Thai hospital offers free sex change to competition winners

Feb 24, 2011, 5:53 GMT

Bangkok - A Bangkok hospital is to provide free surgery to five men who won a contest for sex-change operations, the Trans-Female Association of Thailand said Thursday.

The association's annual contest 'is to help trans-genders who cannot afford a sex operation,' the head of the association Yonlada Suanyod told a press conference.

This year's event attracted 100 applicants, out of whom five winners were selected according to three criteria - they had felt like trans-genders since birth, they could not afford the operation themselves, and they had 'interesting' life stories.

Bangkok's Yanhee Hospital, which specializes in plastic surgery, said it would perform the operations free of charge.

'I face a lot of contempt and discrimination now, but after the operation society will need to accept me as a complete woman,' said Jaras Phaphan, a 21-year-old college student who was one of the five winners.

Jaras, from Phetchabun province, claimed he had felt like a 'woman trapped inside a man's body' all his life.

'I am going to get rid of something totally unnecessary that I've wanted to be without for a long time,' he said of his pending operation.

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