Sex Reassignment Therapy - Sex Reassignment Surgery

Sex Reassignment Surgery

Sex reassignment surgery (SRS) refers to the surgical and medical procedures undertaken to align intersex and transsexual individuals' physical appearance and genital anatomy with their gender identity. SRS may encompass any surgical procedures which will reshape a male body into a body with a female appearance or vice versa, or more specifically refer to the procedures used to make male genitals into female genitals and vice versa.

Sex reassignment surgery is the most common term for what may be more accurately described as "genital reassignment surgery" or "genital reconstruction surgery." Other proposed terms for SRS include "gender confirmation surgery," "gender realignment surgery," and "transsexual surgery." The aforementioned terms may also specifically refer to genital surgeries like vaginoplasty and phalloplasty, even though more specific terms exist to refer exclusively to genital surgery, the most common of which is genital reassignment surgery (GRS). Another recently coined term in the medical community is Genital Correction Surgery (GCS), which emphasizes that the sex reassignment surgery is merely correcting the genitals to match the inner sense of an individual's gender.

SRS tends to be expensive and is not always covered by public or private health insurance. In many areas with comprehensive nationalized health care, such as some Canadian provinces and most European countries, SRS is covered under these plans. However, requirements for obtaining SRS and other transsexual services under these plans are sometimes more stringent than the requirements laid out in the WPATH Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People, and in Europe, many local Standards of Care exist. In other countries, such as the United States, no national health plan exists and the majority of private insurance companies do not cover SRS. The government of Iran, however, pays for such surgery because it is believed to be valid under Shi'ite Belief.

There are significant medical risks associated with SRS that should be considered before undergoing the surgery.

Prior to surgery, transsexual men and women are often referred to as pre-operative (pre-op); those who have already had the surgery may be referred to as post-operative (post-op) or simply identified as members of the sex to which they have transitioned. Not all transsexual people undergo sexual reassignment surgery (either because of the high cost of such surgery, medical reasons, or other reasons), although they live constantly in their preferred gender role; these people are often called non-operative (non-op).

A more modern idea suggests that the focus on surgery status is misplaced, and therefore, an increasing number of people are refusing to define themselves in terms of operative status, often defining themselves based on their social presentation instead. Many transsexual people believe that SRS is only a small part of a complete transition.

A 1998 clinical review found that MTF sex reassignment surgery had positive effects on psychiatric morbidity, and that surgery may have reduced healthcare costs; However, the authors noted evidence was limited because few controlled clinical trials existed.