Restrictions against sex change operations in Denmark are so harsh that a lot of trans-sexuals give up the wait and go abroad instead and many trans-sexual Danes go to Thailand to have the sex change operation.
The Union of Trans-Sexuals in Denmark (Patientforeningen for Transeksuelle) reckons that roughly twenty Danes a year are operated on abroad. Most got to Thailand where the only thing needed to perform the operation is a recommendation from the patient’s own doctor.
“Some give up and even take their own lives. The rest go to Thailand or elsewhere where it is easier to be operated on,” says the chairman of the trans-sexuals’ union, Sophie Frederikke Schröder, who herself had a sex change operation in Bangkok last year.
Based on assessments
Danish trans-sexuals have long demanded a change in legislation to make it easier to get an operation in Denmark. To qualify for a sex change operation in Denmark today you must first apply to the National Board of Health (Syndhedsstyrelsen) which then asks for an assessment from the sexological clinic at Rigshospitalet, the largest hospital in Denmark.
Based on interviews with the patient, the clinic will then make an assessment as to whether or not it thinks the patient’s wish can be fulfilled under a government scalpel.
The assessment is sent to the National Medical Council (Lægerådet), which also reviews the case and in turn sends it back to the National Board of Health where the final decision rests. If the answer is no, there is no way to appeal that decision.
Ellids Kristensen, consultant at the Sexological Clinic, estimates that five to ten sex change operations are undertaken in Denmark every year and does not think that that number is too small.
But one of the best known plastic surgeons in Thailand, Doctor Preecha Tiewtranon, does not agree and suggests that the need is far greater than the current number of operations currently performed in Western countries suggests.
“The transsexuals come to me because they are rejected at home. It is horrible for a person (to be thus rejected) who has had the desire to change sex since childhood,” the doctor who has operated on several Danes, says.
Brought to a political level
The organised voice of the trans-sexuals is now being heard in Denmark and a Member of Parliament, Birthe Skaarup of the Danish Peoples’ Party (DF), is to bring the matter to the attention of the health minister.
Among other things, she wants to discuss whether or not the monopoly on any decision held by Rigshospital should be removed, thus allowing private-practice sexologists to be a part of the assessment process when a potential sex change candidate’s case is under evaluation.
