says, to relieve gender dysphoria, or their sense of inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex. The SR process does not end in the comforts of the hospital; real life experience (RLE) or real life test is an essential. There are institutions that require initial RLE before undergoing any the surgery. It would start with a social reassignment, followed by hormonal reassignment and lastly, surgical reassignment. This will ensure that the person will gradually adapt to the environment or to the state of being in his/her desired sexuality. But one must remember that this is not just an expensive surgical treatment, same may prove dangerous too. The earliest known receiver of said operation was Lili Elbe in 1930-1931. It began with the elimination of the male sex organ. After four more encounters under the surgical knife, Lili died due to the unsuccessful ovarian transplant.

With this said, there are pros and cons in having SR surgery. In the review authored by Pfafflin and Junge(1992), the two outlined the benefits and the consequences of this operation. The authors focused on the four broad areas namely subjective satisfaction; mental stability; socioeconomic functioning (how they relate to other people such as their relatives, neighbors, officemates and their life partners); and partnership and sexual experience. Subjective satisfaction, this was clearly reflected among most of the studies they reviewed—positive reactions outweighed the negative. The second and the third pointed in the same direction as the subjective though not as consistent. The last benefit shows considerable improvement with the sexual satisfaction obtained by the recipients. Be it male to female or the other way ‘round, both experience better sexual satisfaction as compared to the ones they got before the treatment. However, there are always exceptions. This review made by Pfafflin and Junge hold true among seventy studies they reviewed comprising of over two thousand subjects in thirteen different countries over the span of three decades.

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