Saudi Gazette report



JEDDAH — A total of 1,600 sex correction operations were conducted in the Kingdom during the past 35 years, the Arabic daily Al-Watan reported on Sunday quoting a cosmetic surgery consultant.



Dr. Yasser Jamal, who was also the head of the center for sex correction at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, said about 93 percent of the operations were performed during the childhood.



He said the correction operations among adults were 7 percent, adding that the majority of the cases were women wanting to become men.



Jamal said the sex correction operations were allowed under the Shariah but changing the sex based on personal whims was strictly prohibited.



He regretted that there were no awareness programs about sex correction and said Saudi hospitals never carried out any sex change operation, which is not permissible under Islamic law.



Jamal said people desire to change their sex are suffering from a sickness known as "gender hatred" or "loss of sex identity".



"Most of the time, people who go for sex change consider themselves to be victims of a certain curse. They believe that they are locked in the wrong bodies, which are not theirs," he added.



Jamal said about 60 percent of these people commit suicide either before or after the sex change operation.



Speaking about the most bizarre case he had ever seen, he said an 80-year old man came to the his clinic asking to correct the sex of his 70-year-old sister, who is married.



"When I told him if his sister changed her sex, she would have a similar share of inheritance to their father's property, the man disappeared and dissolved into thin air. He abandoned the plan fearing that he would lose part of his inheritance to his sister," he said.



Dr. Hani Al-Ghamdi, a psychiatrist specialized in family and societal issues, said sex correction requires both medical and psychological examinations before the operation was allowed.



"The problem here is that some people who are classified as men by their looks and appearance are psychologically inclined to act and behave like women," he said.



Ghamdi said there are men who behave as women and women who act like men and they do not want to correct their sex because they are happy the way they are. "These people need psychological treatment," he said.