Argentine Undergoes Sex-Change Surgery

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 Portatadino, 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 dysphoria, 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, Portatadino 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 Leclair, executive director of the International Foundation for Gender Education in Waltham, Mass.

Source: Associated Press

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h0LpR0kpGQCfCRgzQTaAR3PHRS7wD8TAUL2O0

Photo: AG Magazine