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Costly Trans-Action - high cost of sex-change operations - includes related article on gender-reassignment surgeon Stanley Biber
Advocate, The, May 25, 1999 by Todd Savage, Lisa Neff
In the end, people in transition say the sacrifice and the savings are well worth it. "This is something you have to do on your own," Teixeira says. "You just have to hang in there. I'm definitely going to get it done--there's nothing that's going to stop me."
RELATED ARTICLE: HOW IT'S DONE
Sex-reassignment surgery can include a series of many difficult and expensive procedures. While being a transsexual does not require that all (or any) of these surgeries be performed, the following reassignment surgery procedures are options for transsexuals:
MALE-TO-FEMALE
VAGINOPLASTY: Involves removing the testicles and the inside of the penis and then inverting the penis skin to create a vagina.
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ADAM'S APPLE SHAVING: Surgery done under local anesthesia to decrease the size of the Adam's apple.
VOICE SURGERY: Procedure that scars the vocal chords to modify the voice's pitch.
BREAST AUGMENTATION: Saline-filled implants are inserted under the existing breasts.
FEMALE-TO-MALE
BILATERAL MASTECTOMY: The removal of breast tissue and reduction of nipple size to form a male chest.
PHALLOPLASTY: Construction of a penis using skin, nerves, veins, and arteries from other parts of the patient's body. The labia may be used to construct the scrotum. Clitoral nerves are usually preserved and may eventually grow into the new penis. Testicular implants and implants to obtain an erection can be inserted in subsequent procedures. Urethral extension is also possible.
METAIDIOPLASTY: An individual whose clitoris responds sufficiently to testosterone may have the clitoris released from its hood and the shaft "finished" along the bottom side, completing the foreskin. The resulting small penis is also raised about one centimeter forward on the body. The labia are also raised and fused in the center to form the scrotum through use of testicular implants. This procedure retains natural erectile capacity. The patient can elect to have the vaginal cavity closed and/or the urethra extended through the penis.
HYSTERECTOMY/OOPHORECTOMY: The removal of female reproductive organs and gonads.
--Jon Barrett
RELATED ARTICLE: DR. COMPASSION
ONE SURGEON'S WORK HAS MADE RESIDENTS OF A SMALL COLORADO TOWN EXPERTS ON TRANSSEXUALISM BY LISA NEFF
Each week two or three people take the "road to Trinidad" to meet the doctor of their dreams--Stanley Biber.
Biber is one of the world's leading gender-reassignment surgeons. His pioneering practice has drawn more than 4,000 people to the town of Trinidad, Colo., to undergo gender-reassignment surgery over the past 30 years.
Biber performed his first reassignment surgery in 1969 after a social worker, who brought her children to his office for checkups, asked, "Can you de my surgery?" Says Biber: "I said, `Sure, what do you want done?' She said, `I'm a transsexual.' I said, `What is that?'"
Biber quickly learned the definition of transsexual and, guided by drawings supplied by a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, performed his first reassignment surgery--a penile-scrotal flap, or inversion of the organs.
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